Originally Posted by CanadaDH

Are you talking about hotels offering paid access to the lounge from a non-Gold room, or offering a paid upgrade to a Gold floor room, which would then give you access. I've only once been offered to buy lounge access, but doesn't every hotel offer paid upgrades to unsold higher level rooms and suites to guests when available, which would logically also include Gold rooms? I've enquired more than once, when staying in a non-Gold suite (because the Gold suite I wanted was unavailable when I booked) if I could buy lounge access, and have been denied almost every time. All the hotel would ever do for me, is show me what Gold rooms were available, if that I wanted to change to one of them, I could get access.

The one time I was offered the chance to buy access, was in Boston at the Copley Plaza. The FD agent told me they were allowed to sell lounge access, but only up to the number of unsold Gold rooms they had at the time.