If you’re like me, you need a hotel suite upgrade and don’t really care what room you get on a short business stay. My only really strong preference is not to have a connecting room, those don’t tend to isolate sound very well, and what I want most is a quiet room.

Most of the time my elite status gets me into club lounges, and ‘club level’ upgrades are nearly meaningless. With most city hotels I don’t much care about the views. My work-related stays are generally short.

But traveling for leisure, I’m generally not alone, the stays are often a bit longer, and I really enjoy an upgraded room. A hotel suite upgrade matters. Some people don’t share me feelings in valuing that, and that’s cool, they think “I’m on vacation and I’m not going to spend much time in the room, so why do I need a view of the ocean from my room when I’ll see the ocean from the beach?” But to me if I’m going to stay on the beach I want to see the ocean, when I wake up in the morning or when I go to bed at night. I value that upgrade.

And I’ve had some great upgrades, and spent a good bit of time thinking about how to get those upgrades.

• Here’s how to ask for – and get – an upgrade.
  
• Tipping at check-in for hotel upgrades

The Most and Least Generous Programs for Upgrades Based on Elite Status

Some programs are great at offering up upgrades as a benefit of elite status. For the most part those are also the programs which are the best at offering upgrades to non-elites on points.

The best elite-status upgrades are offered by Hyatt Gold Passport and Starwood Preferred Guest.

• Hyatt allows their Diamond members to upgrade paid stays at time of booking four times per year, up to 7 nights each time. They’re the only program offering true confirmed at booking suites, taking risk out of the equation. The only real downside is that these confirmed upgrades are available only on paid stays (including cash and points awards), not on pure points-only award stays.
  
• Starwood allows their Platinum members who have qualified based on staying at least 50 nights (but not who made 25 stays without 50 nights) to express priority or preference for an upgrade up to 10 nights per year, with those upgrades assigned beginning 5 nights prior to arrival. These are valid on paid or award stays.

Marriott has removed the exclusion of suites from their program, so has Hilton, but in neither case are suites really a benefit of the program to the extent that if a suite is available the hotel is obliged to provide it based on status. (Put another way, if a suite is available at a Hilton or a Marriott and the hotel doesn’t give that room to a top tier elite member, they’ve done nothing wrong in the eyes of the program.)

IHG Rewards Club doesn’t really offer suites as a program benefit at all. Of course some hotels may be more generous than the programs they are a part of require.

Unsurprisingly, then, Starwood and Hyatt also offer the best upgrade possibilities for non-status members. Although Starwood’s upgrades are much more expensive than Hyatt’s.

IHG Rewards Club: Goose Egg for Points Upgrades

The loyalty program for Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza, etc. does not offer award nights for anything but base-level rooms. This is also the points redemption program for Intercontinental hotels, those tend to have quite a few suites but there’s no way to use points to redeem for a suite. And IHG Rewards Club is also the only program that does not honor most elite benefits (like upgrades) on award stays, so if you spend points for a room an elite can’t count on an upgrade either — though some hotel properties go above and beyond these minimum requirements

This is why on anything but a short city stay I really don’t like spending IHG Rewards Club points. While I did get a junior suite of sorts at the Intercontinental New York Times Square, and they honored the Royal Ambassador minibar benefit, their welcome letter specifically said such benefits aren’t honored on award stays. That makes me feel like an unvalued guest.

What the letter says your status isn’t entitled to at the Intercontinental Times Square

IHG Rewards Club is in my view the worst major program for getting upgraded rooms on points, whether you are an elite member or not.

The separate program IHG has for Intercontinental hotels — and its associated Royal Ambassador status — is a different story. Not inherently great on award stays, but it gave me some of my best upgrades on paid stays.

Intercontinental Montelucia

Hilton: Hotel Suite Upgrade Options are Mediocre, Based on Price of Upgraded Room

Up until mid-2011 there was no way to use HHonors points for upgrades — whether on a paid rate to get into a better room, or to spend more points for a better room on an award night. Then they rolled out new benefits.

The way they created the option for a hotel suite upgrade is to basically let you use points for better rooms based on the price of those rooms.

So an award night costs a fixed number of points based on the room category that a given hotel is in. The regular room might be 50,000 points per night, regardless of the rate that the hotel is getting for that night’s stay.

But if you want an upgraded room, they’ll take the price of the room on the given night and use your points as cash at a fixed value to ‘buy’ that room. That means if the room rate for the upgraded room is inexpensive on a given night, the points price is inexpensive. If the room is being advertised at a high rate, it can take a ton of points for the room. I’ve seen some rooms advertised at over half a million points per night.

