Three weeks before Chinese New Year, an agent called me in panic. Her client needed 25 rooms in Singapore, but every hotel she contacted was fully booked. Meanwhile, agents with allotment contracts were confirming bookings within hours.
The difference? They'd secured room allotments months earlier. They weren't competing for last-minute inventory—they already owned it.
What Hotel Allotment Actually Means
A hotel allotment (also called a room block or guaranteed allocation) is a contracted number of rooms a hotel reserves exclusively for you during a specific period. You're not requesting availability—you're pre-purchasing the right to sell those rooms.
Think of it like this: Instead of asking "Do you have 10 rooms available December 20-23?" you're saying "I own 10 rooms from December 20-23, and I'll sell them to my clients."
This matters enormously during peak seasons when hotels in destinations like Singapore, Dubai, or Maldives sell out weeks or months in advance.
Types of Allotment Contracts
Hard Allotment (Committed Block)
You're financially committed to every room in your block, whether you sell them or not. If you contract 20 rooms for December 15-18 and only sell 12, you're paying for all 20.
Hotels love hard allotments because they guarantee revenue. You get the deepest discounts (often 30-45% below rack rates) and first priority for inventory.
When it works: If you've got a corporate client sending a team annually, or you're running a tour series with predictable group sizes. The risk is manageable when you know your volume.
Soft Allotment (Elastic Block)
The hotel reserves rooms for you, but you can release unsold inventory back to them by a specific date (usually 14-60 days before arrival). You only pay for rooms you actually sell.
The trade-off? Rates are 10-15% higher than hard allotments, and hotels might reduce your block size if they're getting strong direct demand.
This is what most agents use when building volume. The downside protection matters more than the slightly higher cost.
Free-Sale Allotment
Hotels give you access to their full inventory at contracted rates without blocking specific rooms. You sell what you need, when you need it, as long as the hotel has availability.
This isn't really an allotment—it's preferential access. You don't have guaranteed inventory, but you're not carrying any risk either. Rates sit between soft allotment and public rates.
For destinations you serve occasionally (like Sri Lanka or European cities), free-sale arrangements give you competitive pricing without inventory commitment.
Getting Your First Allotment Contract
Hotels don't hand out allotments to every agent who asks. You need to demonstrate you can actually move the inventory.
Build Your Case With Data
Before approaching a hotel, gather your booking history:
- Past volume at that property: "We've booked 18 room nights with you in the past 12 months"
- Market segment performance: "We send primarily leisure couples and families during October-March"
- Booking lead time: "Our average booking window is 45-60 days, giving you advance notice"
- Your distribution: "We work with 200+ retail agents across India and Southeast Asia"
If you haven't booked with them before, show volume at similar properties: "We did 120 room nights across four 4-star properties in Kuala Lumpur last year."
Start With Soft Allotments
Don't push for hard allotments on your first contract. Hotels won't risk committed inventory with an unproven partner. Ask for a soft allotment with a 30-day release clause.
Your proposal: "I'd like to secure 8 rooms for weekends in December with a 30-day release clause. Based on our bookings at comparable properties, I'm confident we'll sell 6-7 rooms, but the release clause protects both of us while we establish this relationship."
That's reasonable, low-risk, and shows you understand how allotments work.
Timing Your Request
Hotels finalize inventory allocations 6-8 months before peak season. For December holidays, you're negotiating in April-May. For summer Europe, you're talking in November-January.
If you wait until September to ask for December inventory, you're too late. The allotment pie has already been divided.
Contract Terms That Actually Matter
Here's what you should negotiate carefully:
Release Clause Specifics
The contract should state exactly when you can release rooms and how. Some contracts say "30 days prior" but don't specify cut-off times. You think you released at 11pm on day 30; they say it needed to be done before 6pm. Now you're paying for those rooms.
Get specific: "Unsold rooms can be released via email to reservations@hotel.com by 11:59pm local time, 30 days before the first night of stay."
Increment Release Rules
Can you release rooms individually, or must you release the entire block? If you've got 10 rooms and sell 7, can you release just 3, or is it all-or-nothing?
Better contracts allow incremental releases: "Agent may release unsold rooms in any quantity by the release deadline."
Rate Parity Clauses
Some hotels include clauses saying you can't sell below their direct rates. This defeats the purpose of having contracted rates.
Push back on this: "Our contracted rate of $120 is a net rate. We'll set our selling price based on our margin requirements and market conditions. This is standard for B2B contracts."
If they insist on parity, walk away. You can't build margin if you're forced to match their public pricing.
