Most reliable suite upgrade program
 

SPG Platinum, mostly traveling in Asia and Hawaii, is my only top tier hotel experience and am satisfied with the suite upgrade experiences. I would guess in the 75%+ range.

John over at LoyaltyLobby.com has done an extensive analysis of various hotel programs and concludes that SPG is the most expensive program when it comes to redeeming points for free rooms.

Earning Points Conclusions

Burning Points Conclusions

How reliable are suite upgrades with top tier membership in other hotel programs and does is make sense to consider them when the primary concern is getting suite upgrades?

SPG is by far the best for suite upgrades. Other programs may offer other, "enhanced" rooms, but those are usually not suites.

is this an advertisement?

I'd prefer Hyatt's confirmed suite upgrades over SPG. I have had better experiences with SPG in Asia, but I had just as good experiences with Hyatt and Hilton in Asia as well with only mid level status.

SPG may offer better opportunities but it's simply not clear enough what their policy is. The terms suggest that as Platinum, if a standard suite is available you should be upgraded to the suite, but this just doesn't happen enough (and sometimes the front desk lies or otherwise tries to weasel out of the upgrade). They offered suite night awards where you can be confirmed 5 days before hand, but 5 days is a really short amount of time and your upgrades are tied up until that point. So if you have a planned trip in the latter half of the year, and want to use an upgrade, you have to hope you can use it until 5 days out, only to be potentially disappointed and have wasted upgrade certificates.

I'd rather have half the upgrades to be confirmed at the time of booking and no promise (but just the potential) of a suite upgrade for other stays.

I have a high hit rate with SPG Platinum stays, but I totally see the appeal of the Hyatt system where you confirm the suites you want the most. In any case, for those who love upgrades, SPG and Hyatt are your programs.

Long-time Marriott and Hilton elite here - 10+ years at mid or top tier in both. True one-bedroom suites are RARE. And with Hilton, the one-category rule for upgrades is being enforced now more than ever. That means your typical "best-rate-available" booking probably only gets you into a slightly better standard room. Perhaps the only silver lining for HH is that I sometimes see suites offered at reasonable paid rates via the NOR1 system. If you liked the more-available free elite upgrades of yesteryear, then you hate NOR1. If you like the idea of being able to tell the hotel you really want a suite and would pay $40-50/nt. extra for it, then you might like it. I was annoyed a couple weeks ago because I responded to a NOR1 offer...and then the front desk backed out of the offer even though plenty of rooms were available in all sorts of categories. (So, what was the point of NOR1 in that case? :confused:)

Haven't played around with that Loyalty Lobby site before. The analysis on the earning side looks reasonable enough, but I wonder if the analysis on the burning side takes into account that each program has a very different sweet spot for awards. For example, I baseline my value for a Marriott point on the 7-night award that includes 120,000 air miles. At the opposite end, I baseline my value for a Starpoint on the one-night C&P award in the mid- to high-tiers. I baseline HH on the AXON award, although I may rethink that as I learn more about new sweet spots after their devaluation last month. So any "dollars spent to earn one free night" metric is probably going to be well off the mark for me if they're really talking about one pure award night. I'm more likely to redeem a straight one-night award out of Priority Club or Hyatt.

I would prefer that of Hyatt and Hilton when I did mine...something about SPG is sort of alien to me and I think Hyatt and Hilton has the best value to the entire program.

hyatt or intercontinental.