Originally Posted by toddml

I am afraid while in principal what you say makes sense it doesnt really work in my experineces at least.

I would never use SNA's for a important event as they are simply not reliable enough so for a birthday or honeymooon its pointless.

Originally Posted by toddml

A hotel could indeed preupgrade more than 5 days in advance but most hotels do not do this as they only tend to look at reservations coming up in next couple of days. Plus there will be some value from SPG for a cleared SNA to a hotel so it is more in their interest to have an SNA upgrade than just a Plat upgrade.

Originally Posted by toddml

Thus is I am a Plat that stays 50 nights a year I can upgrade 20% of my stays with SNAs, if like I you stay 100 nights a year you can have 10% upgraded and if your nearer 150 nights like me then its just pathetic.

Originally Posted by toddml

Now this is bad enough but my biggest issue is that before the SNA's existed there was a reasonable chance of getting an upgrade when you arrived at a hotel, now more often than not they do not upgrade because SNA's have taken the rooms and thus normal upgrades on arrival are decreased as well.

So while yes I agree it is possible for a hotel to help its regular stay guests by pre-upgrading more than 5 days ahead this means firstly you must book at least 5 days ahead where you stay the most but also means the hotel has to decide to proactively look at its guests arriving more than 5 days ahead.

Even if some hotels do this it does mean at any hotel you do not stay at regularly your chances of an upgrade without SNA's has been reduced considerably and the more you stay the lower percentage of stays you can use SNA's as demonstrated above and thus the more loyal you are the less the SNA system rewards you.