Hotel declines Your24 but willing to upsell late check-out
 

I have an upcoming reservation at Le Meridien Piccadilly for next week.

I applied for SNA, which cleared. Right after my SNAs cleared (and after the reservation was adjusted to a suite) I put in a Your24 request, which came back denied due to "projected hotel occupancy".

My request was 7PM check-in/out.

Dispite being able to find at least 15 suites available for my check-out date on spg.com, five days out to my stay the property still projects to be full.

I contacted Your24 support desk about this which in turn got in touch with hotel. The hotel got back to me in an email. Their take on this is: I can have a 4PM check-out (what's new?), as a gesture of goodwill they will grant a 5PM check-out; finally, if I want a 7PM check-out I have to pay for an extra night.

It seems that they can accomodate my 7PM check-out (what about those projected occupancy levels?), but only if I pay extra!

What's Your24 good for then?

This is pathetic and a total denial of the Your24 benefit as it was meant to be offered.

Shame on Starwood for allowing these shenanigans...

I am not sure I agree with you on this one and the title is a bit misleading. They are not upselling you a late checkout they are saying you would have to book another night.

While I agree this shows they have suites available currently to sell, it would also mean you needing to apply another SNA to it to get the suite and it clearing, that or booking and paying for a suite.

As for the availability while you are accurate about the suites what you often find with London hotels (and many other very busy cities) is that they do indeed end up sold out 24 hours or so to go. The sell standard rooms and then upgrade people to the suites and thus end up sold out. So while currently you can see suites available to book if they gave you your 7pm late checkout it limits their ability to do this.

It also means that they are unlikely to be able to offer that suite to an incoming Platinum as an upgrade as it wouldn't be available before say 8:30pm.

While frustrating I do not feel in this case the hotel hasnt tried to work with you, it has offered you 5pm which it did not need to do and I feel it would let you stay in the lounge until 7pm should the request be done nicely.

On the bright side, there are a few things to do in that area of town besides sitting around the hotel room ;)

Your24 was simply a bad business decision and I don't expect it will survive the merger, personally.

5PM sounds pretty cool to me and I would have been happy with it.^:-:

I have run into hotels where 4PM is the latest, no exceptions. They claimed Housekeeping day shift leaves at 5PM so they won't be able to clean the room. I would need to pay for one extra night for 5PM checkout. :(

You would be paying for the extra night because they can't sell the room because of you...

Why do you consider it a bad business decision? On the surface it seems to make total sense to me. But I only just heard about Your24 yesterday as I was poking around the SPG site for something else. I'm SPG Plat through my Marriott account. I now stay at a lot of SPG properties but have never once used the Your24 benefit.

-RM

I'm with OP on this one. Room is available for late check out for cash, but not with Your24? Something smells.

You don't have Your24. It's only for Plat75 and Amb. You're PlatMinus.

OK, thanks. I didn't read the T&C on Your24. I'm not making Plat75 or 100 in SPG this year but of course will be in Marriott yet again. But that means little to SPG. I'll take what I can get and be happy :)

-RM

I wish you'd drop the whole PlatMinus denigration. It smacks of Elitism and Starwood Lurker has confirmed that there is no such thing! As far as I know, you're the only person on this forum who uses this terminology.

If one looks under MSP's handle, she's PlatMinus too (unless she hasn't updated under her handle) ;) :p :D But yeah I don't see the need for the phrase. SPG has 3 levels of Plat. If one meets even the lowest level, they're still a Plat.

To the OP, while the property couldn't do the 7pm, that they extended to 5pm (hour past 4pm) was nice given they didn't have to do so.

Cheers.

Personally, I have had pretty good luck with Plat1 (better than PlatMinus? Remember Plat 25 & Plat 50?) at SPG properties in getting upgrades and the such. So getting the match from your MR status does bring nice things to the table. You need to decide what's important and pick the property that works best for you. Adding the SPG portfolio to that list really ups the choices.

Well then, I apologize, but I still cringe every time I hear the term "PlatMinus".

As far as the OP, he has earned the Your24 benefit which entitles him to check in/check out over any 24 hour period, as long as the hotel has availability. The fact that hotel has availability for a fee but not as a Your24 benefit is just plain wrong. I don't see why he/she should be grateful for free 5 pm check out if 7 pm check out is available for a fee. Either it's available for 7 pm check-out or it isn't. (I have Your24 and it is an amazing benefit when the hotel co-operates.)

I wonder if the order of execution should have been different? Apply for Your24 first, then if/when it comes through, apply SNA?

No - I talked about this with my Ambassador, she said IF you are applying an SNA, once that clears, you need to re-apply for Y24.

IF you already have a Y24 approved, and then get an SNA approved, your Y24 request is basically invalidated, because your Y24 was approved for a different room type.