"This doesn't make sense, don't the JW's call the hotel directly from the list and pay the hotel when they leave? Thats how we always did it.
It is still done that way. But what I believe happens is a blow hard senior bethelite in charge of rooming calls up the Holiday Inn near the convention site and says "we will be having 5 conventions in your city this summer. We would like to have a room block of 40 rooms per convention. The conventions will be held on successive weekends in July. That is a total of 200 rooms. Your normal price is $100 per night. I propose that you offer a special discount to all that call to book rooms and identify themselves as Watchtower delegates. What kind of discount can you give us? Here is what we are thinking. Make it $85/night. If our delegates book and keep their rooms, they will pay via credit card when they leave the hotel. We want a small over-ride commission on every booking made under the Watchtower name. 10% of every room booked. However, if our delegates book and keep over 80% of the rooms in the block (160 out of the 200) then we want our commission over-ride to be 15% instead. Do we have a deal? If not....we will call the shit house down the street from you and work out a deal with them. Our delegates will stay wherever the hell we tell them to."
*Assuming 200 rooms are blocked and over the course of the 5 weekends....and 160 of those 200 are booked and kept (80%)....that would mean that the Watchtower would skim off 15% of every room. If each room is $85 and each room is kept for 3 nights.....then you have 160 rooms multiplied by 3 multiplied by $85/night = $40,800. This is the number that the hotel grosses. And the Watchtower has worked out a deal for 15%.....so $40,800 multiplied by .15 = $6,120.00. And that is just one hotel in one city (but for all 5 convention weekends). Imagine 50 more deals like this being worked out in that particular city. Now imagine 50 more cities. The $ adds up quickly to the tune of several million dollars.
The point being.....none of the faithful rank and file have any idea this is going on. I pay my $85/night x 3 nights for a total of $255 when I check out of the hotel on Sunday morning. I was told beforehand that $85/night would be my rate. I check my bill and it is $85/night. I pay it and don't think any more about it. Why would I?
But when all the conventions are over....the Watchtower Corp comes calling to the Holiday Inn. "Remember that deal we worked out and the paperwork our lawyers sent to you to sign about the 15% over-ride commission? Well....our auditors are done checking your books and they've determined that our delegates did indeed book and keep exactly 160 out of the 200 rooms in our block. We would now like you to write us a check in the amount of $6,120. Thank you".
Keep in mind....Days Inns and Red Roof Inns aren't exactly the Westin. They don't typically sell out....in fact quite often they have unoccupancy rates over 50%. They will GLADLY ink a deal like that with the Watchtower corp....because $34,680 ($40,800 minus $6,120) is better than an average ho-hum weekend of 50% occupancy.