See attrition exposure before it becomes a bill
Blocks tracks contracted and picked-up room nights by date and hotel, calculates the shortfall against your contract terms, and shows it while there is still time to act.
Attrition is the penalty for not filling the room nights you committed to. Blocks tracks blocked versus picked-up rooms for every night and hotel, calculates the exposure against your contract terms, and surfaces it before the deadline — so a slow-filling block becomes a decision you make, not a bill you discover later.
“We didn't realize we were under-committed until the hotel sent the attrition invoice.”
Blocks calculates exposure per night as pickup comes in, so the shortfall is visible weeks before the deadline — not after the penalty lands.
“Attrition is calculated per night, but our spreadsheet only tracked one big total.”
Blocks tracks blocked, assigned, picked-up, and pending for every date, so strong pickup on peak nights never hides a weak shoulder night.
“By the time we knew a block was soft, the window to release rooms had already passed.”
Cutoff and release deadlines stay on the block and can sync to your calendar, so there is time to give back unused rooms before they count against you.
“Nobody wanted to be the one who missed a release window across six hotels.”
Blocks watches every block across the event and flags the ones drifting toward exposure, so the risk is on a screen instead of in someone’s memory.
What is hotel attrition, exactly?
Attrition is a contractual commitment to fill a minimum share of your blocked room nights — often 80% or 90% — measured per night. Miss it and you owe the shortfall, usually at the full contracted room rate for each unused room night. Because it is measured per night, one strong night cannot offset a weak one; each date stands on its own. A block that looks healthy in aggregate can still owe on its shoulder nights while the peak nights sell out. That is why exposure has to be tracked date by date — and why your contract’s own attrition terms, not a rule of thumb, decide what you actually owe.
How does Blocks track attrition exposure?
Blocks reads your signed contract and pulls out the attrition percentage, the dates it applies to, and the deadline it is measured against — in under 60 seconds. Then it tracks blocked, assigned, picked-up, and pending room nights for every night across every hotel and calculates the room nights you would owe if the block closed today. The number moves as pickup and guest names come in, so you always know where each hotel and each date stands. Nothing is estimated against a generic 80%: the exposure is computed against the terms Blocks extracted from your own contract, including multi-tier schedules where the percentage tightens as the event nears.
How do I know I have enough rooms before anyone is assigned?
The room supply forecast answers that on the event overview, before a single guest is placed. It sets per-night demand — the rooms your departments have actually asked for — against per-night contracted supply, the rooms your signed blocks hold on that date. The headline is a sentence, not a dashboard: “Short 47 room nights, concentrated Oct 6–8”, with “Worst night is 12 rooms over what you hold” underneath, or simply “Covered on every night.” Below it sits a row per night — needed, held, short — with the short nights marked. The shortfall is summed per night and never netted across nights, because twenty spare rooms on the Tuesday do not house anybody on the Friday. Two reference columns sit after the shortfall and are deliberately incapable of reducing it: what these hotels held for you last year, re-based onto this year’s dates, and rooms hotels have quoted but nobody has signed for. Both are context for a conversation, not coverage you can count. When you are short, an inline “What should I do?” button hands the numbers to Ask Blocks with the shortfall already filled in, so the next step is a question you ask rather than a spreadsheet you build.
What is an attrition figure actually based on?
Every exposure number in Blocks carries its own basis, printed with the figure rather than buried in a legend: “assumes 80% pickup — no attrition terms on file”, “no attrition clause on file”, “exempt — not org liability”, “commitment settled”. That distinction is the difference between a number your contract supports and a number a default produced, and it is the one thing a spreadsheet cell can never tell you. It starts at the contract: when Blocks reviews one it states whether it found a pickup commitment, found none, or could not tell — so you know which kind of block you are creating before you create it, rather than discovering months later that an 80% assumption was doing all the work. A settled block quotes no exposure at all. Once a block is released or reconciled, the projected penalty reads as nothing on the event overview, on the budget, on the hotels tab and in chat, because a commitment you handed back or a bill the hotel already sent is not a risk you are still carrying. What survives is the record — the unsold room nights stay visible as a fact about what happened, so a finished event still reports honestly on how it performed.
When should you act on an attrition risk?
The moment a block starts drifting — not the week of the cutoff. Blocks keeps release and decision deadlines visible on the block, and connecting Google Calendar keeps a Blocks Deadlines calendar current, updated within about 15 minutes. When a block looks soft, you can release unused rooms back to the hotel, chase a department lead for names sooner, or shift demand between hotels while the options are still open. Blocks surfaces the risk per night and proposes the next step — a release, a reminder, a rebalance — but nothing changes on your reservations until you confirm it.
What happens at the cutoff date?
After the cutoff, unbooked rooms are released to the hotel’s general inventory and your commitment is largely locked in. Blocks tracks the cutoff for every block and shows your projected exposure as it approaches, so the deadline is a planned checkpoint instead of a surprise. Attrition itself, though, is often measured at arrival rather than at cutoff — the two dates are not the same, and Blocks keeps them distinct so you know which number is final and which can still move. Nothing changes on your reservations automatically: Blocks shows the exposure and drafts the next step, and you decide whether to send it.
How does Blocks handle multi-tier attrition schedules?
Many contracts do not set one attrition percentage — they set several, stepping up as the event approaches: a looser allowance far out, a tighter one near cutoff. Rolling or multi-tier schedules like these are easy to misread in a spreadsheet, where a single number hides which tier is in force. Blocks carries the full schedule through from the contract, so the exposure you see is measured against the tier that actually applies on today’s date. As you cross each threshold, the room nights you can still release without penalty change — and Blocks updates the figure and the deadline together, so you are never negotiating against last month’s terms.
Average room-block pickup across the meetings and events industry hovers around 30–40% and is trending downward.
Source: Groups360Frequently asked questions
Blocks tracks contracted and picked-up room nights by date and hotel, calculates the shortfall against your contract terms, and shows it while there is still time to act.
How is hotel attrition calculated?
Can Blocks tell me my attrition exposure right now?
How do I reduce attrition exposure before the deadline?
Is attrition measured at the cutoff date or at arrival?
Does a released or reconciled block still show attrition exposure?
How do I know whether an exposure figure came from my contract or a default?
Does Blocks release rooms back to the hotel for me?
Have more questions? Check our glossary of terms or get in touch.
More ways Blocks helps
Bring us your next room block.
See how your team can track deadlines, place guests, and check the hotel’s list in one live plan.