daw617

Can someone educate me? What is Starwood's policy about this? (This isn't intended as a whine -- I truly would rather know the policy for the future.)

I recently had a Starwood stay where I booked a king non-smoking room [1], but when I arrived late in the evening, they said there were no more king non-smoking rooms available any more -- they had given them all away -- and there were no upgrades available, either. I didn't give them a hard time, but since it has happened to me before, it made me wonder. What is the policy about this? (I'm Starwood Gold, if that's relevant.)

In particular, does anyone know what is Starwood's policy about room reservations? Do they give out favored rooms according to whoever books them first, or whoever shows up at the hotel first, or by some other policy? Is there any way, as a Starwood Gold, to get a specific room type guaranteed in advance? When you make a room reservation and specify a room type, is that type of room actually reserved, or is it just treated as some kind of "best-effort" request? I ask because, since I often travel for business, I often am stuck arriving late at night.

Do different chains have different policies about this?

Again, sorry if this comes off sounding whiny; that wasn't my intent. I'm primarily interested in gathering information for future reference. Thanks in advance for anything you might be able to share.


[1] When I was reserved the room in advance, I distinctly remember on the phone the representative saying "hmm, ok, I can give you a king non-smoking, but you might have to take an accessible room to get it" -- which was fine with me. I left with the impression that I had a king non-smoking reserved, but I don't think this was ever clearly stated, so perhaps my impression was wrong.