I never said it wasn't a valid area of discussion. It has been a valid area of discussion every other week for the last year, all with new threads. You are somewhat new to FT, I'll suggest to you what I would suggest to others; do a search and read existing threads. If you have something new to add then, by all means, add it! There are certain topics that get beaten to death, suite upgrades and the Platinum override are two of them. I'm here to tell you there is nothing new in this thread that hasn't been written before, at least twice! Do a search and you will see for yourself.

BTW, it doesn't sound like the Platinum override did you any good because there are rooms available at the hotel. Check with them a week before the conference and see how far you get.

[QUOTE=aaupgrade]Marriott will walk very few people in a city where there are no vacancies. SPG, on the other hand, will honor their Platinum Guarantee and book additional rooms which will result in SPG having to walk many more potential guests than Marriott. And those guests that are walked will be sent to hotels in Oakland, San Mateo, or Sausalito. [QUOTE]

This is exactly why Marriott excludes Special Events from overrides. If they allowed Platinum overrides during the Super Bowl or the Indy 500, where the entire ciyt is sold out, there is no place to walk a guest. This also occurs with some of your larger city-wide conventions. But I've been assured by a contact at Marriott that it requires corporate approval.

I had the same thing happen in suburban Detroit several months during the NBA playoffs -- I got a room at a sold-out Courtyard without any difficulty at all.

We were both lucky. That's why, to me, the SPG policy makes more sense for the people the policy was designed to benefit. In Marriott's program, the time you most need the override is the time you are least likely to get it.

I wound up with a hotel room at the Residence Inn in Ann Arbor during a University of Michigan football weekend. Could have been denoted a special event, but it wasn't. First time I needed the override, and it worked like a charm. Guess I just got lucky.

Hope it wasn't last week (unless you're an Irish fan).

Strange, the different reports in this and other threads. NBA Finals, World Series, and Michigan football; no problem. Other events, big problem. It sounds like different properties have widely varying approaches to this platinum perk and the MR program lets the properties make their own decisions. I wonder if MR has ever turned down a property's request for a special event waiver?

I sat out the Notre Damn game and watched that one at home.. Disappointing that ABC did not broadcast in HD. Glad I didn't make the trip out to Ann Arbor for that game...

I don't know about Michigan football, but my assumption has been that hotels need to get special events approved in advance each year. Since there's no way of knowing which cities will host the World Series or the NBA Finals, hotels in those cities generally have to allow the override.

FWIW, I am staying in New York this week using the Platinum Override, even though the UN summit and Fashion Week have led to sellouts at every non-scary hotel in town.

Why? Since we are not privy to what guidelines Marriott uses to grant special event waivers, or whether it has ever denied any property's request for a waiver, how do we know when or why hotels "have to allow the override." Obviously, before the event is scheduled for a particular city, the override would generally be available. After it is scheduled, maybe.

The point of some of the above posts is that to an outsider who is a plat, the availability or non-availability of the override seems haphazard; thus, not something you can rely on. I would guess there are some kind of guidelines Marriott uses to grant a property's request for a waiver; it could be all the way from it's a special event because the property says it is, to a stricter set of criteria. Maybe it has to be done in a certain time frame before the event, maybe not. We don't know. It's a very nice perk. You're just never certain it will be available. And as some folks have noted, even if the override is not formally available, some properties will provide the override if a plat personally contacts the hotel; some won't.

I concur -- as noted, the annual approval process is just my assumption, based on things like the override being available during short-term-scheduled events. While I think the special-event exclusion is reasonable, I think it would be best if Marriott.com would list all known special-event dates for a each hotel

Good idea, but...
 

I agree with your idea in principle, would work for events that are pre-planned like the aforementioned UN Summit, Fashion week, the Super Bowl in Detroit this year, etc. However for events like the NBA Finals, Baseball playoffs etc. they may have difficulty announcing the "special event status" very early. Although in my case I don't use the 48 hour guarantee until 48-72 hours prior to my stay as I generally plan trips 3-4 days in advance at the most. So having the events listed wouldn't help me.

I'm with you. Maybe I'm missing something here, but last week I checked availability at Marriott hotels in Palm Spring and the JW didn't show. I logged into the website and the JW did show. When I proceeded to book the website showed a message stating I was able to book a sold-out hotel due to my platinum status.

Some inquiries upon my arrival confirmed that they were indeed sold out.

They should rename "48-Hour Guaranteed Availability" to "Platinum allocation of rooms." Tried booking the JW Marriot in DC for Mar 14. No dice.

If the hotel isn't sold out then you wouldn't need the guarentee would you?

You missed the follow-up:
"I made that comment with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek. "