The Site:Â HotelPlanner.com
- HotelPlanner.com specializes in real-time online group bookings in over 3,000 worldwide travel destinations
- Quick group hotel rate finder for groups which need 10-100 rooms per night for events, reunions, conferences, parties and weddings
- Simply input a little information about your group, along with your desired price per room and HotelPlanner submits your information to hotels who will bid for your business
- HotelPlanner’s patent-pending system instantly searches online for hotels that meet your desired specifications
- “Within seconds” hotels bid for your business by sending you the best rate they can offer your group, and you will be notified via email each time a new hotel submits a hotel rate bid
- Free rooms for the group travel coordinators at participating hotels
- Each group receives their own customized group booking website that you can send to your event guests
- Hotels chains include Marriott, Hilton, Wyndham, Omni, Intercontinental, Starwood and many more
- HotelPlanner has partnered with Hertz to provide group car and van rental discount rates
- Group airfare rates are often 5% to 10% off * regular rates, sometimes up to 70% off * for select groups
- Group cruise reservations for parties of 16 or more travelers
- Selection of group travel articles, magazines and news to help plan a large group trip
- Meeting space calculator
The Good: HotelPlanner is truly a one-stop-shop when you are planning travel for a group. In addition to helping you nail down cheap group hotel rates, HotelPlanner also specializes in group cruises, group airfares, group car rentals, banquet halls and meeting spaces.  HotelPlanner makes it super easy to get the reservations made without calling around to a dozen hotels requesting rate quotes.  What an extreme time saver!
We also think it’s cool that you can quickly “negotiate” during the bidding process by declining to accept a bid. When you decline a bid, the hotel is notified and may choose to bid a cheaper nightly rate to earn your business.  However, it’s important to note that HotelPlanner is not an travel auction site, it’s really just a tool to help you find group hotel rates.Â
The Bad:Â Not much, as we think HotelPlanner’s site is simple and does exactly what it says it does.
The Fees *:  HotelPlanner.com does not charge you to use their site to book group hotel reservations, however you will be bound to the hotels fees, taxes and cancellation policies. Make sure that you confirm all fee, tax and rate details directly with the hotel prior to booking.  *Based solely on research done by TravelSiteCritic.com, these figures may be inaccurate and are subject to change. Verify before you buy.
The Deals:
3 star group hotel rates (subject to change) from:
- Atlanta from $25* a night
- Chicago from $20* a night
- Las Vegas from $19* a nightÂ
- New York City from $29* a night
- Orlando from $25* a night
- San Diego from $43* a night
Up to 77% OFF regular night rates with HotelPlanner.com Group Hotel Rates!
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You Rate It:
We booked a Saturday/Sunday stay on HotelPlanner to Daytona Beach Florida for the Daytona 500 Feb. 26, 2012. (I made these reservations in July of 2011) I called 4 days before we were to arrive to ask if by chance we could add Friday night to our stay. The resort told me our reservation had been cancelled because HotelPlanner.com had booked us on an events week which required a 5 night minimum and the per night rate would be 649.00 instead of the 189.00 they charged us. My question is what good is a reservation number? Why were we not notified that our reservations had been cancelled? And where is my refund? HotelPlanner was very hard to reach, always went to an answering machine except one of the 20 times I called, the gentleman I spoke with said they could not cancel my reservation… well they did! He took my number and is going to call me “right back”……that was 9 hours ago. 15 more calls and 3 messages later…. no response. Really.
I have used Hotel Planner as an Independent Planner and it has helped me be more organized. I have been able to really get my clients some great meeting packages and they have been impressed. I send out the RFP thru Hotel Planner so I can get the RFP’s back in a timely manner and have them organized on the same group page. However, I than assist the client from start to finish in the site selection process until it goes to contract. I have made alot of great contacts with the hotel sales managers. I get an email from them when they change properties as they want to continue working together. I also do not have to worry about commissions as they track and collect them for me. What a time saver! The best part is that anytime I have had an issue with a Hotel not honoring what was contracted to the client Hotel Planner was able to help me resolve it quickly.
Hotelplanner screwed up my hotel reservation and refuses to do anything about it or provide any sort of compensation. After many days of back and forth with them, they offered me a “$30 off next purchase”–the terms were January 3-2011 through January 3, 2012.
And this “offer” was made late in the day on January 3, 2012! In order to give them the benefit of the doubt, I emailed several times to see if the offer could be extended?
They put a damper on what was supposed to be a joyous holiday vacation.
I will go *out of my way* to avoid booking through Hotelplanner again. They do not live up to their word and were miserable to deal with.
NO STARS!
Hotel Planner has the worst customer service. We booked a 2 nite stay, the rooms were not as advertised (The place was a dump) we expressed this to the hotel staff, they apologized and said if we wanted to leave early there would be no charge for second nite. I called Hotel Planner and explained the situation, they said they would have to confirm this with the hotel, they did while I was standing at the front desk. It was explained to me by Hotel Planner I would have to check out before a refund could be issued, I did and called them back, they now said NO refund would be issued. I called American Express to dispute the charge.
I recently got together with friends from high school, about 9 of us, to travel the California coast. We must have stayed in 4 or 5 hotels, all of which we found with hotelplanner.com. I know we saved at at least 2 of the hotels because we met some ladies in Monterey and Santa Monica who said they were paying a surprising amount more. We had a good laugh at that…and then we bought drinks all night. So it goes.
