Completely normal over in Hilton-land. Haven't yet run into it in Marriott-land.

I've taken them up on the offer a few times: the value for me has been redeeming a 5-night HH award at a high-end property and then paying $75-100/nt to confirm a large suite that I know they'd never give away for free to a Diamond.

The emails say "standby", but IME if you can tell the room category is available, and you accept their offer, the hotel updates your reservation fairly quickly after you accept. They're confirming NOR1's days ahead of time - well before a comp elite upgrade would happen.

Where Hilton sometimes fails in the execution is sending Diamonds $20-30/nt. upgrade offers to room types that they should upgrade you to as part of the status. We have threads on that board saying basically "Why should I have to pay for this?"

It'll be interesting to see how Marriott implements this...if it is starting to become more popular here.