Hotel loyalty programs like Marriott Bonvoy promise upgrades to their frequent guests, if rooms are available at check-in, but getting those upgrades can be tough. There are too many elites – anyone with their premium credit card is a Platinum – but hotels play games also.
I recently walked through how some hotel general managers refuse to upgrade guests for business reasons.
- They’d rather leave a suite empty than a regular room, because larger rooms are more expensive to clean – they want to save on housekeepers.
- And late check-out benefits are tough to manage with suites. There are fewer suites, and a guest checking out at 4 p.m. means that room won’t be available to the next customer by 4 p.m. for check-in.
So I walked through one tactic that hotels use to avoid offering upgrades, when they want to both save money on housekeeping and remain compliant with program rules (some hotels don’t worry about following the rules, but those that do can use this dirty trick). They don’t clean the suites until they’re booked. A suite is only considered ‘available’ for a guest upgrade if it isn’t booked for the entire length of the stay, and it is ready (including being cleaned and inspected) at the time of check-in.
A housekeeping manager describes the tactic of not cleaning rooms until and unless they’re booked by paying guests.
I’m a housekeeping manager in NYC. Right now we are under 50% occupancy. A lot of our housekeepers are on layoff. We clean as many rooms are we can with the Room attendant we have. Being under 50% we don’t have to rush to clean the whole hotel and we just bring enough RA to clean what we need to cover arrivals and a bit more. Whatever dirty rooms are left are rolled over to the following day. Front desk always let’s us know if there specific suites/rooms needed so we can assign to have clean.
Suites that haven’t been booked by paying guests get skipped for cleaning, thus are not ‘available’ at check-in for upgrades. If a paying guest books a suite, then “[f]ront desk would let us know they need the suites and we have them cleaned.”
And this is why suites are available for paid bookings, but not available for upgrade, even though they’re standard suites that aren’t occupied by other guests and thus supposed to be part of the upgrade pool.
A Hyatt guest shares,
This just happened to me last month at Grand Hyatt Washington DC. Claimed no upgrades available while still selling the suites online. Front desk manager finally admitted it wasn’t available because it was not cleaned yet. I was checking in after 6pm.
I frequently check if I can make a paid booking for a suite right as I’m about to check into a hotel. That way I know if a suite is ‘available’. And it’s usually worked for me, to push back when the front desk inevitably tells me that no suites are available.
However, technically the hotel is correct that they can sell a room (it isn’t occupied) but also that the same room is not available for upgrade (it hasn’t been marked as inspected clean at the time I’m checking in). Some hotels have figured this out as a strategy to avoid offering upgrades, while some hotels just don’t clean the rooms – and as a consequence they aren’t available for upgrade – in order to cut down on housekeeping costs.
Some hotels already have had the suites cleaned but hold off on having the suites marked as having been inspected as clean because they want to reserve the suites for direct sale later or other more selective assignment.
@ Gary — If you can find such a rate, have a friend book a paid suite that can be cancelled right up to check-in,
Then, have them cancel right before you arrive at the hotel. Problem possibly solved.
Is it just me or does Marriott always seem to be mentioned in these anti-guest trickery stories. Lately though, Hyatt has been sneaking in too.
And who’s mentioned in this post?
I rest my case.
As it turns out, the quoted line can be said about every single hotel loyalty program out there, whose T&C all state something like World of Hyatt’s, which is that “the best room available [for elite upgrade] will be determined by the applicable hotel or resort in its sole discretion. In simpler English, it means that the T&C of every program give individual hotels in every chain (not just Marriott, which has been targeted of late) the exclusive right to “play games”, including those mentioned here!
One hopes that every self-anointed “travel guru” or “thought leader in travel” would, at long last, understand that very simple reality and spare us these recurrent posts that are nothing more than masturbatory exercises that won’t change a thing other than to raise false expectations among their sycophants.
DCS mention “masturbatory exercises” which is literally every post he/her/it makes. Douche
Easy solution: don’t stay at hotels that play games like that.
Bottom line is that you can’t expect anything from hotel status anymore except the bare minimum: free breakfast, late checkout, waived resort fees, etc…unless you are a frequent guest at that particular hotel.
