Tip of the Week: Hotel Reservations

Does your club stay in hotels when traveling? Here are a few tips and ideas to make the process as painless as possible!

1. Call the hotel directly. Do not use an online booking site (orbitz, hotwire, etc) or a service such as 1-800-Hotels! If you book online or via a mass booking phone number, your credit card will be charged immediately and it will be impossible to switch the payment to the CRS credit card. When you call the hotel, you will need to put down your presonal credit card, and I will call the Wednesday prior to travel to switch out the credit card to mine.
2. Call the hotel as far in advance as possible. You will have a better selection of available rooms (double beds, non-smoking, etc) the earlier you book.
3. Use a credit card, and not a debit card, when you call the hotel. They will need to keep a credit card on file for incidentals (the CRS card cannot be used for this) and the hotel may place a hold on some funds. If you use a debit card for this purpose, they will place a hold on money in your account and you will not have access to that money for 3-5 days post travel!
4. Be sure to note in your travel report the name the room is held under so that when I call to transfer the cards, I am able to assist the hotel representative in finding your reservation.
5. If the hotel is paid for by the CRS credit card, you must bring back receipts for each room. A $50 fine will be charged if receipts do not come back in the red binder.

Hope this is helpful in planning your club trips! As always, please direct any questions you may have to Katie at khagen@umd.edu.

Tip of the Week: Membership Rosters

Having a hard time getting your club members to sign up on the CRS website? Make it easy for your new members - bring a laptop to practices so they can enter their information before or during practice! That way you know they've signed up, and they can ask you any questions they have. Most practice facilities have wireless internet access, so it should be easy to get this done. Of course, you'll need to ensure that someone keeps an eye on the computer... you wouldn't want it to "walk away".Remember, everyone who attends practices needs to be signed up on the CRS website and needs to have a waiver signed and turned in to the Sport Club office. You may want to assign this duty to one of your club officers so that one person is responsible for keeping track of your club's membership roster.

Questions? Have a tip that may work for other clubs? Email Katie Hagen, Assistant Director - Sport Clubs, with your questions, comments, and tips. It may end up featured on the sport club blog! Send your email to khagen@umd.edu with "Tip of the Week" as the subject.