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 $$ for multiple hospitality/hacksuites
* We could engage with Marriott to get more rooms at the higher rate, a sort of "step up" for people who weren't early enough to get the early bird rate. I would be willing to handle this, since I already have points of contact with Marriott and it doesn't seem like it will take much work. I would also contact my original sales handler to see if I could work them down to something like $149, and I would eschew any further guarantee.
PROS/CONS: + Extended deadline + No potential loss of funds to pay for guaranteed but unfilled rooms + Keeps community together in one place for hacking and socializing o Slightly better cost than leaving people to book for themselves; for a 4-night stay, ~$680+tax vs. $800+tax for booking on your own - Significantly more expensive than our original rate (~$400+tax for 4 nights)
On Thu, Nov 4, 2010 at 2:52 PM, Paul W. Frields stickster@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I received word from Marriott that our room block is not only filled ahead of schedule, but they extended us a few extra rooms at our discount rate as a courtesy. However, at this point, they can't provide any additional rooms at the $99 rate. They are willing to extend a $169 rate, which is discounted from the $229 that I see as a general offer on their site. (Wow, we made out like bandits.)
We have a couple options to proceed:
- A planning team member could locate a nearby hotel that can provide
a more comparable rate to our original $99 rate, preferably without a guarantee attached, and with a later deadline, such as Dec. 15 or Jan. 2, and set up a contract for Red Hat to execute for that block (which I would sign for Red Hat).
PROS/CONS: + Encourages more community travel by people who are on their own dime + Extended deadline + No potential loss of funds to pay for guaranteed but unfilled rooms o Requires additional, rapid work by non-Paul person - Splits up the community into multiple places, incl. logistics hassles and $$ 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
fudcon-planning@lists.fedoraproject.org
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Paul W. Frields