Missing Premium awards- what to do with points?
 

Would appreciate some advice. Normally when we travel we prefer to book higher level suites. I am fortunate that I own a company with a lot of CC spend, some of which is on Bonvoy cc (previously an SPG amex). With the old SPG program I could often book suites for increased point levels. Seems with the new Bonvoy hotels do not offer upgraded rooms at all, Any way to have the Bonvoy agents call and get hotels to release suites for points? Any other advice on good use of 1 million plus points? I realize this is a very "first world" problem and I don't value points like others may, but I would love some insight if there is a way to book suites regularly with points??

Thanks Fters

I've been seeing some hotels offering upgraded rooms since the merger. I recently stayed at the JW Cancun in an upgraded room using points. I just checked both the JW and the regular Marriott next door both still have upgraded rooms with points (including some fairly nice suites). In the Maldives, the St. Regis seems to have a few upgraded rooms (including Overwater villas) with points. While I ended up in Cancun this past January, I almost went to Costa Rica instead. A couple of the resorts on the west side of country had various suite types available for points at that time. I usually go to Orlando a few times a year and while I don't usually book them, the JW Grande Lakes quite often has their Executive suites available for points. Even the RC next door to the JW Grande Lakes will offer suites on points. (I look as it is the same point cost as the JW.)

These are the places I've been looking at (since they are where I have been looking to travel.) One thing about the legacy SPG hotels though, and this is just a guess, how they "offered" upgraded rooms seemed to be different than the way Marriott hotels did. For example, with Marriott if the hotel wanted to offer suites and other upgraded rooms for award points, then you would see them with the online reservation tool. But with legacy SPG, I seem to remember never (or rarely) seeing them with the online reservation tool. I had to call in to see if they had suites available. I'm wondering if that is still the case where for Westins and Sheratons, and so on, maybe if you get the Plat/Titanium/Ambassador agent to call the hotel to see what, if any, suite inventory they have for awards, they might offer some. But I haven't tried that and others, may say they have tried and it didn't work.

But at the end of the day, there are and there have been hotels that have offered suites and other upgraded rooms for points. But those do tend to be the "resorts" or hotels that have a lot of them to offer, not the traditional city, "business" Marriott with only a couple of suites in the hotel.

I, too, wish that Marriott would offer higher level rooms for additional points. I have not found any that do. Hilton routinely does this. I'm Hilton diamond but do not want to rely on day of arrival upgrades for a better room. I often use additional points to get the space that I want. Let's hope that Marriott rethinks this and brings back this aspect of the Starwood program.

There are many properties that start to offer premium suites for more points--but only a few months out when they aren't at higher occupancy and aren't necessarily expecting higher occupancy. So consider locations where it's lower or should season to give yourself more choices.

Doesn't directly answer your question but another suggestion could be to convert them into airline miles? Marriott has one of the best conversion ratios into airline miles and also a huge number of airlines are conversion partners; 1m miles is at least a couple of F return tickets for a couple.

I prefer to book above base level rooms so often find myself converting hotel points into airline miles and find Marriott the most useful programme for this.

The Sheraton Grand Sydney Hyde Park offers 11 different rooms on points only. 35K for a standard redemption all the way up to their Grand Executive Suite for 96K right in the heart of a Southern Hemisphere Summer.

James