Can the Front Desk see differences in the same Status?
 

Was travelling this week, checked in with a coworker who is going through the "touch of gold" challenge. He checked in just after me due to the lines, and somehow he managed to get a higher floor location room, with a king, while I was 2 floors lower with 2 double beds (reservation was for a king) as a Platinum member - Makes NO sense at all.

First, Welcome to Flyertalk!

Second, invoke the guarantee. If your reservation had your Platinum # on it & it said you had a king the property owes you $100. Collect it before you check out.

BTW - your title doesn't make sense since gold & platinum are not the same status. It should be why did the gold get the king & not me? ;)

Cheers.

No they cannot. They see Gold, not lifetime Gold, vanilla Gold, touch of Gold, etc.

They can definitely see other information: points balance, last several stays, number of nights YTD. Was at a FFI where they slid that info under my door.

Other guy tip the FD better?

Jackson handshake?

You sure about that?

I checked into a Ren 2 different times (same hotel, same clerk, a month apart) and he thanked my for my lifetime status. I think at the time I was PP and LTG. I meant to ask him if the computer shows LT status, but I forgot.

I was told by a clerk they cannot, but he may have just not known what to look for? At the Gaslamp and they are pretty good.

As SkiAdcock mentioned, if you are a Gold and your bed preference wasn't met then you can invoke the Room Type Guarantee (assuming your stay was in the US or Canada as I think only Plats get that Guarantee outside NA.)

Forgetting the elite guarantee for a moment, it is possible that when you checked in a room on a higher floor wasn't available yet but became available after you checked-in. (But remembering the guarantee again, if the hotel is in NA, they should told you your room wasn't available yet and worked on getting it available for you.)

I checked the Marriott Insiders board and in 2011 a Marriott employee confirmed that the property only sees the status without additional information such as Lifetime.

It is possible this has changed in the last 3 years, but I'm not holding my breath.

I check in with co-workers fairly often most of which are all Plat. There have been numerous times where one or some but not all will get "upgraded" (most of the time just to CL), most of the time without really asking.

OP is Platinum, not just Gold, so is definitely eligible for the guarantee (assuming that the reservation contained the MR number). For emphasis, this must be invoked before checkout and the hotel's penalty is $100 cash paid to you (not a credit on the bill or some points, etc.).

OP can definitely collect on the Room Type Guarantee provided the line, "guaranteed - king bed," was on his reservation. Let's not forgot there have been problems on Marriott's web site with the bed type in our profiles not carrying over and being guaranteed in our reservations. If this happened to the OP that may be why he was put into a room with two beds.

Hopefully, the OP remembers to invoke the guarantee, if it applies, before check-out.

Regards,

RIP...

Regarding lifetime status, one time a check-in agent at a Renaissance told me that it was my anniversary of joining Marriott Rewards (giving me a free drink chit in the process) and I asked him how he knew - he showed me his screen and it showed my join date, points balance, lifetime to date nights, last stay, and other information. So if someone saw a Platinum with 750+ nights (I think I was at around 730 at the time), right or wrong they might hazard a guess that the person was lifetime if they happened to check that piece of information.

So at least based on what that agent showed me, at check-in they could at least discriminate based on life to date nights, points balance, join date, etc...

You are assuming the average front desk clerk knows that lifetime status exists, and knows the criteria for each lifetime level.