Team Motto In Action

Last year my mom and I attended my professional group's national meeting in Baltimore. We stayed at one of the conference hotels for which my company would reimburse me. We wanted to stay an extra day though, and we were unwilling to pay that rate ourselves. Thus, we booked this night at a property farther out of town to save money. Out of curiosity, the night before we checked out we asked at the front desk what they would charge for us to stay an extra night. We were quoted a rate of about half what they charged the other nights. Obviously, we spent the extra night at the conference hotel.

This year the group is meeting in Chicago. I decided to try this strategy again. I booked at the conference headquarter hotel for the nights for which my company will reimburse me. The rate is $245/night (yes, that's a discount rate). I then made a "safety" reservation at another hotel for the extra nights we are staying. I called the hotel directly Sunday to see if they would give us a break on the days after the conference is over. The lady from reservations was very nice and said that while there was a rate of $166/night listed for my group those days, it was unavailable. I told her thank you and ended the call.

Next, I did web search for "hotel name sales" for this property. I make lodging arrangements for my company's visitors, and this has taught me some things. First, just because the computer says it's unavailable doesn't mean it can't be made available. Second, a guest extending a stay is much easier money than having to find a completely different guest to fill that room. Finally, the sales team is where to go. They have more power than you'll typically find in the people answering the normal reservations phone.

I ended up finding the blog for hotel. It had the social media manager's e-mail address (who knew hotels had people with this title?) I sent her a very nice message stating that we were already staying 3 nights, we'd love to stay 3 more, could she help with getting the reduced rate that I was told was unavailable. She wrote me back after I'd left work yesterday stating that someone from reservations would be contacting me.

When I got to work this morning, I had a voicemail from someone in reservations. I called him, briefly reviewing the situation. He said "I can extend your stay at the group rate". I stated "No, I want a reduced rate". He (not so nicely) replied "I can't do that. We're selling these rooms for $300 a night". I  said thank you and that we would stay elsewhere.

Around an hour later, I got an e-mail from a different person in reservations. I'm pretty sure she was the manager. She said she had already extended my stay for 3 nights at the rate of $166. I just needed to e-mail her back to confirm I still wanted this. Of course, I e-mailed her right back and expressed my great appreciation for all her help! I called her later to give her my credit card info and again said how happy I was. She was extremely nice, and she didn't seem like it was any big deal to give me this rate. I also expressed my thanks to the social media manager for her assistance. I'm going to take them each a thank you note and some chocolate when I go.

The rate we ended up getting is what we would have paid to have stayed in the "safety" hotel. Where we are staying is a much higher prestige property, and we are saved the trouble of having to pack up all our stuff, check out, walk to the L, take the train, walk to the next hotel and check in there. This is a classic example of our team motto in action. I spent less than an hour doing all this, and it was very worth it.