Originally Posted by
bhrubin
My friend, that is a false equivalency. Presidential and other specialty suites never were included in the "guaranteed" pool for suite upgrades OR SNAs even with SPG. Nor are they included with Hyatt's "guarantee" either. Upgrades to those were rare and always have been at the hotel's discretion.
I agree, but the debate is whether properties are going to stick to the spirit of a set of rules and I was just pointing out that any reasonable person reading the rules wouldn’t actually follow them anyways. Hoping that properties definitely upgrade to a set of base level suites when there is no compulsory wording, nor a realistic description of what to upgrade strikes me as being incredibly optimistic. Starwood was very precise: best available, incl. select suites. It’s been decided in a programme with incredibly detailed terms not to use language which actually allows us to test compliance or not. That’s ominous at best.
That makes sense, and it isn't a downgrade to me. Premium rooms ALWAYS were part of the SNA pool for properties that had few suites--including many Sheraton, Westin, Le Meridien, Tribute, and especially Four Points.
Did you ever come across one of these? In every hotel that I checked for an SNA I never once found anything that wasn’t at least a Junior Suite (and those annoyed me). My SNA’s aren’t working online at the moment, but it sounds like minor room upgrades are now relatively common in Marriott properties. I’ve asked to apply SNA’s for a stay next week at the Hotel Arts (Ritz Carlton Barcelona), so we’ll see what they come back with. I’m also curious as to whether you24 is actually functional: I invoked it for a stay at “Al Maha” and was told that the property “would try” which I had to point out is not the point of You24.