CCIE_Flyer

Admittedly I've earned a lot more points over the years than I've ever cashed in, so I'm by no means a redemption expert. But the post that I quoted seemed to indicate that the property even refused Plat recognition at checkin, I gather offering a room upgrade for cash (so obviously they had a room upgrade available) or no upgrade. In other words, if I don't bite the bullet now with the points + cash offer, I stand little chance of not staring at the neighboring brick wall posted about in this thread.

So is it actually the norm that hotels offer their absolute worst rooms for points only, but make available their decent inventory only for points + cash? I only can recall seeing that at an Autograph collection hotel that had just been acquired by Marriott around the time of my stay, so assumed their indifference to Plat was to do with integrating into the new system for them. Perhaps I was mistaken and was more fortunate previously than I'd appreciated.

laxmillenial

Ahh, ok. I was wondering if it was something I missed!

So, yes, it is up to the property which rooms they offer for point redemption solely and which they offer for points .+ cash. What you're seeing (in my opinion) is 100% normal. They often will offer their worst rooms for points only. And of course will try and upsell you for a 'guaranteed' room upgrade (deluxe room type, higher floor room type, etc) for points+cash. Note the key word is guarantee. If you choose to pay for it yourself, you are guaranteed the upgrade into the lounge floor/suite/upgraded room. If you choose to wait for check in, it is often subject to availability, but I have only been to a hotel once in San Francisco where the lounge floor has been 100% sold out, and it was due to a popular conference that week. I would not agree with your quote "you stand little chance of not staring at the neighboring brick wall...". In fact, I'd be willing to put money down stating that at the very least, you're put on a high floor if not the lounge floor.

I think it's important to note that regardless of which room you choose, they should not deny your lounge entrance / Platinum benefits. I have never had a hotel (no matter what room I booked) deny me my Platinum benefits as long as I booked with Marriott (I know Marriott sometimes honors 3rd party booking sites, but I would throw a little caution out just as a warning / as due diligence). Your Platinum benefits are a upgraded room (higher floor, lounge floor, possible suite) that is subject to availability and access to the club lounge if one exists. You should get these (among the other Plat benefits but I just highlighted these since we're discussing these). If you do not, I'd ask to speak with a manager and bring up the Marriott website. But again, I've never ever ever been rejected Platinum benefits.

I'm booking another stay here for August, booked the lowest / cheapest room type (as I often do with Sydney and basically every Marriott reservation), and I fully expect to be upgraded into a nicer (higher) room that hopefully doesn't have a brick wall as its window. Now I know it could be extremely busy when I visit, but I cross my fingers and hope it isn't.

CCIE_Flyer

Thanks much, and I wish you all the best (pls report back). This will be my first visit to MEL, but I gather that Aug/Sept are not anywhere near a peak season (although I believe I read about some sort of festival towards the end of Sept). So hopefully upgrade rooms are aplenty (and the weather's decent)!

MrM2016

I wouldn't hold your breath. I'm staying at this property right now. Paying cash and a Plat. We got an upgrade to an 'executive level', which is 2 floors below the lounge. Only benefit I can see is that our room isn't adjacent to any others, so no adjoining doors.

Not complaining, overall this stay has been satisfactory, and we don't have a view of a brick wall. I recommend setting your expectations low on the upgrade front.

CCIE_Flyer

How do you feel about the location? I've contemplated going outside of the points realm and just paying cash in a different part of town, but honestly the point of the trip was kind of that I have a lot of points and miles to burn, and also some time on my hands at the moment.

MrM2016

Location was good, it's a couple of blocks away than ideal (the Hyatt seems particularly well placed). However, you can walk into the heart of the city in 15 minutes.

Check the cash price if you do go with this property. The price wasn't high enough to justify spending points in my case, the redemption value was too low. I came to the same conclusion with the Pier One property in Sydney, suspect it's due to low season and current exchange rates.

CCIE_Flyer

Excellent insight/advice all around - very much appreciated.

