Originally Posted by
bhrubin
For the record, hotels in Sydney:
Sheraton Grand Sydney Hyde Park, 510 rooms, 48 suites, 8.6% suites
Westin Sydney, 397 rooms, 19 suites, 4.6% suites
Pier One Sydney Harbour, 171 rooms, 18 suites, 9.5% suites
Sydney Harbour Marriott Circular Quay, 543 rooms. 52 suites, 8.7% suites
Old Clare Sydney, 45 rooms, 17 suites, 27% suites
Four Points Sydney Central Park, 252 rooms. 45 suites, 15% suites
Courtyard Sydney North Ryde. 188 rooms, 8 suites, 4.1% suites
We can assume that over half of any hotel’s suites are not going to be eligible for Platinum upgrades or SNAs. Perhaps even as high as 3/4. When you recognize that basic fact, it’s obvious that getting a suite upgrade at hotels with fewer than 10% suites is going to be challenging. And that assumes low occupancy. At higher occupancy, more suites may be outright booked, and there will be more competition for higher room bookings and elites to get upgraded into such a small number of suites. The numbers don’t lie.
Why can we assume that 1/2 or 3/4 of the hotel's suites aren't in the Plat upgrade pool or aren't available for SNAs? We have no way of knowing this without knowing something about the hotel's numbers of suites of each category, and even with this information, in many cases we would just be guessing. A hotel can have a small number of suites, all identical, and put them all in the Plat upgrade pool. Another hotel can have only specialty suites and normally refuse to allow them to be given either as Plat upgrades or for SNAs. It varies enormously and of course also depends on the GM's attitude.
ADDED: I also disagree with the assertion that the free Plat upgrade pool is the same as (or includes all of the suite categories in) the set of suites available for SNAs.