Attrition clauses: how to calculate what a group owes for unused rooms

An attrition clause sets how many rooms of a group block the hotel may charge for when the group uses fewer than agreed. It names an allowance (a percentage or room count the group may drop without charge), the date it is measured, and the basis of the charge, usually the room rate or a share of it.

For example, the contract says 200 rooms. Twelve days before arrival the organizer confirms 143. Nobody cancelled anything, so the cancellation clause stays silent, and the argument starts about what the other 57 rooms are worth. This is the situation an attrition clause exists to price in advance. After reading this article you will be able to draft one with a block, an allowance and a measurement date; separate it from cancellation; calculate the charge after resale; and ground the allowance in your own group history.

What is an attrition clause in a hotel contract?#

An attrition clause is the part of a group contract that prices the rooms a group blocks but does not use. It turns a shrinking block into a known amount instead of a dispute after departure.

It has three parts, and all three must be written: the block (rooms per night, not a single room count), the allowance (how much may fall away without charge), and the charge basis (per room night, at which rate, with which extras included). The unit is the room night. A block of 200 rooms for three nights is 600 room nights, and a group that takes 180 rooms on two nights and 200 on the third has consumed 560 of them, not 580.

The clause only works if the block it refers to is defined by date. A percentage of "the block" means nothing when the block changes shape night by night. The clause also sits beside three neighbours it must agree with: the cancellation clause, the release schedule and the deposit terms. If any of them uses a different block figure, the contract contradicts itself.

It is not a cancellation fee, not a no-show charge and not a forfeited deposit. Those are different events with different bases, and mixing them is the most common drafting fault. The clause is drafted in the quote, not at signature: if the offer does not state the allowance and its date, the negotiation happens later with less leverage. The quote itself is built earlier in the process, as described in how to quote a hotel group: rates, free places, deposits and terms.

Attrition or cancellation: which clause applies?#

Cancellation ends the agreement for the whole block before arrival; attrition prices the gap between the block and what the group actually used. A group can trigger one, the other, or both in sequence.

Cancellation is an event with a date: the organizer tells you the group is not coming. Attrition is a measurement: the group came, and used less than it promised. Cancellation is normally charged on a scale that tightens as arrival approaches, often with the deposit retained. Attrition is normally charged once, on the shortfall, after the count is fixed.

Watch for double charging. A contract that applies the cancellation scale to rooms released late and the attrition charge to the same rooms bills twice for one room night. A partial release of part of the block at a given date is attrition under another name; the label matters less than the arithmetic and the date it is measured on. Say in the contract which clause governs when both could apply, for example when a group cancels half the block at 20 days and then under-uses the rest.

A no-show is a third event again: a named guest who never arrives, usually charged one night, and it should not be counted twice in the attrition shortfall.

How should the allowance be set, and by which date?#

Set the allowance as a room-night figure tied to a named measurement date, and let it widen as arrival approaches. A single percentage at one date does not match how groups actually decide.

A stepped allowance follows the group's own decision calendar. For example, 10 percent free at 90 days, 5 percent at 30 days and none inside 14 days; that is an illustration, and you should build your own steps from your own wash figures. Write the measurement date with a time and a time zone. "30 days before arrival" is ambiguous at midnight, and the ambiguity always favours the side that argues last.

State the base of the percentage. Ten percent of the original block, of the block on the measurement date and of the consumed room nights are three different numbers. Keep free places and guide rooms outside the paid block: if they are counted inside, the attrition base is inflated and the group is charged for rooms it never had. Free places have their own rules and their own count, as covered in free places, guide rooms and driver rooms in group contracts.

Separate release from attrition in the wording. Release returns rooms to your inventory with no charge; attrition charges for rooms held and not used. A contract that confuses them gives the group a free option on your inventory. Base the number on evidence you can show the organizer: your own past groups in the same segment, not what a competitor is said to allow.

Release schedules and payment terms interact with this clause directly; see room blocks, release schedules and payment terms for congress groups for how they fit together.

How do you calculate the attrition charge?#

Subtract the room nights the group actually used from the committed room nights, remove the allowance and any rooms the hotel resold, then multiply by the agreed charge basis.

In words: committed room nights, minus allowance room nights, minus consumed room nights, minus resold room nights, equals chargeable room nights. Multiply by the agreed rate and add the extras the clause names. Worked illustration, for example only: a block of 300 room nights, an allowance of 30, a group that consumed 246 and a hotel that resold 18. The chargeable shortfall is 300 minus 30 minus 246 minus 18, which is 6 room nights. Without the resale offset the same stay would produce 24.

