Westin

Had 5 days of straight rain once from a cyclone somewhere in the ocean there in august

guy_listening

I have 6 nights booked in GV with points and need to add another night to the beginning of the stay. I am thinking of just paying the cash rate for an OWV in lieu of waiting for points availability. If I do this would there be a greater chance of getting upgraded to that same OWV the rest of the stay, or is the hotel okay with having guests change rooms? Thanks!

Edit: And I understand that upgrades depend on many factors, I am more looking for feedback from anyone with experience doing this.

misenlai

is it just me? i don't see award available for any single date anymore? it seems like they blocked all award booking until the new rate kick in few weeks. sneaky and dirty move by st regis. shame on them.

ChocolateFactory

jaycis

Why don't you check the cash inventory first before jumping to conclusions?

If you actually bother looking (or if you scroll up a few pages), you'll see that you can't book the base rooms using cash either. And not only the base rooms; there don't seem to be any OWVs bookable using cash during much of the 2019-2020 peak season, and there are even many dates that appear to be completely sold out. This has been the case for one whole month (and maybe longer) now, so if they really are blocking cash reservations until the award chart change, it would seem to me to be shooting their own foot rather than being a sneaky business move.

cabbit

I can see 5 days availabilty like 10 of the days with GV and OWV......for 240,000 points and 640,000 points
(use flexibiltiy search, 5 days, April)

May June July I can only see 2 day availability, I can't see any 5 days availability...

IAlwaysCall

I hope you are correct, but I'm a little more pessimistic (at least for reservations in 2020). I don't think they'll lose out on any reservations 11 months in the future. I guess we'll find out the week of March 5th...

Al Maha also isn't available. Maybe some high end hotels don't input all of their inventory until later

YouGeeElWhy

Last year StR almost always had availability 11.5 months out. This is a new game that they are playing with their inventory. Oh well, we were looking to book for Jan/Feb (which seem to be the ideal months) next year. We will now prob just go to the JW Maldives to do something fresh.

jaycis

If it was just a 2020 phenomenon, then I can somewhat understand their reasoning for wanting to play games with inventory by blocking GV cash reservations. However, the very last date any GV is available for cash is August 31. That means that they've been blocking half of their GV cash inventory for over a month now. If they really wanted to block awards so much, why didn't they just go with the B&B rate trick that they (and Al Maha) have successfully used to block awards in the past before? (Perhaps pressure from Marriott and negative publicity from various media outlets forced them to change their strategy? )
And then the fact that they're also blocking tons of cash OWVs during peak season (which are currently pricing at 170k/n for award redemption, so I can't imagine that many people actually booking these awards)... It's completely mystifying to me how all of this is supposed to help their bottom line. But like you say, we shall see come March 5th.

aznyc

So I'll cancel my Aug 4-9 2019 reservation of GV (for 240k) March 2nd at 5PM EST (New York time zone).
You are welcome to grab it right after, if it appears to be available

meehgz

I'm not going to grab this one, just wanted to drop in and say THANK YOU for doing this. It would be awesome if anyone else looking to cancel future travel (esp if canceling before 3/5) would do this! *wishful thinking*

SkiAdcock

Is this still accurate for breakfast (assuming as Plat arrival gift option)? I'm working on updating the exec lounge sticky. Any input appreciated. Thx.

"PAG option: local gift or points or breakfast daily"

Cheers.

CPH-Flyer

It was in January for sure..

Mr. Vker

I hope that doesn't change... I'm counting on that breakfast in August.

uschpr