Platinum but recognised as Gold by hotels on arrival
 

I made platinum in December of 2013 and am currently on a bit of a road trip in the US. Most of my stays were booked in October/November last year.

I am currently in my 4th Westin property of the trip and today and in the previous 3 I was welcomed as a Gold member. I therefore had to make a point every time to ask for the Platinum breakfast amenity and had one hotel turn their nose up a bit and had to make a point of showing them on the SPG iPhone app that I was platinum. The property today was less confrontational and looked me up outside of the booking and apologied saying they were unsure why my status was reflecting incorrectly.

Luckily I have applied SNA on all of my stays and in 3 of the 4 properties my SNA was successful so upgrades weren't an issue. In the one where the SNA wasn't successful I was allocated a deluxe room over standard, so an upgrade was still given so I don't have a specific problem, but given rooms are pre-allocated prior to arrival, if the hotel is only recognising a guest as Gold there is a chance that any potential for an upgrade is reduced.

It would appear to me that the SPG status seems to be noted against the guest/stay at the time of booking, and is not then subsequently updated? If so this seems like a bit of a shortcoming.

Does anyone else have any experience of this to perhaps corroborate this, or is there perhaps just an issue with my SPG account?

The reservation system is supposed to update status and show the current status. However, several years ago I encountered what you encountered during my first two stays after I became Platinum at that time.

You can call central reservations and ask them to "refresh" your reservations for those that were made when you were Gold.

This is EXACTLY the issue.

As controller1 mentioned, see if an spg rep can refresh your future res. If that doesn't work, call the hotel directly before your upcoming trips

Oh, and congrats on going 3/4 with SNA upgrades!

Thanks for confirming! That does seem a bit of a ridiculous condition not to have trapped when whoever thought out the system designed it.

I wonder if the same issue could also be taken advantage of if making a reservation while platinum to stay after the status expires... I suspect not :)

Given what I've read about SNA success (or lack thereof) I've been quite pleased with mine...

1 night at Le Meridien Delfina Santa Monica.... not successful
3 nights at the Westin Riverwalk San Antonio - success to corner suite
2 nights at Westin Dallas Galeria - success to a corner suite on 20th floor. Handy for the club lounge and an extra couple of teabags... the 1 Awake tea bag supplied in the rooms is not befitting of a pair of English travellers :)
2 nights at Westin Avon Beaver Creak - success to a one bedroom suite

I had the same issue way back when I turned Gold.

Had a reservation made when I was preferred and had a stay at the Sheraton London Park Lane. The agent said that no way I'm a gold until he called Starwood right in front of me to confirm.

I have same experience after few months after achieve platinum.
The booking made after gain platinum status when i reach the hotel FDA tell me i'm Gold.
After show SPG card on my phone. They update/refresh system then show me Plat / upgrade me to another villa.

I had this happen with two properties in Munich. I had been Platinum for years before making the reservations. So it is not always due to a status change after making the reservation.

In both cases, upon checking some other system in the computer, they saw my correct status.

Really weird... never had it happen elsewhere.

Having ridden the status elevator up and down a dozen times I can tell you this is a recurring problem not restricted to Starwood. Calling in can and should work, but also risks the phone agent messing up an otherwise correct reservation.

My fallback? Drop the correct status card on the desk on top of the payment card. Mostly they catch on and quickly shift gears. If not you have turned the tables on the rare difficult FDC that does not believe you enough to check it out.

Happened to me as well. Was at a Westin too.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience. When a member's status changes it is reflected appropriately within SPG's systems, but the hotels must refresh the data on their end for the member to be appropriately recognized. They are asked to do this on at least a daily basis.

If anyone would like to assist us in identifying the properties that are not following through on this, you can send us the confirmation number for the stay to the email address below and we will let the SPG Hotel Coordinators follow up.

Best regards,

William R. Sanders
Social Media Specialist
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.

[email protected]

We made Platinum for the first time this year and also noted that all bookings made before were not updated by ANY of the hotels, until we began emailing each hotel ahead of time to casually enquire where we might access breakfast as a platinum guest. That fixed it at every hotel from that point on, although at least 2 emailed back to query why we were asking when we were obviously Gold. From our few data points ( 5) our experience is that 0/5 had refreshed as apparently suggested.

I had the same issue in Israel.
They refused to call, I called starwoods myself and gave them the phone. After a few minutes on the phone, he finally told me he'll grant me my status.
My suggestion, get a card from them. This way you just hand them the card which says your status on it.

Probably worth 2-5k points for your lost time if you write in

Hmm. This seems a little disappointing. I guess the process should be to just email any hotel you are staying at if your status changes after booking.

You don't need to do that nor should you need to do it. The hotels should following procedures!

I don't think this is wide spread and based on previous threads(I didn't list but can), the issue seems to be at the hotel level. The hotels are not processing reservations and updates properly. When this happens they should be reported.

Perhaps we should turn this and the previous threads into one consolidated thread so we know what properties have not followed procedure. Thoughts?