Force Majeure and Cancellations
What happens if there's a natural disaster, pandemic, or political situation affecting travel? Standard contracts make you eat the cost. Better contracts include force majeure clauses that let both parties exit without penalty.
After COVID, this matters more than ever. Get it in writing.
Managing Your Allotment Inventory
Securing allotments is one thing. Actually selling them profitably is different.
Track Your Pickup Rate
Pickup rate = rooms sold divided by rooms contracted. If you have a 10-room allotment and sell 7, your pickup rate is 70%.
You want pickup rates above 80%. Below 60% means you're over-contracted and likely losing money on unsold inventory (for hard allotments) or missing out on better rates (because hotels reward higher pickup with better terms).
An agent I know tracks pickup weekly by property and season. When a property drops below 70% pickup, she reduces next year's allotment and reallocates that capacity to better-performing hotels.
Stagger Your Release Deadlines
If all your allotments have the same release date (say, 30 days out), you're making all your release decisions simultaneously. That's risky.
Better: Negotiate different release periods for different hotels. Property A is 60 days, Property B is 45 days, Property C is 30 days. Now you're making staged decisions based on actual booking pace.
Dynamic Pricing Your Allotment
Just because you have a contracted net rate of $100 doesn't mean you sell every room at the same markup. When demand is strong, increase your margin. When you're approaching release deadlines with unsold rooms, lower your selling price to move inventory.
Two months out with 8 of 10 rooms sold? You can charge $150 (50% markup). One week past release deadline with 4 rooms unsold? Sell at $120 (20% markup) and fill those rooms.
Platform Allotments vs Direct Contracts
When you work with B2B platforms like DMCQuote, you're accessing allotments the platform has negotiated with hotels across Thailand, Hong Kong, and other key markets.
The platform carries the inventory risk. You're essentially buying from their allotment on a per-booking basis. This gives you:
- Zero inventory risk: You're not committed to blocks you might not sell
- Instant access to peak season inventory: When direct channels are sold out, platform allotments often still have availability
- Competitive rates without negotiation: Platform volume gets you pricing you couldn't negotiate individually
The trade-off? Your margins are lower than direct allotments because the platform takes a cut. But for destinations where you don't have volume to negotiate directly, platform allotments are better than no allotments.
Smart agents use both: Direct allotments for their core 3-5 destinations where they have volume, platform allotments for everywhere else.
Common Allotment Mistakes
Over-contracting early: New agents get excited about having "guaranteed inventory" and contract more rooms than they can realistically sell. Start small. You can always increase next season.
Ignoring seasonal patterns: Just because you sell 20 rooms in December doesn't mean you need 20 rooms in July. Match your allotment to actual seasonal demand patterns.
Not tracking competitive pricing: Your contracted rate might be great in April, but if the hotel drops their public rates in June, you could be selling at higher rates than direct bookers. Monitor this and renegotiate if needed.
Forgetting about deposit schedules: Some allotment contracts require deposits at booking, others at 60 days, some at release deadline. Missing a deposit deadline can void your entire allotment.
Scaling Your Allotment Strategy
Once you've proven you can manage allotments profitably, scale strategically.
Add properties, not just rooms: Instead of doubling your allotment at one hotel, add allotments at 2-3 additional properties. This diversifies your risk and gives clients more options.
Negotiate multi-property deals: If a hotel chain operates 4 properties in Singapore, negotiate an allotment package across all four. They'll give better terms for the broader commitment.
Lock in 18-24 month contracts: Once you've got two successful seasons with a property, push for longer-term contracts. You get rate stability; they get commitment. Everyone wins.
An agent I work with started with a 5-room soft allotment at one Bangkok hotel. Three years later, she manages allotments across 15 properties in three countries, moving 200+ room nights monthly. She built it systematically, one property at a time, always keeping pickup rates above 75%.
When Allotments Don't Make Sense
Allotments aren't right for every situation.
If you're booking sporadically (3-4 rooms quarterly), stick with B2B platform rates. The administrative overhead of managing allotment contracts isn't worth it.
If you're serving 20+ destinations, you can't manage allotments everywhere. Focus allotments on your top 3-5 destinations, use platforms for the rest.
If you don't have reliable demand forecasting, allotments are dangerous. You'll over-commit and lose money on unsold inventory or under-commit and miss revenue opportunities.
The right approach: Build booking volume through platforms first, identify your high-volume routes, then negotiate allotments for those specific property-destination pairs. That's how you scale profitably.
Hotel allotments give you competitive advantage when you use them strategically. They're not magic—they require data, discipline, and active management. But when you've got 25 rooms locked in for peak season while your competitors are scrambling for last-minute inventory, you'll understand why the best agents treat allotment management as a core skill.
