Are suite awards just gone now?
 

One change that seems to have come about around the time of the new peak/off-peak chart is a significant reduction in suite award inventory (both premium and standard). Are hotels now able to control this inventory whereas before they were not (ie required to offer an award if at least one room in the category in question was available)?

Take NYC for example. Not a single hotel offering suite awards for weekends in the fall, but suites at all levels available for cash purchase. Did I miss something?

did you call to see if standard suite available for sale can be booked with points or cert?

I've confirmed three TSU within the past couple of weeks, including one at the Cape on an award stay that pencils out over 8 cpp.

Fall is traditionally very high demand period for NYC hotels, I wouldn't be at all surprised if TSU suites are mostly booked at this point.

I am pretty sure they were always able to control it. The rule is if a base room is available for cash sale it must all be available for points. No such rule for suites.

It may be true that many hotels have decided to offer fewer suites available for points. That could be true although I'm not necessarily seeing that trend.

Whenever I've called my concierge (and earlier my private line agent) to apply a TSU, it seems automatic on an eligible paid rate if the standard suite is available, but the concierge needs to contact the hotel and get permission to confirm an available standard suite for an upgrade on an award stay. My most recent datapoint is an award stay in London (the Churchill) in June.

if you see a standard suite available at a NYC hotel that is available for $$$ but not for points/certificates/points+cash, contact your globalist concierge. They should be able to take care of this and apply the award even if its not bookable on points while clearly available for $$$ on the app. My concierge has done this several times with no issues.
P.S You should list the name of the hotel + range of dates so we can confirm what the availability is like.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...6d04a3cec9.png

NYC in fall on weekends is massively popular.

Yes, this is right. I misread the OP's post initially as referring to TSU availability. Properties are not required to offer suites on points.

I've also not seen the trend. IME, suites are more commonly offered on points now than they were several years ago.