@Brodie — I doubt that you have the intellectual capacity to understand what the phrase even means, so get lost.
The elite status illusion is alive and well
This is why I will never understand people chasing elite status.
REAL upgrades are rare for most. More often than not you have to fight for your benefits.
Just not worth it.
Marriott has taken status to a new low.
Hotels across various brands are playing this kind of customer-unfriendly game.
And given how some hotel owners/operators have hotels across multiple major hotel brands, the ideas spread from brand to brand and region to region as management share approaches with other hotel management in the region and other hotel management across regions where they either have properties or know company and industry colleagues. “Profitable” ways to stiff elite status customers unfortunately is only growing in popularity in the industry.
I have long suspected often the sweet is actually cleaned but they intentionally don’t change the status on the property management system.
Hotels, like airlines, are seeking more ways to make money. It would appear that their best tactic is go stingy on FF/travelers.
So, who screams the loudest? Quite obviously, it’s the travelers whose rooms and tickets are paid by their corporate bosses. Next up, the bosses get to choose which airlines you fly and which hotel’s pillow you get to cry on.
No matter what you holler, you are not entitled.
The Courtyard Tulsa also used housekeeping hours as an excuse to deny late checkout: “all of
Our housekeepers go home at 3 so the latest we will ever extend checkout is 2pm.” I don’t recall housekeeping hours in the Ts&Cs. This was in a Sunday when they clearly had very low occupancy.
The Ritz FLL also looked they had a lot of suites this weekend based on occupancy (and a quick check for available suites during our stay confirmed this.). The desk agent did some perfunctory typing on the keyboard and apologized they were all committed. Sometimes I just want to go to my room and not argue about this kind of thing when I’m on vacation.
This is NOT exclusive to Marriott.
100 nights in Hyatt. Spent probably close to 45K USD last year
Went to all inclusive property and was basically told my Globalist status didn’t mean much and when I quoted Hyatt policy on upgrades was told we don’t do it that way here . I could do paid upgrade or take room I purchased.
I opened a case and hotel continued to lie about what was and was not available despite me having screen captures at time of checkin and than just stopped responding
IAD_flyer, you are correct in your suspicion. It’s most noticeable at hotels where the housekeepers are all gone by or even well before 6pm, at 8pm there is supposedly no cleaned suite for an upgrade, but then at 9pm the last suite is booked and occupied.
I’ve heard that kind of housekeeping excuse used too that Michael experienced.
The interesting thing is that it’s often cheaper/easier for hotels to get housekeepers to work Sunday late afternoon/evening and Monday morning than to get the work done Saturday evening, Sunday morning and early Sunday afternoon. But even otherwise, the hotels like to deny late checkout so they can squeeze as many room cleanings in as they can without paying for extra housekeeping hours. The hotels willing to sacrifice the loyalty program elite status customers on the late checkout benefit do so because they want to go cheap on housekeeping costs.
Paying for what you want specifically is usually best, but even then it’s not guaranteed. I’ve paid for specific rooms with particular views only to show up for check-in and learn that either that room isn’t available or I’ve been ‘upgraded’ to an inferior or different room that I did not want. There are games being played on us and it’s really challenging to win against these big companies.
@Gene
That’s what we call an unethical life-pro tip. Perfectly ‘legal’ just like how the hotels ‘unethically’ do not upgrade you even though a better room is available but they don’t ‘technically’ have to.
@Mantis
The problem with your theory is that we, the consumers, do not have readily available access to that information (whether the hotel is dishonorable with upgrades), unless someone like Gary posts about it, and even then, it’s only anecdotally accurate, not objective or consistent.
@ Mets Fan NC, I’ve heard pretty consistently the AI offerings by Hyatt barely give two shits about status. As much as AI offerings is a focus of Hyatt HQ, they seem not to realize (or perhaps care) that these places simply don’t give a shit about the Hyatt brand outside of the increased revenue it offers. Given the nature of AI properties, the only real elite perk they have to offer is a better room, and even that seems like something they’re loathe to do.