I am a relative newcomer to the ways of hotel upgrades, and had a question.

For some hotels, there are a lot of options for booking, many of which purport to offer a "complimentary upgrade at time of check-in, if available". To me, this is sort of the hotel equivalent of the "Unlimited Domestic Upgrades" of United Airlines or similar schemes for other airlines.

The difference is while those programs have pretty clear rules and have been analyzed to death on FT, the hotel side of things seems random and mysterious.

One question that sticks out to me most is: is there a "pecking order" to these "complimentary upgrades", or are they all created equal, and all that matters is who shows up first at the desk?

For example, I am booking a couple nights at the Art Hotel Barcelona. I could book this room in several ways:

- Amex Platinum FHR
- Virtuoso
- Direct with RC "Gold" status

ALL of these offer roughly the same benefits, give or take, and all include the elusive "comp. upgrade if avail.".

Is there a better or worse choice here? Would Amex Cent. make any difference in scoring the comp upgrade?

I believe there is a pecking order, others disagree.

These programs are springing up everywhere and really its hard to break out from the noise. Even as Virtuoso agent, I won't swear that I can work magic at each one of the 888 Virtuoso Hotels because, simply put, I can't support 888 hotels. But the Virtuoso advantage is that there is someone behind your booking, and in some cases you have a real strong personal tie with the given hotels. Where with Amex you are really just a faceless customer, unless you frequent the hotel a lot on your own or pull a "dykwim". My take on Amex is they could not care a less where you stay, how you enjoyed it or what you are doing next, as long as you paid for your trip with your Amex card, they are happy!

I am interested in this as well. And, a related question: How often does the upgrade actually happen with these bookings? I am considering a booking through LuxuryLink which lists the "upgrade upon checkin, if available" as well. I can find no info on how often, on average, these upgrades are available....

Well, for Amex Platinum, there's a long thread in the Amex forum about amenities provided and upgrade successes. Other than that, not sure there's any sort of consolidated summary or a similar thread for other services.

- confirmed upgrades (like amex cent at RC...)
- upgrades
+ client/agent discuss with management

obviously room count/price (occupancy) are the biggest factors in upgrades

as well as what the situation is at time of arrival

I won't dispute anything you have to say about the advantage of working with a real virtuoso agent who can contact a hotel directly on your behalf. Furthermore, I agree that Amex can be very faceless--I typically use them to make my booking and then contact the hotel directly, in effect acting as my own travel agent despite it nominally being a FHR reservation.

However, I do think that hotels are concerned with honoring the terms of the FHR benefits. I have had situations were a hotel was a real pain about it, but when I noted that I would be relaying my concerns directly to Amex, they immediately relented. Thus, I would argue that, because of the volume of business brought in by associating with Fine Hotels, the customer has better leverage in case of a dispute or underwhelming stay.

when these have something that virtuoso doesnt >

- amex plat/cent FHR
- LHW access/unlimited
- kiwi collection advantage (and visa signature hotels?)
- preferred hotels iprefer

a client can have their virtuoso/etc agent book through those programs

anything im missing that lets agents book?

This is great. I will use it for the first time at RC Moscow.
It's a shame that Centurion FHR does not offer this confirmed upgrade with more hotels.

My experience is that obviously you have more chances to be upgraded during low season when hotel is not full, and when there are many rooms/suites in the category just above the one you have booked. This happened to me at Dorchester London => there are more Dorechester suites than Park suites so booking a Park is a good way to get upgraded.

In our experience a lot seems to depend on the agent if going with a Virtuoso agent. We had a former Virtuoso agent who processed two trip reservations for us and then we never heard another thing about it; upon check-in the upgrades were not available on arrival. I didn't think much about it at the time, despite knowing better in retrospect that occupancy did seem low. We had no personal relationship with that agent, I think she was just randomly assigned when we contacted Virtuoso back in 2004 regarding a trip.

We switched to DavidO last year after so many on flyertalk recommended him, and since then upgrades have been available on all three reservations we booked with him. Actually, if my memory serves he contacted me on at least one trip ahead of time and told me we had already been upgraded. And on another reservation the upgrade was substantially more than a one-category upgrade, and he has been able to work out a late check-out when needed to fit with our flight schedule. I can't say if it is coincidence or not, but our upgrade success has certainly improved when David has made the reservations.

The one addition to the list is Ritz-Carlton STARS. There are roughly 50 agencies in the world that have this designation as Ritz-Carlton's best producers, and this status piggybacks on top of Virtuoso amenities. STARS agents have a list of contacts at each hotel (known as "Guardian Angels"), and emails sent directly to one's Guardian Angel through the STARS intranet get priority status.

I will be interested to see how this goes when we check into Oberoi Udaivilas on Tuesday. We have been induced by the advertised "Stay for 10 nights or more and upgrade to a suite at any one hotel." promotion to book for a full 10 nights (out of a 10 night stay in India). We would otherwise likely be looking at a quite different itinerary quite possibly only staying 1 night at Oberoi hotels.

However the small print indicates that the suite upgrade is only if available on arrival, which gives me the impression that not only can the suite be sold at full price (as you would expect), but a guest arriving 10 minutes before us with one of these 'free upgrade' rates would nudge us out of the way.

Thanks for the replies. I am booking lots of different high-end hotels for short stays across France/Spain, and so far I have booked about half with FHR and about half with a (randomly assigned) Virtuoso agent. So when we get back, we'll have some non-scientific data to share on upgrade percentages.

We're going on the tail end of high season (early September) so trying to keep expectations pretty low.

We have a few more to reserve still, so I will look into possibly upgrading to a more proactive Virtuoso agent for the remainder, or check out the Ritz-Carlton STARS thing.

I find a lot of the properties we're interested in in this area are "Relaix and Chateau" properties. Are there any specific tips on who those guys respect the most in terms of booking agents? It seems some of them are FHR and MOST of them are Virtuoso, so so far Virtuoso has gotten most of those bookings for our trip.

do 15 nights in R&C (in a year) and you get upgrades at R&C properties that arent part of other programs

Actually, about 4 years ago, I got an excellent upgrade at Udaivillas on an FHR booking - and at the Agra property as well.

However, in general, I value 'upgrade if available on arrival' as 100% worthless. It certainly doesn't mean you definitely get one if they have rooms available - some will be held back for late bookings or simply because the hotel clerk doesn't know about the upgrade.

I have, over the years, had good results with FHR upgrades but I don't rely on them. Once, in Barbados, my assigned room was actually changed in front of me by the front desk clerk when she saw it was an FHR booking. I have never been upgraded on numerous Virtuoso bookings at Four Seasons Hampshire, on the other hand - but I don't judge Virtuoso on 1 property. I did get a good upgrade at LeGrand in Paris via Virtuoso this year, but then I am also an InterContinental Ambassador and have stayed there a few times before, so all those factors probably played a part.

All in all, though, I would never pay extra for a room if the only benefit over a cheaper one was 'upgrade if available'.

Is this someting other than "Gold" status in their Rewards program? Aren't those also "if available at check-in" upgrades?