No I will never use Hotelplanner again. Forget about their customer service, it is nonexistent. If you try to contact them you will experience “mysterious” disconnects and if you actually get to speak to a manager you will just get the “sorry it is out of our hands” explanation over and over. That is what we experienced when we needed to book a hotel room due to losing power. Hotelplanner had the foresight to put us in a hotel without power as well. When we called them back (a few hours later) after speaking to the hotel and finding out they had no power. Hotelplanner told us “sorry no refunds” and they could do nothing for us. They wouldn’t even agree to move us to a different hotel (even if we paid the difference) There was nothing they could do, so I wouldn’t even bother trying to contact them with any “special” phone number they give you because once they have your CC# they really could care less.
Hotelplanner.com works great for individual bookings and group blocks. I have used the site for both. I came across them a few years ago when I got married and needed to book a few different options for out of town guests. Also I have always had good customer service, it’s no difference than any other customer service. If you want to complain about customer service call the DMV, that is something to write about. Thanks Hotel Planner!!!
Hotelplanner.com saved me and my family hundreds of dollars this past reunion. I have a really hard time believing some of these posts. I wonder why people are saying they are magically hung up on or unattended to. I guess if that happened to me, I’d be a bit tough about it, too. But we all felt that they were as helpful as they could be, and this was in dealing with 30+ people living all over the place goin to one place! Well, good luck to the rest of you travelers out there.
Hotel Planner.com has the worst cutomer service ever, I made a reservation and specifically asked for a pet friendly hotel. On the day before I was supposed to checkin I decided to verify with the actual hotel, at which time I found out pets were not allowed. I contacted hotel planner several times throughout that day, each time the initial agent told me that because I was calling after the 4:00 change deadline I was going to be charged a one night penalty. I would understand if I had not asked for a pet friendly hotel, it would be my fault. But I asked the agent several times and each time the said it was pet friendly.
And if you have an issue don’t waste your time asking for a manager. I asked during four different calls, each time I was placed on hold and each time I was “magically” disconected with no return call (even though they ask you for a call back number if you get disconected)
Thanks (Not) Hotel Planner….. now I’m paying $300 to board my dogs for your mistake.
I will be facebooking and Tweeting how horrible my expierience with this company was.
Carlos
I booked hotel reservations with Hotel Planner.com for my group in connection with our first Memorial Scholarshiop Awards Ceremony the week of 7-30-11 in Ohio. Overall our group was very pleased with the hotel accomodations, ammenities and service. We also booked our catered banquet with the hotel. The rates for the hotel and banquet were reasonable. The accomodations were luxiourous and the food for the banquet was delicious and quite memorabable. Our guests raved about the food from the wedding soup to the main entree, and deserts. We had minor challenges that were primarily related to changes in staff group sales office of the hotel, but we were able to resolve them reasonably. I would utilize Hotel Planner for other functions. I feel we got a very good rate and very good service.
I am not the person that leaves reviews unless I had some sort of great/terrible experience and I am sad to say that this was the latter. I am glad that other people had positive experiences but when I booked through HotelsPlanner.com for STP (the Seattle to Portland bike ride) I found out just recently that they booked me for the wrong month. The ride is in July and they booked me for a hotel in January. When I called them and found this out (because I had already been charged)I explained the situation and that I know for a fact I booked it for July and they proceeded to tell me that it was my fault that I should have called them and confirmed which I don’t believe is the purpose of booking through these kind of sites since I had faith that they booked it for the right date. The whole conversation, with the woman and the supervisor, basically was that they couldn’t do anything for me since they had already been charged and the date had past, even though that wasn’t my fault that they had booked it for January. So to sum it up, I am out 134 dollars, with no voucher although I got lucky and was able to call and find another hotel room.
I can testify to this site. We booked our family reunion through Hotelplanner.com and got a great deal in Atlanta. $55 a night at a 4 star hotel. There were some complications when we first arrived but through the fault of the hotel. We called Hotel Planner and they squared away the issue. Overall, we had a positive experience and are sure to do it again.
Hotelplanner has 24 hour support for travelers, check the contact us section of the website. I’m sorry to hear the hotel lied to you. Sounds like they wanted to give you the run around. Don’t trust hotels. If they are in an oversold situation of non smoking rooms they will say anything to get out of it. Next time always call the 24 hour support line listed on your reservation receipt and don’t trust what the hotel tells you. Hotelplanner can make it right or move you to a hotel that will. If you let HotelPlanner know what hotel lied to you they will remove that hotel from their website.
Upon arrival to Hotel,I was put in a smoking room because that is all they had left. They could however switch me to a different type room but since I booked room through HotelPlanner it would not let me. HotelPlanner does not have convientent hours of operation for travelers so beware, if you need help after 5pm. Forget it!!
The hotel we booked was supposed to have a heated pool and it was not, there was mold all over the ice machine, and you cannot complain to the hotel, you can only report this info to hotelplanner and guess what, you can not reach them after 5pm!!
This is an untrue statement. All of our planners have on average 10 years of group travel experience and have worked for hotels so they know their tricks. Hotelplanner.com expert planners and great technology keeps people from getting ripped off. Beware of anyone encouraging you to enter into a contract with a hotel without speaking to an expert first. You will pay higher rates, penalties for unused rooms in your group block, and hidden fees when you get to the hotel.
That post by Kevin is fake. Beware of fake post by disgruntled hotels that Hotelplanner removed because they failed to maintain high standards. These desperate hotel sales people will post fake comments as anonymous customers. The company helps thousands of groups a day worldwide for the last decade as the largest online group planning site.
HotelPlanner.com is a rip off. All they do is refer you to a hotel and you do all the planning. All they do is get you bids and take 10% commission for having you still book the rooms. Just book direct and save that 10% on your group.
Hotelplanner got me a great hotel deal in NYC over fashion week.
HotelPlanner.com is the greatest group travel site. It saves big money and it’s easy to use.