I wish more places offered this: there are a lot of times when I'd pay 50% of a night to have a guaranteed room at 8AM.

There are cases when I'd even be willing to book the night before, pay a full extra night to get into the room at 8AM, but a lot of hotel systems can't even handle this: it becomes no-show at some point in the middle of the night.

I've certainly gotten into rooms early as a courtesy, but I understand it's a completely space-available courtesy. In those cases, I'm prepared to accept a "sorry, we're full" response and dump my luggage at the bell desk until 3PM.

I have yet to run into a case where the front desk clerk said they had available rooms but wanted money for them...even when you didn't attempt to prebook one. Wasn't aware of the practice in Asia...frankly, that almost sounds like something you'd see in Vegas.