Decide which rate applies to the shortfall: the full group rate, a share of it, or the room rate without breakfast. Say whether taxes and service charge sit on top, and whether the charge is per room night or per room. Agree whose count is evidence: your reservation system holds the consumed figure, and the contract should say that this count governs, when it is frozen and how the organizer can see it.

Residential and day-delegate packages may price per person rather than per room, in which case the attrition base is person nights and the arithmetic changes shape. Round once, at the end, and state the rounding rule. Rounding each night separately produces a number neither side can reproduce.

Who benefits when the hotel resells the unused rooms?#

The hotel does, unless the contract says otherwise, which is why the resale offset has to be written down before the group arrives.

A resale offset reduces the shortfall by the rooms the hotel sells to someone else. Without it, the hotel can collect the attrition charge and the new room revenue on the same night. Decide the basis: rooms resold at or above the group rate reduce the shortfall one for one; rooms resold below it usually reduce it by the amount actually received. Both are defensible, but only one can be in the contract.

Mitigation belongs in the wording. A clause that obliges the hotel to make reasonable efforts to resell, and to show what it did, is easier to enforce than one that leaves the effort invisible. Resale can happen after the group leaves, so the offset needs a settlement window; for example, the final count and invoice are issued 30 days after departure, once late resales are known.

Give the organizer the right to see the resale evidence. A shortfall that cannot be checked is the one that ends up with a lawyer. Do not assume either default: neither the duty to resell nor the group's share of resale revenue exists unless the contract creates it.

What is group wash, and how do you measure your own?#

Wash is the share of a block that a group never uses. Measuring it on your own past groups turns the allowance from a guess into a number you can defend across the table.

Compute it per group: committed room nights minus consumed room nights, divided by committed room nights. Do it per night as well as in total, because wash is rarely spread evenly across a stay. Measure at the same dates you plan to write into the allowance, for example 90, 60 and 30 days out, using the block as it stood on each date. Wash grows as arrival approaches, so a figure without a date is not comparable.

Segment before averaging. Congress, wedding, corporate meeting and tour series blocks behave differently, and one blended average hides the segment that actually hurts you. Exclude or flag groups whose block was formally renegotiated mid-stream, otherwise you record a reduction as wash and set the allowance too high. With a handful of groups a year the result is indicative, not a rate; say so when you use it, and keep collecting.

Wash sits inside the wider vocabulary of group revenue work; revenue management terms explained: from pickup to displacement covers the neighbouring concepts.

How do you enforce attrition and keep the customer?#

Enforce it as a settlement, not a punishment: send the count with its evidence, apply the offset, invoice the balance once and return the unused deposit.

The legal frame, in general terms. Under the Turkish Code of Obligations (Law No. 6098), Article 179, a penalty agreed for non-performance lets the creditor choose performance or the penalty unless the contract says otherwise. Article 180 makes the penalty payable even where no loss is proven, with any excess claimable only on proof of fault. Article 182 lets the judge reduce an excessive penalty on the judge's own initiative. These rules are published in the consolidated text of Law No. 6098 on Mevzuat Bilgi Sistemi, Presidency of the Republic of Türkiye (7 November 2026) (opens in a new tab).

Two limits matter commercially. Between merchants, courts are less likely to reduce penalties than in consumer contracts, but the power to reduce excessive penalties remains. Confirm the enforceability of your specific clause with a legal adviser. The annex to the Regulation on Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts (Official Gazette 17 June 2014, No. 29033) treats disproportionately high compensation from a consumer as an unfair term.

Write the charge as a formula or a liquidated figure that both sides can recompute. A number nobody can reproduce is the one that gets reduced or disputed. Handle the deposit explicitly: state whether it is offset against the final attrition invoice and when the balance is returned. Silence here is what turns a settlement into a complaint.

Send the count early. The organizer often mirrors your terms in their own contract with the end client, and a late count leaves them unable to bill.

What to do next#

Before the next group negotiation, pull twelve months of past blocks, compute wash per segment at 90, 60 and 30 days, and rewrite the allowance with a date, a base and a resale offset. The pieces fit together in one order: define the block in room nights, separate attrition from cancellation, set the allowance from your own evidence, calculate the shortfall after resale, and settle it once with the count attached.