A.k.a. Why I'm Still Mad at Marriott

Figuring out who all will be coming is an intrinsic part of making a deal with a hotel. At the same time, it's hard to see who is coming until you can pick out a weekend and a room block rate with the hotel - so it can be a bit of a Catch 22.

I am not a professional event planner. I bummed some help off of one that I know in exchange for dinner a night or two, but she doesn't know our group, so she could only really give more generalized help.

But you've got:
* People who will definitely come
* People who are coming, but staying elsewhere for whatever reason
* People who are coming, but something comes up that prohibits them from showing
* People who are coming, but just never...sign...up...for a room...or say anything...
* People who are coming, but don't tell you.
Etcetera, etcetera.

What I did was call a few hotels first, after we'd nailed down a weekend within our group. It ends up that the timeframe in question is a big one for school trips to DC; that caused a few issues. It came down to two hotels - one, a Holiday Inn in Ballston, which I felt was the superior location, and the other a Courtyard Marriott that primarily caters to businesspeople just outside the Beltway, but right next to a Metro station and with much better rates. I took the latter.

I should've had an inherent advantage in these discussions - my brother, with whom I live, is a lawyer (criminal defense and civil law, mostly). Another one of my good friends is a contract attorney. Plus, as I mentioned, I had an event planner who was helping me "on the side".

But I screwed it up.

I took a count of everyone who said "yes" or "maybe" to come to the 'fest. I took 75% of the yes-s, and 25% of the maybe-s. I then talked to the hotel about getting a block of rooms. This was the same hotel that my friend Roy had used for his wedding guests, and it'd been a simple ten room block.

Well - we were looking at around 20 rooms. That's the magic number, it seems - it went from "sure, we can set that up for you" that he'd gotten to a forest of contracts and demands for me.

What got me were two things.
1. I was told things on the phone and they were different in the contracts. I felt I could handle this on my own, and did so - I ended up paying for it down the road. That was my own stupidity.

For instance, I was told "Yes, you can lower the number of rooms you have in your block if you're not going to use them." What they put into the contract was "But you still have to PAY for them if no one rents them."

I was told "The meeting room will be $250", and when I asked about other charges they said "Just tax" - especially as I didn't want any kind of set up or anything in there. Then, in the contract, they put in a 22% service charge - and never mentioned it, verbally, until after it was too late to cancel the meeting room.

2. They pressured me into signing "right away". I would typically get the documents by mid-afternoon and would be told I had to have them signed and returned by Close Of Business (COB) that day, or the deal would be null and void. That prevented me from showing them to my brother and pressured and intimidated me into reading them quickly to get them back, helping to lead to what was caused above.

Honestly, I was caught off guard by all of this; I hadn't expected a company with a corporate image such as Marriott's to be so slimy and underhanded. But they were, and when I pitched a fit about the service charge they had me take it off the contract.

Guess what? They charged it to me ANYWAYS.

But, at this point, we had the guest rooms, and we had a meeting room for a first day "meet & greet" situation. Now it was just time to wait...and wait...and wait for people to sign up.

Next up: the waiting game.