leadhead

Hey all- longtime lurker here who could use some help from those with a bit more experience than myself. I've searched the forums quite a bit but haven't been able to find any threads addressing the situation I've encountered.

I'll be traveling to Madrid in a few months and was interested in booking a room at the Principal Madrid with points. Now, the SPG site says this property has no award availability for the dates in question (April 26-29). I do understand that the availability of award rooms should reflect the availability of base level rooms (none of which are available for purchase on spg.com). However, when I go to the design hotels or principal madrid websites, the base level rooms are indeed available for purchase through those websites.

I called the SPG gold hotline to inquire, but there was a bit of a language barrier and I didn't get much help outside of "My computer shows no availability for those dates."

So my questions are: 1) Do the design hotels only release a limited number of base level rooms to spg to be available for award redemption and (2) Is it possible to inquire about booking an award stay in an upgraded room for more points if the base level rooms are gone, and if so what is the best outlet to go about asking?

Thanks in advance for any help, I appreciate it!