My first booking after obtaining IHG status, was at a Holiday Inn Express for a standard 2 Queens room. They "upgraded" us to a suite with 1 King Bed. The room was meaningfully larger (it was a more proper suite with the couch in a separate room with 2nd TV), but we wanted the two queen beds.

It was a bit of a hassle to get switched back to the right room, since they upgraded us the night before, and assigned our room to someone else. They eventually figured it out, but only after standing at the desk for 15 minutes while they called guests to figure out if they had any no shows. Partway through, I offered to just take the suite and use the sofa bed since I felt bad for their situation (and as long as the sofa bed was comfortable - would have worked out great. But they aren't always comfortable in my experience), but they insisted. Eventually we did get a 2 queen room. It may have put another guest arriving later, in our same situation, I'm not sure on that part haha. But yeah, don't "upgrade" to a room with less beds...