stifle

I didn't think HHonors had a such thing as "award inventory". In accordance with the no blackout dates policy, if a room is available to book for cash, it's available on points.

travelinfoo

There absolutely is an award inventory. As per the T&C, the ONLY rooms available for regular (non-premium) awards are standard rooms. If they are all gone, no award is available. The OP's hotel is sold out, i.e., no standard rooms and prb most of the upgraded ones booked. The OP may be squatting on a standard room. That is irrelevant. That room is NOT in the award pool because it is already booked. The OP would have to CANCEL his/her room and see if it pops up in the award pool before getting an award room. It would not because the hotel is sold out and most likely has other ppl willing to pay much more $$ than what the OP originally booked it for. FYI, when you cancel a paid room, it does not automatically go back into the available pool for awards. The OP is most likely also NOT the only one looking for a room (award or OTW) at that hotel.

As Gold, he/she CANNOT just convert a paid reservation to an award one. The award is a new and separate reservation and standard rooms MUST BE available to book.
The OP can also book a premium room/suite for many many more points. But standard awards, which is sounds like he/she wants to book, are gone because there are no standard rooms left.

MasterGeek

Will the following strategy work for converting a paid stay to a points stay in the future ?

• Book a paid refundable stay comprising TWO standard rooms.
• When enough points are accumulated, cancel one of the standard rooms and grab it immediately again with points

formeraa

I'm wondering why anyone would think that they could do this in the first place. Generally, airlines don't let you "convert" a paid ticket to a points ticket (unless your status. BHotels are generally the same. What you can often do at a hotel is cancel the paid stay and re-book at the current points level, assuming that you are outside the cancellation penalty window. It's too bad that the original agent didn't clarify this with the OP.

sdsearch

I'm not sure whether there's any guarantee in HH that a cancelled room immediately goes back to being available on points. (it certainly doesn't work reliably at all hotels in all hotel programs.)

And if it isn't immediate, you'd have the issue of someone else being able to book it (whether with points or paid) if they found it available before you checked again.