Hotel Booking Nonsense

G

gswarriors

BRONZE
Is anyone willing to offer guidance on navigating the hotel booking "requirement" when traveling to out-of-area tournaments? Is this really a requirement? Do clubs ever enforce the rule? I just went to make a reservation for an upcoming showcase using the link provided by my DD's team, and at the end of the payment process for the room, the system wanted me to approve a second payment of a $78 which appeared to be a booking fee on top of the room cost. In this past, I don't ever remember paying an extra fee.

I went online and found comparable hotels for a similar price, so what service am I getting for paying a $78 reservation fee?

I'm willing to do my part to help my club cover whatever strings are attached to participating in a tournament, but if the service is going to require a fee for the reservations, shouldn't they be providing a deal you couldn't get on your own?

I'd be curious to hear if others noticed this as well.
 
gswarriors said:
Is anyone willing to offer guidance on navigating the hotel booking "requirement" when traveling to out-of-area tournaments? Is this really a requirement? Do clubs ever enforce the rule? I just went to make a reservation for an upcoming showcase using the link provided by my DD's team, and at the end of the payment process for the room, the system wanted me to approve a second payment of a $78 which appeared to be a booking fee on top of the room cost. In this past, I don't ever remember paying an extra fee.

I went online and found comparable hotels for a similar price, so what service am I getting for paying a $78 reservation fee?

I'm willing to do my part to help my club cover whatever strings are attached to participating in a tournament, but if the service is going to require a fee for the reservations, shouldn't they be providing a deal you couldn't get on your own?

I'd be curious to hear if others noticed this as well.
Click to expand...

It's called stay and play. Many tournaments who have the rule will enforce the rule, since one of the ways they raise money is from hotel kickbacks.

Dishonest tournaments try to hide the fee, or claim to have a special rate without disclosing that "special" means "higher", so having an explicit additional fee is kind of refreshingly honest.
 
"Stay to Play" or "Stay and Play" are the requirements for the showcases and higher end tournaments. Typically there is a 15% room kickback and/or a free room every X booked that is paid to the tournament. These hotels (through a travel concierge company) will set aside a block of rooms to be reserved exclusively for tournament participants. The free rooms are typically used for VIPs (aka College Coaches or Scouts) from big schools/teams (UCLA, Stanford, Wake Forest, etc.), which is one of the reasons your team is coming to the tournament.

The deal you get may not be any better, but most tournaments with Stay/Play requirements are going to ask which hotel your team is staying in and confirm through the travel concierge company. If you don't use those hotels then your team may have to pay an offset fee (fine / tax) or simply be dropped from the tournament and the spot filled with a team on the waiting list.
 
gswarriors said:
Is anyone willing to offer guidance on navigating the hotel booking "requirement" when traveling to out-of-area tournaments? Is this really a requirement? Do clubs ever enforce the rule? I just went to make a reservation for an upcoming showcase using the link provided by my DD's team, and at the end of the payment process for the room, the system wanted me to approve a second payment of a $78 which appeared to be a booking fee on top of the room cost. In this past, I don't ever remember paying an extra fee.

I went online and found comparable hotels for a similar price, so what service am I getting for paying a $78 reservation fee?

I'm willing to do my part to help my club cover whatever strings are attached to participating in a tournament, but if the service is going to require a fee for the reservations, shouldn't they be providing a deal you couldn't get on your own?

I'd be curious to hear if others noticed this as well.
Click to expand...
 
I called the booking agency, and the learned that the extra charge that pops up at the end of the reservation is a deposit, not a fee. That seems reasonable, although they ought to label it as such to avoid the appearance of questionable extra fees.
 
The team only needs to book a few rooms under the tournament system. Can usually get away with 4 or 5 rooms and say the boys/girls are staying 4 to a room. If I could find a cheaper price for my own room I always booked it.
 
MWN said:
"Stay to Play" or "Stay and Play" are the requirements for the showcases and higher end tournaments. Typically there is a 15% room kickback and/or a free room every X booked that is paid to the tournament. These hotels (through a travel concierge company) will set aside a block of rooms to be reserved exclusively for tournament participants. The free rooms are typically used for VIPs (aka College Coaches or Scouts) from big schools/teams (UCLA, Stanford, Wake Forest, etc.), which is one of the reasons your team is coming to the tournament.

The deal you get may not be any better, but most tournaments with Stay/Play requirements are going to ask which hotel your team is staying in and confirm through the travel concierge company. If you don't use those hotels then your team may have to pay an offset fee (fine / tax) or simply be dropped from the tournament and the spot filled with a team on the waiting list.
Click to expand...
I can only think of Surf, Disney and Dallas Cup that have that kind of leverage to drop teams out and fill them up quickly, as for the rest of the tournaments, well they are not in the best position to be dropping teams because of a hotel kickback, when they will also lose most of the tournament fee or even worst returning teams. I might be wrong, but there is like 4-5 tournaments a weekend that it has taken away the whole mantra of being a top notch tournament.
 
coachsamy said:
I can only think of Surf, Disney and Dallas Cup that have that kind of leverage to drop teams out and fill them up quickly, as for the rest of the tournaments, well they are not in the best position to be dropping teams because of a hotel kickback, when they will also lose most of the tournament fee or even worst returning teams. I might be wrong, but there is like 4-5 tournaments a weekend that it has taken away the whole mantra of being a top notch tournament.
Click to expand...

A few years ago, the Western Regionals (followon to National Cup) were held in Albuquerque, where the sponsoring committee declared it to be a stay to play tournament, despite complaints by many state organizations, including Cal South. It was easy to see that the room rates offered were 20% to 25% higher than equivalent rooms booked through the hotels' websites.

Western Regional is not exactly an "optional" tournament - if you get the invite by winning National Cup or Regional League (or even wild card), you're going. I don't know if Region IV has done anything to prevent this in the future.
 
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