Re: Room block is now filled
On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 2:52 PM, Paul W. Frields <stickster(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi all,
I received word from Marriott that our room block is not only filled
ahead of schedule, but they extended us a few extra rooms at our
discount rate as a courtesy. However, at this point, they can't
provide any additional rooms at the $99 rate. They are willing to
extend a $169 rate, which is discounted from the $229 that I see as a
general offer on their site. (Wow, we made out like bandits.)
We have a couple options to proceed:
* A planning team member could locate a nearby hotel that can provide
a more comparable rate to our original $99 rate, preferably without
a guarantee attached, and with a later deadline, such as Dec. 15 or
Jan. 2, and set up a contract for Red Hat to execute for that block
(which I would sign for Red Hat).
PROS/CONS:
+ Encourages more community travel by people who are on their own dime
+ Extended deadline
+ No potential loss of funds to pay for guaranteed but unfilled
rooms
o Requires additional, rapid work by non-Paul person
- Splits up the community into multiple places, incl. logistics
hassles and $$ for multiple hospitality/hacksuites
* We could engage with Marriott to get more rooms at the higher rate,
a sort of "step up" for people who weren't early enough to get the
early bird rate. I would be willing to handle this, since I already
have points of contact with Marriott and it doesn't seem like it
will take much work. I would also contact my original sales handler
to see if I could work them down to something like $149, and I would
eschew any further guarantee.
PROS/CONS:
+ Extended deadline
+ No potential loss of funds to pay for guaranteed but unfilled
rooms
+ Keeps community together in one place for hacking and socializing
o Slightly better cost than leaving people to book for themselves;
for a 4-night stay, ~$680+tax vs. $800+tax for booking on your own
- Significantly more expensive than our original rate (~$400+tax for
4 nights)
One more note -- the Courtyard folks got back to me and they extended
our deadline to COB Sunday November 7 (that's tomorrow). According to
their count, we've filled 47 rooms (compared to our contracted 30).
They will set aside 5 additional rooms through tomorrow but after that
the lowest rate they can offer is $169. (They do know about our offer
from the Four Points for a $99 rate -- they're going to step aside
anyway.)
Robyn, you should proceed with any work you're doing with the Four
Points. As long as no guarantee or security deposit is required, you
can go ahead and act as the room contact for that hotel if desired. If
there's any money that needs to change hands, of course I don't want
that to fall on you -- in which case, Jared or I can sign something.
My hope is that we won't need to make too much use of an overflow
hotel, because I would hate for people to end up separated from the
group. Hopefully most everyone who's coming has booked their rooms
already, I'll tweet something to remind folks one more time.
Paul