Having a room assigned to you, essentially. I worked at a property of about 350 rooms, and only about 20 concierge level rooms. It was very hard to give out upgrades as everyone elite member wanted one. Seeing that VC e-mails go out about a week before your arrival, chances of an upgrade go up dramatically.

All Gold and Plats were pre-blocked day of arrival. Keep in mind that some properties may handle this differently, but we pre blocked day of arrival to guarantee room type requests (king bed or 2 queens). If you are silver or below it is likely that no one on property has looked at your reservation until you come to check in.