Originally Posted by
The_Daddy
What you define "gracious and generous and when you state "they are going above and beyond", you are subjective interpretating a "space of manouver" within the programme of each individual property that instead, in my subjective opinion, create confusion and sometimes frustration (maybe in other case can generate as well unexpected positive surprise). But I'm not for surprise, i would like to know what I should expect, and what not. If platinum checking in the same day of arrival after me have been upgrade to Diplomatic and De luxe, while I have been not because they said they are solid booked....I think I have a point.
And if they said that those suite are not in the programme while I have seen them giving them out to other platinum....I think I have a point too.
And if they said that rooms available cannot be given to me because they want to hold in case of incoming reservation (I repeat: checked in at 08. pm and checking out 08 am the morning after)....I thin I have a point too.
The property can of course confronts guests....but it will be each time an interpretation of the programme and we will never know if, as someone correctly just said (IMHO), that's a policy in place of ir they are making up rules to fit the error: because those rules are not written anywhere and in my case they are not generating a benefit, actually viceversa. We are both assuming here: but I was there, I have seen it, and i don't think they were gracious and generous. Actually the opposite.
And all this happens because the programme is discretionally enforced.
I appreciate your vision and I found completely logical all of of your comments. But you seems to believe they are over generously treating guests while I have the impression they "manipulate" the programme based on their needs.
But you keep saying
the programme and suggesting that the hotel is not following the SPG program for Platinum Upgrades.
Everything that you stated as your experience at this hotel in your original post suggests that the hotel is 100% following the SPG program.
What you are complaining about is that the hotel also has its own internal program quite apart from the SPG program whereby it also upgrades Platinum members who book higher category rooms to suite categories higher in level than that dictated by the SPG Platinum Upgrade policy.
But I'm not for surprise, i would like to know what I should expect, and what not
The hotel has very clearly demonstrated/told you what you should expect when you book a standard room and it is exactly what SPG policy mandates - an upgrade to a standard suite. Over and beyond that they have told you that if you were to book a higher category room the hotel itself goes beyond the requirements of the SPG program and upgrades to even better suites.
Saying
I'm not for surprise. I would like to know what I should expect is really asking the hotels to only provide the bare minimum upgrade required by the SPG program because anything over and above an upgrade to the best available
room or
select standard suite is not something that you can expect or that you are entitled to.
Once a hotel has provided the upgrade to level that is required by the SPG program any further benefit is totally up to them. The hotel is perfectly entitled to decide how to allocate its rooms. It might allocate Deluxe Suites to Platinum members who book Club level rooms or it might allocate them to Platinum members who are very frequent guests at that particular hotel or it might even allocate them to
non-Platinum members who provide a lot of revenue to that individual hotel. They could provide those super upgrades based on hair colour if they wanted to although I would hope and expect that they would use one of the other rationales listed above.
Expecting and demanding what you are not entitled to is the quickest way IMHO to discourage the hotels from ever providing more than the bare minimum that is stipulated by the SPG program. There are enough hotels that don't even provide what is stipulated in the program in terms of upgrades to a standard suite - those are the hotels we need to be fighting with/complaining to SPG about, not the ones like the one you are describing that are providing your Platinum entitlement