Would never book a room block again!
In October 2007, I blocked off 36 rooms with Travelodge (contact was Trey Pheiffer, x113) for my wedding this October 2008. I received Group Code #CG2200. Guests booked their rooms. In early May, I left a voicemail on Trey's answering machine stating I wanted to check on how many rooms were left. Two weeks later, I left another voicemail message. I never got a response.
On June 24th, my sister in law called to book a room only to be told they had no more left. I called the front desk and was told that they had no record of my room block, nor any record of anyone's reservations. I told them I had booked in October 2007 with Trey Phieffer. At that time I was told that Trey had left the Travel Lodge back in December 2007. However, his voicemail was still on their phone and there was no indication that he was gone. I was instructed to call back on the 25th and speak to the manager Orhan. I called on the 25th and Orhan also said he could not find any information for the group code, although he did say the group code belonged to their hotel. He stated that they were in the process of changing owners from Travelodge to Super 8. He asked to have until Friday 6/27 to see if they could cancel other people's reservations to fix their error.
On Friday 6/27, I called Orhan and he stated that he spoke with the owner about the issue, and they tried to cancel a bus tour, but couldn't because they had already paid. So he said they were not able to accommodate our guests, even though we had the room block booked a year in advance. I asked to speak with the owner Peter Patel, and was told that Orhan would ahve him call me that day. At 4:00, I never received a call, so I called back and was told that he was not in for the day. I left a message to have him call me on Saturday 6/29. I never received a call on 6/29. I called again Monday 6/30 and was told the owner would be in around noon. I said I'd call back. I called back at 1:00 and was told that he was still not in. I left another message for him to call me. On 7/1, I have yet to hear back from the owner. I have made my reservations elsewhere, but this has been a huge inconvenience to all of my guests who had rooms booked and now had to scramble 3 months before the wedding to find other accommodations (and now have to pay a higher price). Many of my guests are concerned because they had given credit card numbers to hold the rooms and now they wonder where that information went. I have at least 12 names of people who had booked rooms with the Travel Lodge/Super 8, and some had their confirmation numbers. Now those are not going to be honored.