A hotel rebate is money a hotel pays an event organizer for rooms booked inside the organizer's block. It is one of the oldest ways organizers earn on lodging, and one of the most misunderstood, because the rebate and the risk arrive in the same contract.
How a rebate works
- It is usually a fixed dollar amount per room night, sometimes a percentage of room revenue.
- It applies only to rooms picked up inside your block, at your block rate.
- It is typically built into the rate: the hotel quotes a higher block rate and returns part of it to you.
- It is paid after the event, once the hotel reconciles pickup against its own records.
The clause next to it
A rebate-bearing block almost always carries an attrition clause: a promise that a set share of the rooms will be booked. Miss it and the hotel bills you for the shortfall. That is why rebates and stay-to-play policies travel together — the organizer needs pickup inside the block to earn the rebate and to avoid the penalty, and attendees who book the same hotel on a booking site count for neither.
Questions to ask before you sign
- Is the rebate built into the block rate, and how does that rate compare to what attendees could find on their own?
- Is pickup measured across the whole block or night by night?
- Will the hotel credit rooms booked by your attendees outside the block if you can document them?
- When is the rebate paid, and what happens to it if attrition damages are owed?
The alternative
A revenue share on bookings made through your own confirmation page pays on any property — hotel, rental or house — without a block, a clause or a higher rate for your attendees. With Bookend that share is around 6–8% of each booking. Many organizers keep a small block for those who want it and let the revenue share cover everyone else.