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.
Hey DCS, Manhattan apartments don’t have a view of the Manhattan skyline.
The Ivy League is a sports association with no bearing on the quality of research produced by faculty in any particular department of any particular member college or university.
G’day!
[portions of comment removed – gary]
@Eileen — Assuming that is where I live, Roosevelt Island is part of Manhattan (including area code 212). All else is just trash talk. Good luck.
@DCS you have serious issues my dear
@John — Ok, you got me. I am now on the couch. Go ahead and tell me about my so-called “issues”, which, I am sure, will end up laying bare your own, just as it did of those tried the same thing before you upthread. I guarantee it. Go on. Let’s here about my ‘issues’.
There are Manhattan apartments which do have a view of a lot of the Manhattan Skyline. For example, there are apartments in the LES of Manhattan where some of the higher floor apartments and the rooftops have great views of the Manhattan skyline. And a lot of other apartments elsewhere in Manhattan have a view of a part of the Manhattan skyline too.
Roosevelt Island is a separate island from Manhattan. Merely being lumped together with the Manhattan borough doesn’t make Roosevelt the same island as Manhattan.
Roosevelt Island is part of Manhattan. Period. Its inhabitants have one of the most breathtaking views of the Manhattan skyline. The Island is also one of the official viewing sites of most Macy’s July 4th fireworks. You can hyperventilate all you want, as usual. It won’t change those facts.
G’day.
The defense by DCS of Roosevelt Island is emblematic of his biggest issue: lack of pragmatism.
Manhattan subsumes Roosevelt Island in administrative terms only. As noted by GUWonder, Roosevelt Island is physically, geographically separate. Ask an unbiased New Yorker about Manhattan and they will think of midtown and below (no coincidence this defines the new congestion pricing zone) as well as the UES and UWS up to ~100th St. Exact thresholds vary but far north neighborhoods like Washington Heights are even moreso part of Manhattan than Roosevelt Island–because Washington Heights is physically within the island boundaries of Manhattan–but so far uptown as to not be walkable to anything of interest with respect to the arts, culture, entertainment, retail, dining, high finance and professional services that made Manhattan what it is.
Along the same pragmatic lines, Hilton hotel points are as valuable as any other in only the uncommon case of a consumer who earns points strictly within a hotel program. Every hotel chain’s points scheme amounts to a ~15% rebate. But the reason everybody but DCS says Hilton points are worth less is that an overwhelming majority of points earned by consumers are through credit card programs: Chase Ultimate Rewards, AMEX Membership Rewards, BILT Rewards. Points from card programs transfer 1-to-1 to all hotels. To illustrate, 50,000 BILT points transfer to either 50,000 Hilton points or 50,000 Hyatt points. The former equals one night at a standard full service Hilton. The latter equals four nights at a standard full service Hyatt (e.g. Regency). Hyatt points are the most valuable. It is laughable to suggest any different.
The most incredulous issue with DCS is his unabashed, shameful level of arrogance. He fancies himself an Ivy League professor. No respectable Ivy League professor would describe themselves that way in an academic context, let alone on an anonymous travel blog where credentials mean nothing because a comment ought to stand alone. But shall we have a look at the scholarly (peer reviewed publication) record of DCS over the last several years? Let’s count the number of publications on which he was lead author, by year.
Number of first-author pubs in 2024: 0
Number of first-author pubs in 2023: 0
Number of first-author pubs in 2022: 0
Number of first-author pubs in 2021: 1
Now let’s count the number of citations which those pubs have received to date.
Total number of scholarly citations to the above publications, to date: 0
Whoever you are you do not deserve to be in this medium. Whatever you think you know about scholarly work is clearly flawed.
I call upon the site host to enforce the most basic standard of discussion boards, which is respect for privacy.
Goodbye, Eileen, or whoever you are. Forever. The soapbox is yours. Knock yourself out.
@DCS. For starters, I would suggest you have anger and self-awareness issues with potential NPD disorder. Such is your clear contempt for other people, one wonders what your mission on here is…
@John — Read the thread. You will see that I tried to avoid being drawn into the mindless debate that finally took place, with commenter(s) ending up exposed themselves as clueless.
You are baking up the wrong tree.
@John — Read the thread. You will see that I tried to avoid being drawn into the mindless debate that finally took place, with the two commenter(s) ending up exposing themselves as clueless.
You are baking up the wrong tree.
Transferring BILT points 1:1 to Hyatt points vs. 1:1 to Hilton points, what’s wrong with that? Simple: It’s apples vs. oranges because it ignores the cost of acquiring 50K Hilton points vs. that of acquiring 50K Hyatt points?
We could use just credit cards earnings, but it is actually not true that everyone earns their hotel points through credit cards. That is true only for World of Hyatt, which runs almost no global promos, and has the lowest % bonus on purchased points, making these the most expensive to purchase.
50K WoH points will cost you : 50K WoH points/(10.5WoH points/$) = $4,762
50K HH points will cost you : 50K HH points/(32HHpoints/$) = $1,563
See the problem with the highly simplistic comparison of 50K WoH points vs. 50K HH points? One is comparing WoH points that would cost 3X more ( $4,762) to acquire than HH points ( $1,563) !!! Apples vs. Oranges, which is why the “return on the dollar” or RoD is the correct metric to use to compare various points currencies. !!! Things can be even worse depending on how much it cost to acquire the 50K BILT points that are transferred 1:1.
Q.E.D
That is how truly clueless you are, “Eileen” .
Had to post multiple small pieces because entire comment won’t post as one piece.
Gary — please toss this impostor out of here, for the integrity of your site.
G’day
@ DCS — I guess you finally realized that your “all hotel points are equal” nonsense was incorrect after all. Make up your mind. Which is it today?
Someone here with a better memory or search skills than I please point to the numerous comments where DCS insistsed that “all hotel points are equal”!
For your edification, the comment affirms it, but, of course, you would know nothing about that, and clearly never will.
Final Parting Shot
“Eileen”, darlin’, I wanted to see just how much more rope you would give me to hang you with, but I guess I will have to do with what you already provided, which is plenty.
If you knew the first thing about scholarly research, you would be aware that first-authorship on publications is reserved for postdoctoral fellows and junior professors who are still trying to make a name for themselves, rather than for senior/full professors who are running labs as mentors.
Show me a full professor who is first author on many papers from his or her lab, and I will show you someone who is a lousy mentor because (s)he is taking advantage of junior investigators to promote him/herself, when it should be the other way around.
That is how truly clueless you are, “Eileen” . One can only hope that the only reason you have not shown up is that you’ve been tossed out of here.
DCS needs to be thanked for being an example. An example of how digging one’s self into a deeper and deeper hole distracts from the points made earlier and undermines the arguments used on behalf of a company providing services to frequent travelers.
?????? (☉_ ☉) ??????
No more back-and-forth? I find it fun to listen to pathetic posters who imagine their credentials are impressive. It’s kind of like Andy on The Office thinking his constant reference to Cornell is impressive. Or, DJT and 2 Broke Girls and Wharton.