Hotel bids are formatted to lead with the rate, and organizers oblige by comparing rates. Read in the opposite order: the provisions that can cost you money live below the rate, and two bids ten dollars apart can be thousands apart in risk.
The reading order
- Attrition: threshold, basis (full rate or lost profit), and measurement window (cumulative or per night). This is the bid's real price.
- Cutoff date and what happens at it — and whether resold rooms are credited against damages.
- Reduction rights: can you shrink the block on a schedule, and does the threshold recalculate?
- Cancellation schedule and its step-up dates.
- Fees hiding in the margins: resort fees, parking, comp-room ratios, rebates — they change the true rate more than the negotiation will.
- Then, finally, the rate.
Comparing two bids honestly
Price each bid at its worst realistic case, not its best. Take your honest low-end attendance, compute what each contract charges you in that year — attrition at that pickup, minus any resell credit, plus fees — and compare those numbers. The cheaper rate with the harsher clause routinely loses this comparison, which is exactly why the rate is printed at the top.
What to send back
Redline as a package: lost-profit basis, cumulative measurement, a resell credit, a reduction schedule, and the rate last. Group sales expects one round of pushback and prices the first draft accordingly; a bid accepted untouched was simply a bid priced for someone who does not read footnotes.
And keep the bid in proportion. Whatever you sign covers the slice of your audience that books through the block — the rest of the lodging your event creates moves through the open market, mostly late. Getting the contract right protects your downside; owning a channel to the other slice is where the upside is.
Two bids, priced at the downside
Bid A: $159 rate, 90% attrition on full rate, measured nightly, no resell credit. Bid B: $172 rate, 80% attrition on lost profit, cumulative, resold rooms credited. On the brochure, A wins by thirteen dollars. Now price a soft year — pickup at 70% on a 100-room, two-night block. Bid A bills 20 rooms nightly at full rate: roughly $6,400, and a weak Sunday makes it worse. Bid B bills 10 rooms at a lost-profit basis with resales credited — plausibly under $2,000, often zero on a compressed weekend. The thirteen-dollar rate advantage costs about $4,500 of downside protection. That is the comparison the rate-first reading never runs, and it is the only comparison that matters in the years you will actually remember.
Do this arithmetic on a single sheet for every bid: best case, expected case, soft case. Ten minutes per bid, and the decision usually makes itself — the harsh-clause bids stop looking cheap the moment a soft year is priced.
Red flags worth walking from
- Attrition above 90% or measured per night with no cumulative option.
- No reduction schedule and a refusal to add one.
- Damages on full rate with resell credit refused — the combination means you insure their occupancy.
- Fees that appear only in the contract, not the bid: resort, parking, service charges on comp rooms.