Hotel rooms for our wedding cheaper on booking.com vs direct book with hotel 24 November 2021 at 10:42AM in Weddings & anniversaries 8 replies 344 views

roogieman

Hello, my fiancé and I are due to get married in September next year. We've found the UK hotel we want to do it in and have asked the hotel for their room rate for special events. We have asked to block out 50 rooms for our guests (the hotel has around 200 rooms). 

The per night room rate offered directly by the hotel is £340 per room, per night. We would be looking to stay for 3 nights. 

We have found the same rooms in the same hotel at booking.com for around £500 per room total for 3 nights.

We asked the hotel if they can offer a better room rate as we know we can book it for less money via booking.com. They said it is the absolute best they can do.

So we have gone ahead and booked 49 rooms through booking.com at the substantially cheaper rate, where we just need to pay when we check out and have free cancellation until two days before we are due to check in.

Should we go to the hotel and tell them what we've done? Our rooms through booking.com have been confirmed. We'd rather deal directly with the hotel. Or should we keep it quiet and carry on as normal.

Any advice greatly appreciated!  

emmajones1976

Does the wedding contract say you HAVE to book rooms through them?

comeandgo

Did you book the original rooms with the hotel?  Will they allow cancellation at no cost?

roogieman

emmajones1976 said:

Does the wedding contract say you HAVE to book rooms through them?

No it doesn't say anything like that. The contract is really just an outline of the costs and when we must pay them by. 

roogieman

comeandgo said:

Did you book the original rooms with the hotel?  Will they allow cancellation at no cost?

No we have yet to confirm the rooms with the hotel as we were trying to negotiate with them on the costs. 

emmajones1976

roogieman said:

emmajones1976 said:

Does the wedding contract say you HAVE to book rooms through them?

No it doesn't say anything like that. The contract is really just an outline of the costs and when we must pay them by. 

In which case then crack on with the cheaper rooms.

L'il_sis

Stick with the cheaper rate! We discovered a similar situation when we attended my nephew’s wedding. The hotel is cutting off it’s nose to spite it’s face! They already make massive amounts on weddings!

Grumpy_chap

roogieman said:

Hello, my fiancé and I are due to get married in September next year. We've found the UK hotel we want to do it in and have asked the hotel for their room rate for special events. We have asked to block out 50 rooms for our guests (the hotel has around 200 rooms). 

The per night room rate offered directly by the hotel is £340 per room, per night. We would be looking to stay for 3 nights. 

We have found the same rooms in the same hotel at booking.com for around £500 per room total for 3 nights.

We asked the hotel if they can offer a better room rate as we know we can book it for less money via booking.com. They said it is the absolute best they can do.

So we have gone ahead and booked 49 rooms through booking.com at the substantially cheaper rate, where we just need to pay when we check out and have free cancellation until two days before we are due to check in.

Should we go to the hotel and tell them what we've done? Our rooms through booking.com have been confirmed. We'd rather deal directly with the hotel. Or should we keep it quiet and carry on as normal.

Any advice greatly appreciated!  

I don't think this is unusual.

My Niece got married last summer and the hotel supposedly offered a "special" rate for Wedding Guests.  We still found cheaper rates online on the hotel's own website, called them up to clarify the "special" rate and they simply agreed that the direct rate was cheaper than the "special" rate.

It is actually not that surprising as pricing for hotel rooms is dynamic based upon availability.  We booked early, so lots of availability meaning a cheap rate online via the auto-bot.  Had we booked later, the online rate would likely have been higher but the "special" Wedding rate unchanged.

I suspect if you went back into the online booking platform, with your booking already in for 25% of the hotel, the rate will be higher, especially booked 9 months in advance.  At £340 per room, this had better be a fantastic room and service.

Best wishes for an enjoyable Wedding and a long and blissful Marriage

Thrugelmir

Are the rooms in a different part of the Hotel and not grouped together?