Room Block Myths Busted

If you’re planning a destination wedding, then you’ve probably heard about securing a “room block.” But, what else have you heard about it and what is or isn’t true? Your Destination Wedding Experts are here to bust the myths and help make this easy to understand!

Myth 1: You’ll end up paying for rooms your guests don’t book

This is one of the biggest myths I always have to bust for my brides! The hotel is going to give you a deadline for when you can release any unused inventory without any penalty. If you block 50 rooms and your guests only book 40, you just tell the hotel you don’t need the last 10 and you don’t have to pay for them. In fact, if you’re a Barefoot Bride, we do it automatically for you so you don’t have to stress remembering the deadline at all.

Myth 2: You lose your room block deposit

Nope! That’s your money and gets applied to your reservation. If your deposit is more than your reservation, you’ll be refunded the difference. Make sure your Destination Wedding Specialist applies your room block deposit on the invoice for your own personal reservation.

Myth 3: The resort chooses the rooms for you

This only applies if the resort does not have the inventory you requested. Barefoot Bridal Specialists will design a room block personalized for your group based on your wedding date, guest count, and our 10 years’ experience with room blocks. But if you want to make changes to the block before we submit it, just let us know what changes you’d like to make.

Myth 4: The deposit is really expensive

Most of the time, the deposit is $100 per room. If you have 100 anticipated guests, you should block 50 rooms and then the deposit is $5,000. Depending on the hotel and size of your group, the deposit can be as much as 10% or 15% of the total cost of the room block, but that’s pretty rare. Plus, with Barefoot Bridal’s Exclusive $500 Deposit Promo, the deposit couldn’t be more affordable!

Myth 5: You can’t price match with room blocks

You will sign a contract with the hotel and they’ll guarantee the price for you and the inventory. But if the hotel drops the price online, we can ask for a price match for you. And we’ve always gotten some sort of rate reduction in those instances, usually matched to the screenshots we sent to the hotel.

Myth 6: Your guests will save more money booking a package or on Expedia

It’s very rare that the room block isn’t the best price, especially if you secured it far in advance. With the room block price, booking the flight when you and your guests see a good deal gives you the optimal pricing. Plus, Expedia/Cheap Caribbean and other third party booking engines cannot guarantee the room you chose. We have a contract with the hotel that guarantees the room you booked or something better. And they cannot bump you or your guests in the event of an oversell, which happens more than you think! It happened to 2 of my guests at my wedding who didn’t book in the block!

Myth 7: You can’t do payment plans with room blocks

This couldn’t be further from the truth. Your guests will be able to place a $100/room deposit to secure their reservation and then sign up for auto draft, make payments at their leisure, or just wait for the payment due dates and let us process their payments with their cards on file.

Myth 8: Your guests can’t cancel with room blocks

Not only can your guests cancel their rooms, but they can also get a refund of their deposit, as long as they do so prior to any deadlines set by the hotel. If they’re concerned about cancelling after the deadline, they can always purchase travel insurance to protect their reservations.

Myth 9: Room Blocks aren’t flexible

They’re way more flexible than individual reservations! With individual reservations, whenever your guest wants to make a change, the booking has to be priced anew based on the current rates at the time of the change, which could be a lot more expensive than the rates when they initially booked. We can also usually swap out room categories or shift travel dates around without any issues.

Myth 10: Room Blocks are just too complicated

If you’ve never done a room block before, it can seem overwhelming, but that’s what we’re here for! This is what we do, day in, day out. And we’re here to help un-complicate the process for you. We’ll make sure the process is as simple and stress-free as possible!