Conrad Bangkok

Conrad New York

It’s always work comparing the different rooms being offered at booking to see which one best matches what you’re looking for. And since premium room award prices vary based on the price of the room you’re booking, it’s also worth checking back because if the price falls the points price does too, you may want to cancel and rebook later.

Sometimes you don’t even need an upgrade — the base room at the Conrad Koh Samui

Marriott Allows Upgrades But Doesn’t Make It Easy or Cheap

Marriott offers both paid upgrades (book a base-level room on points and add cash to buy up to a better room) and points upgrades (spend additional points for the better room). They don’t offer the ability to use points to upgrade a paid reservation.

One room upgrade costs 5000 points per night. But some hotels require multiple 5000 point upgrades. And what that gets you varies by hotel.

A paid upgrade is described as follows:

At select hotels you can pay for an upgrade on a cost per night basis. The specific price varies by hotel and will be charged to your room during your stay.

It’s hard to imagine this is described as a benefit of the program and it’s something you can do with pretty much any hotel, book a room and ask them how much money they want for a better room. I’ve done this many times with many hotels and it’s often best to negotiate with the property directly.

But this is also the chain that trumpeted the rollout of a new ‘feature’ they called cash and points — the ability to combine a paid booking and a points booking on a single reservation. When you could already book a paid night and a points night consecutively, the only difference now is you can use one confirmation number. A huge benefit! Not what we usually think of as ‘cash and points’, other chains let you combine cash with points for discounted reward night reservations.

Starwood: Good, and Often Expensive, Upgrade Options

Starwood will allow you to use points for upgrades on paid stays only on specific (“RACK, COR, SET, or BAR”) rates, only within 5 days of arrival, and it’s quite pricey — a suite upgrade costs the same number of points as a standard room award per night. So if you’re paying ‘best available rate’ at a category 4 property, then if a suite is available 5 days prior to arrival you can spend 10,000 points per night for to confirm the suite.

Starwood offers upgrades for additional points on top of the regular award night price. Suites cost double where available. A category 4 award night is 10,000 points. A category 4 suite night is 20,000 points.

Westin Siray Bay, Phuket

W San Diego

There are lesser upgrades as well, and those vary in number of points based on the hotel category and the quality of upgrade based on hotel. Some upgrades are almost unnoticeable. Others are meaningful. You pretty much have to call Starwood, ask them for the room description attached to each upgraded award rate plan to find out what you’re going to get. I’ve booked junior suite awards in Italy for a very modest number of points, other times spending 1500 extra points per night wouldn’t get you anything you’d recognize as an upgrade. So this can be a good deal or not a good deal, you have to investigate for each stay.

Hyatt: The Best Value Upgrades, By Far

Whereas Starwood wants double points to redeem award nights in a suite, Hyatt offers standard suites for about a 60% premium over regular free night awards.

There’s a 3 night minimum stay on these redemptions, and there are a handful of properties where you cannot spend additional points for suites.

These awards book into the base-level suite, as indicated on each hotel property’s page on the Hyatt website. When a standard room isn’t available for redemption you can spend modest points for better rooms. And you can have the better experience, guaranteed at booking, even without status.

Bedroom of suite at Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur

Suites at some properties are only incrementally more expensive than regular rooms, I recall staying at the Hyatt in Bellevue Washington where a suite priced only at about $50 more than a regular room. But suites can also be several multiples of a regular room, even ten times as much, so spending ~60% more points can represent a huge value-per-point value there as well (of course you need to actually care about the room itself for this to matter).

A 60% premium can be a great deal at the Grand Hyatt Hong Kong (it guarantees you a harbor view), it’s also a great value at the Park Hyatt in Mendoza, a category 2 property where the suite is really quite nice.

Hyatt Gold Passport also offers what is by far the most generous points upgrade benefit for paid stays — even though it’s more expensive than a year ago.

Park Hyatt Chennai

You have to pay the ‘Hyatt Daily Rate’ rather than a discounted rate to be eligible to upgrade. And at resorts you have to pay for a deluxe (eg partial ocean view) room as well.

Here are the confirmed upgrade prices. Until a year ago this got you an upgrade for up to four nights, but it’s now the price per night.

You cannot book suite awards or upgrades online, it has to be done through Hyatt’s customer service center.

A hotel like the Westin Tokyo will cost an extra 12,000 – 15,000 Starpoints per night for a suite, confirmed only five nights in advance. Hyatt Gold Passport will let you confirm an upgrade at booking at the much nicer Park Hyatt Tokyo for just 6000 points per night.

A base-level member who cares about a hotel suite upgrade and pays for their stays could do a lot worse than getting the Hyatt Visa or a Chase Sapphire Preferred Card, earning points for their spending (and in the latter case transferring those points over to Hyatt Gold Passport) and using the points to upgrade to suites.