Stayed here on 1nt points/2nts FWN.

Even though suites were available online was told that there were none available. When I called their attention to that availability they said I was ineligible for an upgrade because the upgraded rooms were King beds and my reservation was for 2Q :td: I didn't bother fighting it further, not worth the effort but still frustrating, and a disappointing first experience as a platinum.

Room as nice, probably the nicest hotel room I've been in (but that's not saying much - first time plat making it on un-upgraded rooms at Westins).

Saw two other people from my firm there - popular destination for free weekend nights :D

Oh, I think they should have asked you if one king bed was ok, and then put you in that suite. :(

I will be staying there in 4 weeks. I have two rooms booked for two nights each (one for me & wife and the other for my brother and his wife). I will be using free weekend nights promo.

Looking forward to the trip as my wife and I haven't done SF in a couple of years.

yay! just got a 2-night stay at SR SF this weekend Fri-Sun on FWN promo. Asked platinum concierge about award availability showing up today, when they were unavailable yesterday. She said Aug/Sept/Oct are very busy wedding months with SPG, so lots of hotels have blocks of standard rooms held aside for wedding parties. The unbooked rooms don't get released until 48 hours before the day. So for those of you having bad luck redeeming FWN at your desired hotel, check back 48 hours before the weekend!
Cheers.

Just stayed here and I was greatly underwhelmed. Nothing special at all. Le Meridien is a much nicer hotel and one where they eagerly upgrade plats to suites. LM remains my favorite Starwood in the city.

Nice tips ^ I will give that a try.
Currently booked at the W (SR not avail) on FWN.

Stayed 1 night with FWN. no upgrade to suite. My first failure to suite upgrade this year. (17/18) I was told I was upagrade to grand deluxe room. BUt, I think that was just a high floor room. Very small room.. Even though there were plenty astor suite, metropolita suite and even premier executive room, I wasn't upraded to one of them. I asked the staff when check-in, she just said they didn't have any available suite.. I know they were lying, but I didn't claim that.. Not a pleasant stay, but I understand somewhat why they did as I read some posts here.. :)

I had virtually the same experience on my last stay. After enjoying great upgrades on several previous stays (usually Astor Suites, sometimes the larger Metropolitan Suites), this hotel clearly becamefirst choice in SFO. On my last stay (one night, mid-week), I was assigned the smallest room I've been in at that property - a standard mid-level floor room. Logged on to SPG.com, saw that all kinds of rooms and suites were available, called the front desk. They called back after a few minutes and said I could move to an Astor Suite - no explanation as to why I wasn't upgraded in the first place.

Unfortunately, this sounds a lot like the current situation at my other former favorite *wood property - the W The Court in NYC.

I'm disappointed that you didn't ask. As a Flyertalker, we all have the responsibility to keep the front desk clerks honest to the terms and conditions of the program

Glad you asked. @:-) ^

The more often I stay in the city, the more I think the LM is a great property. Ive always gotten an upgrade here. I still do like the W, esp for a night with some friends out. W, LM, SR, Westin St F, Palace, W Market, Sheraton are my order of preference for now :)

In general, why do we have to check to keep them honest? Why do we have to go through all that effort to prove that we got the room in accordance with T&C?

I stayed there on a FWN and got an upgraded room for sure but have no idea if I got the room that would have best met the T&C at check-in. There was no acknoweldgement of P status at check-in, nor was there mention of an upgrade when I received my room key. I only recognized that there was an upgrade at check-in from the room number and previous posts in this discussion topic.

Personally, I am struggling with this whole upgrade at check-in issue at Starwood hotels in general.

I too had an underwhelming stay this weekend (FWN). Checked in around 2pm, asked about suite availability, was told they have all been assigned for (unless this property is part of pre-blocked UG pilot program, should suite upgrade be first-come-first-serve?), the best they could do was grand deluxe. I knew there were suites available because I just logged onto SPG 1 hour ago, but since this was only for one night, I didn’t press further. The FD agent then told me they don’t have any park view grand deluxe ready yet, but if I came back 1 hr later, it should be ready. 90 minutes later when I returned, that room still wasn’t ready, and they cannot give me an answer when it’d be ready. Not wanting to waste more time, I just told her to give me whatever room they have available. Got a room on the 19th floor, the room was small but adequate. Never got the local Plat amenity, I didn’t bother to ask since I knew it’s only box of regular chocolate.

Overall it was an OK stay, nothing special. However, I did saw John Madden at the paramount building café one block away from the hotel on Sunday morning.:D

Where's the Paramount Building Cafe?

3rd & Mission

This past weekend was my 4th stay at SR SF. Very nice, as usual. Upgraded to an Astor Suite again (first two stays were upgraded to Metropolitan Suite). Guess I always cross my fingers before arriving and hope hope hope for an upgrade, but we don't rely on it. Luckily, we've gotten upgraded every time so far. Only drawback to the Astor suites (room *11) is that corner of the hotel is almost directly in front of a very popular night club across the street, and seems there are tons of delivery trucks making stops on that block on Sat morning. Since the windows at SR are all single-pane, don't count on getting a quiet peaceful night's sleep in an Astor suite upgrade. We actually asked reception to note down in our guest profile to request an opposite side of the hotel for our next upcoming stay for the SF Nike Marathon in Oct. It'll prob hurt our chances of getting upgraded, but sleep trumps large room the night before a big run.
Took advantage of the SR car service to go to dinner in Japantown on Sat night. Better than getting the car from valet and trying to find our own parking. However, seems SR parking rates have gone up again! Something like $50/night???

Everything else about our stay was wonderful (consistent with our prev stays). Very helpful friendly courteous staff, the SR bar is my favorite in the city, very comfortable and beautiful room (aside from the nighttime noise).

Husband bumped into Tracy Morgan (from 30 Rock) at Walgreens on Sat morning. Mr. Morgan was staying at the Palace Hotel...

p.s. it was nice to see the "Get Closer To Paradise" 1000 bonus points deposited in my account this morning, when SR SF usually doesn't participate in the platinum 500 bonus point amenity.