Marriott promises that is an upgraded room is available for the length of your stay when you check in, then it is your free if you’re a Platinum member or above. But that’s not actually how Marriott upgrades work.
Obviously, advance confirmed upgrades are done first (‘nightly upgrade awards’). These let members express priority for upgrades on a limited number of nights each year, getting ‘first dibs’ so to speak. You pick the room you’re willing to accept for your upgrade, and if it’s available as an upgrade in advance then Marriott will attempt to confirm it through their own central systems in the days leading up to check-in.
However, even that isn’t ‘if the room type is available for sale then it’s available as an upgrade’ the way that Hyatt’s advance upgrades (which can be confirmed at booking) work. Instead, Marriott upgrade inventory is rooms that they’re certain aren’t going to sell at the last minute. So there may be junior suite or ocean rooms available for sale, but you still won’t get them with a nightly upgrade award.
When you check in you’re supposed to get available rooms as an upgrade, but generally there are no available upgrades, ever, except when there are more upgrades available than elite guests. That’s because upgraded rooms are usually assigned prior to guest arrival. And if you wonder why you don’t ever get them, it’s either because the hotel doesn’t follow Marriott procedure… or because Marriott doesn’t think you’re very important.
At full service brands that are included in the upgrade benefit, properties receive a recommended order for upgrades out of all members eligible. Marriott keeps the criteria secret, though generally it’s Ambassador > Titanium > Platinum. What they don’t share is how they rank-order within each tier.
[T]he algorithm in GXP (Guest Experiences platform) arranges all guests arriving for each particular day and gives us insights about them one of which is an upgrade dashboard. The dashboard arranges guests arriving that day on an internal points system as to who are the most “valuable” guests to upgrade. Associates at the FD typically just run down that list after NUAs are awarded until upgrades are gone.
By the way here’s a Marriott Bonvoy ‘owner’ card which confers Titanium status. Owners are supposed to treat other owners with extra courtesy.
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Marriott Bonvoy’s terms don’t actually reference an airline-style upgrade list with hierarchy within each tier that the hotel is supposed to follow. The way upgrades are described is that they are first come, first serve at check-in for rooms that are available (including being cleaned) when the guest arrives and aren’t booked by other guests for the entire length of the stay.
As I’ve explained before one trick hotels use to avoid upgrading elites into suites, which are more costly to clean, is just to not clean them until they’re booked by a paying guest. That way they are not ‘available’ for upgrade.
Presumably more nights and more spend prioritize one guest over another within their elite tier for how hotels are supposed to assign upgrades. An infrequent guest who merely has lifetime status might be lower-ranked?
Although at Hyatt that’s not the case at all. Lifetime Globalists outrank mere Globalists. On the Hyatt version of the recommended upgrade list, Lifetime Globalists have a separate elite tier designation (“LGLO”) versus Globalists (“GLOB”). Lifetime Globalist is a higher elite level with Hyatt.
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