(Room release deadline for groups or allotments)
👉 A key timeline to manage group and agency bookings effectively.
📊 What is Cut-off?
In the hotel industry, the cut-off date is the deadline to release unconfirmed rooms from a group or allotment block. This applies to MICE bookings, corporate clients or wholesalers.
After that date, any unsold rooms are returned to general inventory, making them available through other channels. It helps protect the hotel’s ability to optimise sales and adjust to actual demand.
✅ Why is Cut-off important?
- Allows hotels to resell unused room blocks.
- Reduces risk of unsold rooms due to overblocking.
- Improves group and agency management.
- Gives revenue teams time to reprice or shift inventory.
- Key component in B2B agreements.
📘 Practical example
A corporate client blocks 20 rooms with a cut-off 15 days before arrival.
→ If they haven’t booked by 5 September, the hotel automatically releases the unsold rooms to general availability.
🔍 Is it the same as “release”?
Not quite.
- Cut-off is the specific date when the blocked rooms must be released.
- Release refers to the action of returning the rooms to sale.
→ The release usually happens automatically on the cut-off date, unless otherwise agreed.
