Starwood Lurker

Ah, okay. Well, good luck with the upgrade to a Landmark Grand Canal, which I concur is not available using points in advance. Hopefully, they will work with you on the request.

Best regards,

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

[email protected]

Jesperss

I'm confused...how can a Virtuoso t.a. help out you with an award booking?

OliverB

As I mentioned earlier, this person has some influence with the hotel, having recently visited and facilitated many bookings with the property. I'm not suggesting that strings would magically get pulled, but a friendly tel. call can sometimes go a long way. If nothing else, the gesture is appreciated. FTR, I've received Virtuoso amenities on award stays before through this same person who often reaches out to property managers on her own initiative, even when bookings are made independently.

OliverB

Bumping this one last time to ask whether the forum feels it's worth qualifying for elite just for a single stay at the Gritti? I have some upcoming nights in NYC with opportunity to book multiple rooms and I'm thinking of doing an elite challenge and then booking 6-7 nights in Vegas for under 1K to make Platinum. It's certainly cheaper than a paid upgrade. I'm really fixed on a canal room/suite and would not otherwise consider a stay in LSV (I'd consider it a waste of time and money if it weren't advantageous to an upgrade in Venice) so I'd like to get some input on whether it's a safe enough bet to warrant the added spending and elite run? We don't have future stays planned beyond Italy, though I would consider a return trip to Tokyo to maximize earned status if we were plat. There's no guarantee we'd make use of it beyond Venice though. So worth qualifying just for an upgrade at the Gritti or too risky to be cost effective?

schriste

My 2 cents on The Gritti Palace. Stayed there before the renovation, so probably about 10 years ago now. If you look at a photo of the canal side of the hotel, you will notice it has very few windows. The multiple ones in the center… well you just know those are going to be the top of the line suites. So, bottom line is your room will have a fairly small window that for the most part will require you to go and stand right next to it to enjoy the view (after you move the 900 pounds of drapes out of the way). I guess where I’m going is it is just not worth the bother or $s considering what you gain to get one of these rooms. If you get it for free… hey, sure great, but IMHO it seems like a poor use of $1500 to $3000. Now if the room had a great balcony, or floor to ceiling windows that you could capitalize on … that’s a different story

geminidreams

For all the extra dollars sit at one of the canalside restaurants and spend all day eating, drinking and watching the world go by.

OliverB

Thank you both for the sound advice; sounds reasonable to me!

I'll ask about an upgrade at check-in, just because it can't hurt. I won't expend too much added thought to it though. It's a free trip after all (nights, flights, etc) so we might as well bleed value out of it. Unless the hotel offers us a really great deal, I won't spend any extra unnecessarily for the view. Thanks very much for the perspective!