tomatogrower

I'm planning on staying at this hotel in April, using the new certs for 2018 - my question is which upgrade cert should I use, the room upgrade or the suite upgrade? First time staying at this Fairmont.

Arthurrs

Try calling the hotel directly during regular office hours, and speak with one of their staff that books reservations directly, you may still be able to redeem both a room and suite upgrade simultaneously. It worked for me last year and the year before. If the planets line up for availability, the oceanfront suites are awesome! See my pics from earlier in this thread.

curl

We’ve always layered both certs at this property to get to OV suite. Book partial OV, use room, then suite. The in house res staff is lovely. We are on first-name basis 😁

curl

Always = 5 visits in last 5 years

tomatogrower

Oh wow, didn’t know you could stack them. I was planning to use 2 3rd night free certs too. I’ll give that a shot and see what their availability is. Curl are you able to do that through the FPC concierge or did you call the hotel directly?

Arthurrs

Call the hotel during their office hours, and talk with a staff member directly. Don't let them transfer you to the global reservations line, as those operators are not able to do this "double" upgrade.

nmenaker

I had trouble trying to book with certs that weren't technically in our Platinum account yet. That was through was is apparently the deprecated platinum desk. I think i'll call the hotel directly and try and get someone at direct reservations to see if for our 10th anniversary visit (and by that I mean 10 years at the orchid) we could swing a booking from POV to OVS.

update.. called the hotel directly. MUCH better experience. Managed to book my regular room POV room to upgrade to OV executive and they said they would take a suite and room upgrade. (fine with me!).. shows booked into OF suite at the moment. NICE!.. I think my wife did inform it will be our 10th year stay there in 12 year.

musicscrip

We will not be staying here but I would like to use my $200 USD dining credit with the authentically local food experience certificate (from being a plat) here next week. Does anyone know what will I get with the certificate? What restaurant?

Do I have to stay at the hotel to use the dining certificates ?

thanks

curl

tomatogrower

I just called the hotel and booked it as you described - room upgrade + suite upgrade. Thanks for the advice! Really looking forward to this stay.

Arthurrs

There's two restaurants that I would redeem those certificates:
Brown's Beach House and Norio's Japanese Steakhouse & Sushi Bar.
Definitely make a reservation at Brown's, especially for eating dinner at sunset, the views are amazing!
You should call the restaurant directly on how best to redeem those certificates without staying at the hotel.
https://www.fairmont.com/orchid-hawaii/dining/

musicscrip

bedman

I just spoke with in house reservations at The Orchid. The stacking of a room upgrade and a suite upgrade is still allowed. We are staying 8 nights and 2 room upgrade certs and 2 suite upgrade Certs were required as each cert only covers a maximum of 5 days. They wouldn’t allow us to apply our free night certificate (plat benefit) with the double upgrade. They would only allow us to use our free night certificate on a single upgrade (room or suite).

tomatogrower

For the upcoming stay I’m using a room upgrade, a suite upgrade, and 2 third night free certificates for a 7 night stay - however I am paying full price for the first and last nights. The room and suite upgrades are applied to nights 2-6, and the third night frees are applied to nights 3 and 6 (so I’m getting the Fairmont rooms off).

bedman

I called the hotel to try and get a better understanding of their certificate policy. They do allow you to use both a room upgrade and a suite upgrade in the same reservation. A suite upgrade moves you from a room with the same view to a suite with the same view ie a garden view room to a garden view suite. So if you book a Fairmont garden view room and apply a room upgrade you are in a partial ocean view room. A suite upgrade from this category gets you the Ocean view suite. As there is no partial ocean view suite they effectively are upgrading you another room category when they apply the suite certificate from the partial ocean view room. Because of this second room upgrade, they won’t allow you to use complimentary night certificates. There is a way around this however. If you book a partial ocean view room and pay the difference in room cost between the Fairmont garden view and the partial ocean view (usually $40) they will allow you to use a room upgrade a suite upgrade and complimentary room certificate all in the same booking. You therefore get an Ocean View Suite for the cost of $40 when using a complimentary night.