Vuelos

Am I correct that this is still in place? My upgraded King Bed room was changed today to a 2 bedded room... great anniversary gift

Yes, I was on a paid not a points stay as well.

MSPeconomist

Did they give you the option of the room category you reserved with a king bed? Sometimes getting an upgrade means not getting the bedding you requested, but IMO the hotel should tell you and ask which you prefer.

I recently accepted a switch from one king to two doubles in order to get a room on the club floor. However, this was discussed explicitly at check in and I was given a choice of a standard room on a lower floor with one king or the room on the top floor near the lounge with two beds. The room was small and almost cell like but it had interesting views.

Starwood Lurker

Yes, if it was a paid-rate reservation and you did not get the room type you reserved, a call to Corporate Customer Care is in order.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Social Media Specialist
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

Vuelos

No other room to offer as they were sold last night. I had called earlier in the day when I noticed the room type change and was told the same. The FD manager apologized and admitted if they were changing my bedding type to provide a higher (non suite, then again I never seem to get suites) upgrade they should have called, especially as this stay is a special occasion...

Thanks William. Offer from hotel was 5k & a bottle of champagne, think that's ok... enough for just less than 1/3 of a free night as apparently Maui is now peak season all year...

MSPeconomist

What was the champagne? BTW, congrats on the anniversary. You're celebrating it in a nice place.

Vuelos

Champagne never arrived... when I took issue at check out they waived the $25/night resort charge.

I moved over to the Sheraton Maui for the last 5 nights of the stay (pints this time vs a paid rate). Excellent RESORT property, great upgrade (non-suite though, I am batting under 15% this year as a PLT) and proper bed type this time...

Out of my Element

See kids? This is why it pays to be a blood donor!

Globex

Hi there,

Read through the 5 pages, but didn't seem to see my question - just wanted to confirm whether status has anything to do with the bedding/smoking preferences on the guarantee?

Does any paid stay guarantee bedding/smoking preferences or only if you're gold/plat?

Thanks!

Starwood Lurker

No, status has nothing to do with this.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Social Media Specialist
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

sbtinme

I have an interesting scenario that I've never experienced before vis a vis BEDDING TYPE. I guess I've been lucky that on every single award stay in my life, I've always received the bedding type that I've booked. I've suspected that having Plat status probably helped me over the years in this regard.

But, a stay that I booked perhaps a week ago for a mid-March five night stay in San Antonio started to look weird yesterday. In short, I booked a KING room and received the confirmation email confirming such.

Late yesterday, I see that reservation on line has been altered now to a QUEEN room, which is not what I want at all. There are two of us in the room and, frankly, we don't sleep well in a queen bed. We have a King bed at home and that's what we're used to.

I guess implicit in my understand of the lack of bedding type guarantee for award stays has always been that the hotel still makes an honest effort to grant booked bedding types to 99.999% of bookings. In this case, I know that the hotel is now apparently sold out for one or more nights of my stay.

Question: is it acceptable for a hotel to change booked bedding types on an award stay 5 weeks in advance to best suit the hotel's needs?

If so, I don't like that one bit. Seems to me they have an obligation to make every effort to accomodate booked bedding types, even if they aren't guaranteed, per se. It never occured to me that a hotel might be able to put award stay guests in lesser rooms than booked due to sell out conditions weeks in advance.

Thoughts?

tyn

You mention that the hotel is sold out on nights during your stay.
If that is the case, first they will assign room to all paid stays based on booked room type/bedding as these are guaranteed.
What's left in room inventory after that gets assigned to award reservation with no guaranteed bedding/non smoking etc preference and group reservations with run of the house room assignment.

You cannot hold them to giving you a king bed room if all these rooms are booked by paying guests, only thing you can do is pray for cancellations and check if the room category with the queen bed they assigned to you matches the room category you booked.

Of course hotels will make an honest effort to accommodate your bedding preference, but if that kind of bedding is sold out and you are on an award stay you will find yourself at the bottom of the food chain.

sbtinme

Right. I understand the logistics of it all, but it never occurred to me that they'd start changing booked bedding types a full five weeks out. That really threw me.

jli

Seeing that Lurker says that bedding type and smoking preference are guarantee on a paid stay, I have a question which I would like to ask about. Recently my family booked a hotel in SE Asia for stay in next week, which we noticed that the particular room type that we are trying to book only show availability for smoking room. As a matter of fact, we have booked a refundable rate, and then we sent an email to the hotel property requesting for non-smoking room.

And here's the reply we receive from the property.
It seems that the property does not guarantee anything here, and that indeed the property should have non-smoking room in that period just it doesn't show any inventories on the SPG site. In this case, how should I interpret, if, say the hotel in the end fails to provide any non-smoking room?

It seems like the hotel property is in a much more favourable situation because they do not guarantee anything to me, but indeed I should receive a guarantee from them because bedding type and smoking preferences are guarantee in paid stays.

Starwood Lurker III

Hi jli,

When we say that bedding type and smoking preference are guaranteed on a paid stay, it means if you book for a non-smoking room, the hotel should arrange a non-smoking room for you.

As in the situation you mentioned, you booked for a smoking room so the hotel would arrange a smoking room for you. If you would like to request for a non-smoking room, this is not guaranteed as it is not what you pay for.

Best Regards,

Christina Zhou
Social Media Specialist
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide

[email protected]

jli

I booked for the smoking room because the online site shows nothing but smoking room, that is, I have not been given any choice to choose to book a non-smoking room (for that particular room type). I e-mail the property asking non-smoking room availability and receive the reply saying they acknowledge the request and would try to accommodate it.

In that sense, to my interpretation, the hotel property does have non-smoking room but they didn't put it into inventories, or, they already sold out all non-smoking room and they are just simply "acknowledging my requests" and thus have no obligation to honour it. Weird?

I thought non-smoking room/smoking room should be something that need not to be decided upon check-in. If they have, then they gonna have. If they don't have, then they just don't have.