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World of Hyatt® and Marriott Bonvoy® both offer elite members the ability to upgrade hotel rooms to preferred rooms and some suites with certificates that they receive for reaching certain status levels. With Marriott these are good for a single night while Hyatt allows each upgrade to work for an entire stay up to seven nights. Hyatt has long had the more generous offering and it just got better. Marriott has also made a change that will be good news for members.
Hyatt Suite Upgrade Awards
Hyatt issues Suite Upgrade Awards (SUA) when members reach 40 nights, 50 nights, 60 nights (which also qualifies for Globalist status), and makes them an incremental option for every 10 nights stayed after 60. These may be applied at booking and can cover stays up to seven nights. Last week, Hyatt added the ability for these to be redeemed online, which will save members tons of time as these needed to be applied by a phone representative in the past. Now, Frequent Miler is reporting that members can book directly into a standard suite with an award when a hotel does not have a room available. This can open up access to hotels when there is no standard award availability and make these even more valuable.
Marriott Nightly Upgrade Awards
Marriott offers guests the ability to select five Nightly Upgrade Awards (NUA) as a Choice Benefit when they reach Platinum (50 nights) and five more when they hit Titanium (70 nights) status. Each award can be applied for one night, but they do not clear until within three days of the stay. If a member does not select another Choice Benefit, these will automatically be selected. Marriott Bonvoy® made a change to its terms yesterday (thanks to Loyalty Lobby for flagging it) where these can now clear as early as five days out except for stays at EDITION, The Ritz-Carlton, and St. Regis brands. These will continue to clear up to three days ahead of a stay. The upgrade window starts at 2:00 PM (in the time zone of the hotel) five or three days before arrival. If a suite or preferred room is not available then, the system will continue to check. If it does not clear than it’s returned to the member’s account automatically. My experience with these has been hit or miss. I’ve gotten some great upgrades, but have had many more denied.
Anthony’s Take: These changes are positive and make both upgrade awards more valuable. Hyatt’s offering is still way better than what Marriott provides as you know at booking that a suite is locked in. No complaints here on either of these changes.
(Image Credits: Hyatt and Marriott.)
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
1 comment
What exactly is different with Marriott? Suite night upgrades have theoretically cleared five days ahead for years but I’ve only had them succeed once ever. That in spite of suites showing available at 3-5 days ahead. To me that illustrates the very limited value of the certificates.