Originally Posted by
The Road Goes On Forever
At the end of the day, none of that should be surprising. Nothing with HH is guaranteed. Early check in, late check out, upgrades - it's all up to the hotel's discretion/interpretation. Maybe it shouldn't be that way, but it is. When a Diamond guest "escalates" things with me, I print off a copy of the T's and C's and tell them that they can have whatever they want, as soon as they can show me where it's listed as a guaranteed benefit. After fifteen years, I'm still batting 1000.
Not trying to keep your most loyal guests happy and make them spend more money with you should always be surprising. Just because a benefit is subject to availability / not guaranteed doesn't mean that the benefit doesn't exist.
I have never ever went into a confrontation over an upgrade, I don't even do the "asking for an upgrade" but once I find out that a particular hotel thinks they can make money out of my loyalty without giving me anything in return, they will not see another cent from me. Yes, I know the upgrade is not guaranteed, it's your legal right to not give me one, but then I don't see a point in staying with you instead of a much cheaper independent hotel.
Originally Posted by
The Road Goes On Forever
It's all about the hotel's interpretation of how they classify rooms. To them, that room type might be an "upgrade" for whatever reason. Same thing at the HIS I'm at. Diamond auto upgrades are only from a standard king to a king with a pullout sofa. Is there a difference in the room past the sofa bed? Nope. Is it possible to be auto upgraded if you reserve a two-queen room? Nope. Is it possible to be auto upgraded to a suite? Nope.
Right, because a single traveller will somehow benefit from a pullout sofa. And you wonder why guests are unhappy. This is the kind of customer service I could somehow accept when Hotel Mir in Kyiv pseudoupgraded me to a worse room on my 20€ rate few years ago, not from any decent hotel that charges hundreds of euros per night, large chunk of it because they're part of a chain.