Originally Posted by baliktad

There may be some confusion about the Nor1 upgrade offer. A hotel chooses to participate in the Nor1 scheme. This gives them the ability to market paid upgrades to customers immediately after booking. However, the paid upgrade is NOT a confirmed upgrade (if it were, people could save hundreds or thousands by simply booking a regular room and always upgrading after booking). Instead, the upgrade offer works by committing the customer to pay for the upgrade if the upgrade is available at checkin. The hotel is not committed to grant the upgrade at all, and the customer has no confirmation that his upgrade is secure. The only thing that's changed is he has made a promise to pay for something the hotel can offer later at its discretion.

Let's say the hotel offers a suite upgrade for $100 extra after booking. The customer accepts the upgrade offer. Even though the hotel has offered an upgrade and he has accepted, his upgrade is not confirmed. At checkin, one of the following will happen:
1) The hotel grants the upgrade. The customer is now obligated to pay the $100 extra. The customer cannot decline to pay the upgrade fee and just take his regular booked room. This is important, for example, if the suite is smaller than expected, your spouse got sick and couldn't join you after all, etc. According to the terms of the Nor1 upgrade program, there is no upgrade opt-out at checkin.
OR
2) The hotel does not grant the upgrade. The customer doesn't have to pay anything extra. This possibility is the reason that the upgrades are offered for so much cheaper than the confirmed rates - you have no confirmation that the upgraded accommodations will be available.

The Nor1 upgrades are really a bad idea for most elites as the upgrades offered are generally those that are given for free anyway on checkin. If you opt-in to a Nor1 upgrade offer, you're really just promising to pay for an upgrade, that, if available, you might have gotten for free anyway.

[Note that Nor1 does offer some "upgrades" that are confirmed - these are usually items not subject to availability constraints like breakfast or internet packages. But most offerings, like a room facing a particular direction or early checkin/late checkout are still based on availability. If you accept the $20 early checkin offer and show up early, the hotel can still decline the offer. You don't have to pay anything, but you still showed up early and have no place to stay.]