Originally Posted by
CJKatl
Scenario One: You are checking in and a Plat will be checking in later. The room is being held for the Plat, but if someone comes into the hotel willing the pay for the room, the Plat will lose the UG.
Scenario Two: The hotel has one room left available for the night and gets several walk-ins on an average night. The only room left is a more expensive room, but the hotel has a history of selling the more expensive room to walk-ins. Is the hotel supposed to forgo likely revenue just because you reserved a less expensive room but want more? If I were running the hotel, I wouldn't be looking at the more expensive room as available.
Scenario Three: You look online and see a room available, but when you go to actually reserve the room, you get an error message. (That has happened to me several times.)
In scenario one: Shouldn't I as a gold then be offered the opportunity to purchase that room being held for the plat? I think the problem though is most properties won't do this, since it opens up the can of worms where then they need to explain "oh well that room wasn't really the best available for the purpose of YOUR upgrade, but if you pay for it, it is available...just ignore that whole "free of charge" part of the benefit." I think it would become more problematic all-around.
In scenario two: To emphasize, my original post was about observing this behavior at
resort properties. My sense is that the walk-in at a resort would be less likely. Regardless, I agree with you, the hotel shouldn't forgo revenue in situations like you describe, but this is all the more reason Marriott should just change the wording of the benefit to something more about being a one category upgrade for golds, and two for plats. There is really nothing subjective about the wording now, and "available at check-in, except in the case of a room that has a history of being sold later on" is really not the spirit of the promise.
I've never experienced scenario three with Marriott.