If you make a booking which is for after the end of your current RA period, and assuming that the hotel is in the habit of showing the gteed upgrade online, do they:

A) Not automatically upgrade you online, until the confirmation that you have been renewed RA?
B) Automatically upgrade you online, but withdraw it if you don�t make the RA status again?
C) Automatically upgrade you online, and retain the upgrade even if you don�t make the RA status again? Essentially honouring an RA upgrade to an Amb.

You're seeking a consitency or rule where none exists. It varies. From that you have many choices. Ask the hotel in advance whether they will respect the current status (some do on request) - or take the risk. They only have to offer you the benefits of what you are whn you check in.

Your current status is attached to your reservation at the time of booking. Nobody knows whether the hotel in question would bother to verify it during or after check-in.

That's what I am also thinking.

As long as its a decent hotel, you've nothing to lose have you? Although, of course, I wouldn't necessarily want to risk ending up paying Euro 400 (the rate last week) for the 18 sq m Classic Rooms at LeGrand with no Club access.

Paulmoscow and szg exactly described how it works.
So during Check In simply don't present your Priority Club card and don't inform the hotel about your situation in advance.

If they upgrade you in advance or during Check In really depends on the individual property.

But you can be sure that your reservation shows up as RA member if you make the reservation during your RA membership time.
Typically they cannot see when your RA status expires.

As been discussed in a seperate thread, some hotels issue a welcome letter to guests, with exactly how many points the guest has got on their PC account. I've got one of those stranged worded letter from a US property.

Although I agree with everyone here, most of hotels probably won't bother to check. Surely the information is there, they should be able to see the expire date of your RA, in the same way that they check your account balance.

Again, hotels do vary. Some are more generous than others, so purely on luck when make such a booking.

Thats really interesting (and useful) thanks. I always assumed that when they say "Good evening sir, I see you're a Royal Ambassador ... blah blah" they were looking at some sort of "realtime" display of status. Good to know to the contrary.

They will be looking at a screen that says what your status is.

You are in danger of believing some rather poor advice and ignoring what in fact happens and is common sense.

It is fairly obvious that:

1. Most hotels will have a procedure that on the day or possibly the previous day, will produce a list and check who is booked in and their status ie VIPs, RA's and Ambassadors wil be flagged. They also produce a printed list in case the system goes down, so that they can check people in manually.

2. On that list you will be listed as an Ambassasador not Royal Ambassador. It isn't bothered about what you were when you booked - but what you are now, although if you were upgraded earlier it may not be noticed. To suggest that they will be using status that could be up to a year out of date is nonsense.

Arguably, as a customer contemplating a booking and contacting the hotel in advance and explaining that you are not certain of what your status will be when you arrive but asking now to have the benefits confirmed gives you more leverage and places you in a stronger postion than simply waiting until you arrive. And it give you a choice based on facts.

And if you don't handle it before the end of your stay, how will you handle the mini-bar for example? Will you use it as normal and if the charges appear on your bill say "but I use to be an RA!".

How you handle it ie take it on the nose and ask in advance - or not and simply risk it is your call. Pretending that "no one checks" is delusional.

Good luck.

kryten22uk,

uk1 has given you some good advice. All hotels check the status of each guest shortly before arrival to ensure that they have up to date status information (upgrade or downgrade), payment and credit card information (e.g. expiry dates, etc.) and PC/Ambassador number to ensure that benefits are correctly given and the check-in process is accurate and swift.

All loyalty programs undertake the same pre-arrival review. Don't assume that you will be given any additional benefits because you were once an RA. Expect to be treated as an Ambassador and if they extend the RA benefits that would be a bonus.

mxm135

Yep I think that whatever happens, if i'm not RA and I get RA benefits its a bonus, if I dont, I'm not relying on it anyway. ^

A workaround to give you the very best chance is to make a booking and make contact with the hotel using the approach I previously suggested. If they say yes - you're fine. If they say "no" then cancel the booking to delete any comments they would have made on your booking file and rebook freshly if you still want to chance you luck on arrival. This gives you two shots.

This spring I made one future reservation with Luxury Weekends rate long before my RA status extension. It was upgraded to a suite in 24 hours.

The opposite is also true. It seems nobody cares about your brand new platinum or RA status if reservations were made in the past. You should always contact hotels about such changes in advance.

I am probably a complete idiot but I cannot make any sense of your post at all.

Are you saying that some of your reservations are upgraded and some downgraded within 24 hours?

And are you also saying that IC's ignore the current status of members?

I'm completely lost.

From my experience I can report the following when I was travelling with colleagues whose RA membership has already expired when they checked in:

1. Reservation was made during RA membership time. Upgrade showed up before Check In.
   Membership had already expired when the colleague checked in.
   Upgrade and RA benefits were granted although RA status has expired.
   
2. Reservation was made during RA membership time.
   Upgrade was granted at Check In although RA membership has expired.
   All RA benefits were granted.
   
3. It never happened that one of these colleagues has been downgraded after he got a pre-upgrade before Check In.
   And it also never happened that one of them hasn't received a RA upgrade at all or no recognition of RA benefits
   (free minibar, early Check In...) because staff was aware of my colleagues' new "simple" Ambassador status.