craigmmorq4

All

Domes of elounda in august.....I've booked family suite and want to upgrade or pool suite which is 30 euro difference per night.

The hotel want to charge 290 euro as they say Marriott don't give them enough money.

See below

Is this right?


Thanks

VA1379

Hotels do not get anywhere near best available room rate for award reimbursement unless the hotel occupancy is close to being full (95 % of rooms sold is usually when it kicks in). If that threshold is met, they will be reimbursed at a rate that is a small percent off of the average room rate for that night. Otherwise, the normal reimbursement rate is usually somewhere between $15-70/night depending on the award category of the hotel. I have gotten bill copies by accident before of the amount the hotel was getting from Marriott for my award night, and it was usually $15-20 for category 2-4 hotels.

craigmmorq4

How does the hotel know that the 45k points per night I'm using wasn't earned at an expensive property.....

Are they allowed to do this then?

htb

How much is the cash price for the pool suite?

HTB.

VA1379

It doesn’t matter where you earned the points. What matters is how many rooms they have sold that night. If their current occupancy rate for your award night is 70 %, Marriott is not going to compensate them at the higher amount. They will be lucky to get $100 from Marriott for a category 9 award night. Even if I round that up to 100 euros and add 30 euros to what you are proposing to pay extra for the upgrade, I end up with the hotel getting 130 euros for the suite that they are asking for 290 euros. 130 euros is assuming a generous award amount from Marriott with normal occupancy levels. No revenue manager is going to offer to sell their suites at a discount of over 58 % to make a guest seeking an award happy. They would rather keep the suite open to either upgrade a paying guest who is paying 200 euros with a corporate rate, upgrade an elite guest paying closer to the best available rate or upgrade someone who stays often at that hotel (top 10 or top 50 guest by annual nights at hotel). They may also prefer to keep the suite for group bookings where suites are given away for bringing a certain amount of business to the hotel.

craigmmorq4

Cash price for suite i booked is 440 euro
Cash price for pool suite is 470 euro

Kacee

The property can set whatever price it likes for an upgrade from the room you've booked. Just as you are free to decline the paid upgrade and stay in your original booked room category.

htb

So if they upgrade you for 30€, they can sell the 440€ room. If they don't upgrade you, they can sell the 470€ room. Unless they know they will absolutely sell the pool suite but not the other suite, their proposal is preposterous.

I guess they have some internal ADR goal set and therefore can't make a reasonable offer.

HTB.

CJKatl

Curiosity: What is your thinking on this? Is your thinking that if you paid for an expensive room you gave more revenue to "Marriott" so your points should earn more? I'm not following. Since points are based on amount spent, you would earn the same amount of points on a $400 JW Marriott room as you would on four $100 FI rooms, so the revenue would always be the same. And the profit might actually be higher on the FI rooms if it's an older, paid for property in Podunk versus a gleaming new property in a city. Besides, the profit to the hotel might be different, but Marriott is really only making a small profit on the points, which, again, will be the same regardless of the type of hotel because points are based on revenue.

Where do you get this 30 EUR difference? Was this showing on the Marriott website as the UG amount and now the hotel is telling you the UG amount is different, or did you look up the cash prices for both, subtract and assume that is the difference? If it's the latter, you're out of gas. It doesn't work that way. If it's the former, contact Marriott and let them know the hotel is not offering what is on the site.

CJKatl

The information needed to know this is not at our disposal. Suppose (example pulled from the sky numbers) there are ten rooms with pools and 100 regular rooms. If the hotel always sells all the rooms with pools and regularly has ten empty regular rooms, and the hotel knows after they book the ten rooms there is a waiting list of 20 more people who will book the larger room up to the last minute, for cash, but are not booked in the regular room. The hotel would be doing the right thing by not moving a guest to a larger room for a 30 EUR UG above a points redemption. The hotel would lose the difference between the points redemption cash from Marriott, which is low, and the regular payment for the room. We just don't know the actual numbers, but the hotel staff does and they certainly would be acting in a way they think would maximize profits.

GoSh4rks

You're making a huge assumption that the 440e rooms are sold out.

YoungSoloTraveler

I'm surprised you don't know how little hotels are compensated for award stays unless occupancy is above 95%.

Marriott15

I have found when I go redeem nights at a property that has a beach view or pool view that most of the time the reward stay option only allows for a city view! I basically have to ask when I check in to get a pool or ocean view based on availability! Sure it helps if your platinum elite as well!

mwk190

Wait until much closer to the stay date and politely request again, i.e. you would like the upgrade on arrival if the room type is available. We're 8 months out from August so they're inclined to sit on their better inventory, but have no reason to do so a week from the stay if they have inventory they likely will not fill (or don't have other more "worthy" elites to give the upgrade to).

Generally I've found success close to the stay date or on site with both with Marriott and Hilton.

CPRich

I'm perplexed at how that would matter at all. There aren't "expensive" points and "cheap" points. If you paid an expensive price at a hotel, you received many more points.

Hotels offer rooms for points at certain rates. Sometimes they offer upgraded rooms on points, sometimes they don't. When they don't it's because they believe they will be able to sell the room at standard rates.

If you want to enter into an agreement for a room that they don't offer, it's a negotiation process. If you don't like the offer, don't accept it.

If you're saying you should be able to piece together offers from different rates - low points costs for the room, plus the low upgrade price for someone actually paying cash for the room, that's just not how it works.

Just the assumption that the property believes they can sell them. That's the business they're in. If closer to check-in the reservation rate is lower than expected, and rooms look like they won't be sold, and lowering pricing isn't an option/won't help, the property may then accept a lower marginal amount of revenue for upgrading an award to a better room. Or they may upgrade another guest. Or just leave it empty for market positioning.