Edit: So it turns out that the Marriott is slightly more expensive than the cheapest room at the Park Hyatt during the first week of Sept - roughly $450 AUD. At this point my thinking is to keep the points booking and pony up for the cash room upgrade (or take my chances, but with the rates being that high I'm thinking there might be a convention or something along that line - never good for upgrade prospects).

MrM2016

I think you're making the right call there. My total cost for 3 nights was a little under $700 AUD on my corp rate. For that rate, I'd do the same as you and use the points.

I'd suggest contacting in advance about an upgrade with extra cash. When I arrived our room had already been selected and paperwork printed out. In a busy week you don't want to arrive and find the best rooms already allocated.

CCIE_Flyer

Well, ostensibly at least I have an SNA request applied against this reservation. SNA pool included a courtyard balcony queen room or a high floor corner king room. For those with experience at this property, what would be your recommendation (I do like balconies quite a lot, but not so sure about how the courtyard is laid out)?

JimSoup

I believe the courtyard rooms are on the lowest guest floor, and have no view. They are good for smokers--you can smoke in the courtyard area. While I have stayed at this hotel 100+ nights, I have never stayed on that level (I prefer high floors).

The corner suite rooms are the best in the hotel, in my opinion.

This is a nice property, but it really differentiates itself with the staff. They are the nicest and most helpful I've ever met.

CCIE_Flyer

Ah, thanks much for the insight. I do enjoy a good cigar in the evening, but have been upgraded to a corner suite (via SNAs), so I suppose I'll just keep that. Too bad those corner suites don't have balconies!

CCIE_Flyer

Update

(Note: I am not an experienced trip reporter, so please bear with me).

In beginning, I would like to echo previous comments that it's the entire staff at this hotel that makes all the difference. From the time we first walked in the front door we were greeted by the most welcoming and genuinely accommodating hospitality professionals imaginable. That held throughout our stay and right up until departure.

Location: Quite adequate - perhaps even desirable (we enjoyed several meals in Chinatown, which is essentially at the Marriott's doorstep). Those lesser accustomed to walking may find other properties to be a bit closer to the city center and therefore more desirable. But my wife and I are active Colorado types and had zero issues getting around as we pleased. We never once hailed a taxi or an Uber, nor did we hire a car until departing for points beyond Melbourne. We did make occasional use of the (mostly free) tram service, which can be reached following a short walk from the hotel.

Property: Admittedly a tad dated, but perfectly livable for a week's stay.

Rooms: I was successful in expending some SNAs that were set to expire, so I can't speak to a standard room. What I can say is that we were initially upgraded to a corner suite, which really was quite nice. However, this is a 12-story building in the general vicinity of much taller buildings, so it's not as though the view is something to truly cherish (at least not from our corner). Also, although the soundproofing is generally effective, this property is located on a street corner, so the views below are of traffic and pedestrians. After our first night, we elected to move to a courtyard room - a choice we didn't regret (with some qualification, below). The courtyards are actually divvied up via planters with small trees/shrubbery/etc - by no means totally private, but neither entirely communal. The views aren't anything spectacular, but we found sitting outside after long days to be enjoyable (as the cigar smoker, I especially enjoyed this freedom). We found it odd that there was a wrought iron table outside, but no chairs - we had to relocate the room chairs in and out each evening. I kept forgetting to ask about this, as it wasn't too great an inconvenience and we were quite busy throughout our stay.

I should note that the courtyard rooms themselves are smaller than the corner suites (no segregated living space), although perfectly adequate for our purposes. I should also note that the above-grade parking garage is below this level (you're thinking ground level because of the courtyard, but this is not actually how it's laid out). At least in our room, we were awakened most mornings at about 7:00 by what sounded to be an 800-pound basketball being bounced in the garage below us. This generally continued for 10-15 mins each morning - enough to where there wasn't much of a chance of falling back to sleep after things quieted back down. Here again, though, this more or less mapped OK to the schedule we were keeping, so it wasn't as disastrous as it might sound. For whatever it's worth, our room was near to the elevators - a room out towards the edges might've missed this phenomenon, I really can't say.



