Las Vegas - Virtuoso upgrade at Mandarin

I booked a stripe view suite through a Virtuoso agent. The next room up is the dynasty suite, which is 4x the price. Has anyone had experience with Virtuoso upgrades at the Mandarin? Would they upgrade to that suite, pending availability?

as per T&Cs with MO Las Vegas no chance... of course sometimes in life the gods smile down on you, so good luck!

Damn! oh well. Should have just booked City View room then.

Funny, I did the damn same thing, and I read your thread about 30 minutes after checking into my Strip View Suite. When I questioned the front desk about the Virtuoso upgrade, she told me I was in the highest capacity suite which a Virtuoso upgrade enables. Now why didn't my TA know that?

This was, of course, after she spent 10 minutes trying to upsell me to the Apex Suite, which is the 1400 sq ft suite I really wanted and was hoping to get through Virtuoso. They wanted an additional $750 or so, on top of the $525 I paid for the room. That wasn't going to happen.

The Strip View Suite was quite nice, albeit a tad bit small IMHO, but still great.

Then after a few drinks late last night, I called down to the manager on duty and inquired about a last minute upgrade to the Apex Suite for the following day (today) for the last night. I negotiated him down to $600 and took it. Swapped rooms today (which wasn't as pleasant or easy a process as it should have been at the MO), and I must say, this is an impressive piece of real estate. 1400 sq feet with amazing floor to ceiling strip views on three sides including the "apex" at the corner. Large kitchen, dining room and living area coupled with a massive walk in closet and a bathroom that I am still stunned by. The sinks overlook the Vegas strip, there's a large jacuzzi and steam shower as well. The bathroom is probably about 300 sq ft itself.

Quite the suite.

MO LV has been fairly stingy with Virtuoso upgrades. For my customers, I usually book a guestroom category and set the expectation a one-category upgrade per Virtuoso will likely result in a larger room or better view...if I book them into an entry level suite, the property will usually upgrade the view or if occupancy is low and I call ahead to ask nicely, the next category suite. Complete opposite experience at the MO BKK where a simple email to the GM resulted in my customer getting a huge suite and a big birthday cake with the staff singing for her at dinner....so different hotels will yield different results with this program.

I've had to counsel a number of customers about Virtuoso (and Amex, Four Seasons, etc etc) program expectations around upgrades - the hotel will definitely not upgrade you from a guestroom to the best available suite even if occupancy is low.

Many Starwood hotels are far more generous with suite upgrades to Platinum members than a good number of Virtuoso properties, which I find frustrating given the Virtuoso rates we often book are higher than the BAR or a discount program.

Before booking a Virtuoso rate (any Virtuoso registered TA should be helping you figure this out), determine if the included benefits (free meal, gift, spa credit, etc etc) are going to be used during your stay and balance out against a lower non-Virtuoso rate and paying for those benefits on your folio. If someone tells me they won't be eating the continental breakfast or using the spa, I always suggest the higher Virtuoso rate is not their best value unless the hotel is offering Virtuoso packages for the same cost as BAR.

A good TA should also be checking for non-Virtuoso packages - ie stay x get x night(s) free, book x room, get an upgrade to x suite, etc etc....MO LV has these deals throughout the year and are often a better value.