View from a courtyard


Lounge: Quite small, and not a lot on offer either at breakfast or in the evenings. Perhaps because of this, it seems perfectly acceptable to pour a couple of drinks, load up a small plate, and head on out. In fact, one staff member suggested enjoying some lounge beers in the evenings out on our courtyard upon learning that we'd moved rooms.

Elite/Plat recognition: Difficult to say, as it seems everyone receives VIP treatment at this property. I don't recall anyone specifically mentioning status at check-in or anything like that, but I never once was left to feel I was anything short of an elite guest.

Bottom line: There are certainly alternatives to choose from which offer slightly closer proximity to the city's various attractions, and probably do so with a little more panache (I did for example briefly step into the Grand Hyatt, and that's certainly your typical modern property with lots of uniformed aircrew milling about in the lobby, etc). So depending on your priorities, you might do well to stay elsewhere. However, if I were to return to Melbourne (and I very well may someday, even if only briefly while en route to the absolutely magnificent southern coast nearby), I would once again choose this Marriott on the basis of its overall winning combination of perfectly acceptable physical accommodation paired with a truly remarkable capacity for hospitality.

SkiAdcock

Thanks for the detailed report & pic. Much appreciated.

Cheers.

SHLTP

Here now and do not like it at all - far preferred Sheraton and Hyatt.

Found club lounge to be reasonably Well stocked - alcohol and decent snacks - but crazy cramped. Feel like everyone sitting on top of everyone. No one cleaning up dirty dishes left behind.

Gym is tiny, one of the smallest for a full setvoce Marriott I have been to.

Service just not ok. Extraordinarily rude maintenance man who literally didnt even check for problem let alone fix. That took duty mgt coming to room. I have nebet had duty mgt come to room to fix mechanical problem. No apologies given despite my complaints.

.Should'vr stayed at Sheraton (massivr construction outside Westin),

margarita girl

Just completed a 2 night stay at this hotel. Used SNAs and was upgraded to Corner King Suite at 5 days out. FD Mgr was super nice at check-in and offered us 2 glasses of sparkling wine. My girlfriend wanted a picture of us so FD Mgr suggested standing in front of Bill's picture. I declined and chose to stand in front of the ice bucket with the bottle of wine instead.

After we arrived in the room, the hotel delivered a cheese tray and an open bottle of sparkling wine. Not sure if that was an error or if it was the bottle that we had glasses from at the front desk. Either way, it seemed strange to not bring up a full bottle. The suite was meh, but it was a decent size even though the bathroom was rather small..

We were offered the 1000 point welcome amenity plus buffet breakfast in the restaurant. The breakfast was excellent and they even had a large juicer available with a supply of carrots, celery and ginger. They had vegetarian dumplings (dim sum) on offer every day which were awesome. My girlfriend had a waffle and the chef offered up some passion fruit ice cream to go with it. Yummy!

The lounge seemed crowded with tables and chairs, but at one end there was a large sofa and some comfy chairs, which were far more welcoming. I thought the evening spread was excellent with two hot dishes (one of which is always vegetarian). They also offer salads, cold meats/fish, dolmades and crudités and dip. At 19:30, they take away the hot/cold food and bring out desserts. Beer, wine and alcohol were complimentary from 17:00- 21:00.

At check out, I paid with my Marriott gift cards, thereby avoiding the 2% credit card surcharge. ^

My usual go to hotel in MEL is the Westin (never stayed at the Sheraton) but we decided to try the Marriott due to 1) lower price 2) lounge 3) heavy construction in front of the Westin. Even though the Westin is far more elegant, I would not hesitate to go back to the Marriott. The staff was simply outstanding. Everyone made us feel welcome from the front desk to the bell desk, the lounge staff and the restaurant servers. Location right beside Chinatown is also excellent.

BTW, I collected email addresses for the Marriott, Sheraton and Westin, and have added them to the wiki in the respective property threads.