One of the most valuable benefits of earning elite status with hotel loyalty programs is the ability to receive complimentary room and suite upgrades when you stay with a hotel.
Although most elite status benefits apply automatically to your stay without any action on your part, that isn’t necessarily the case when it comes to the particular benefit of complimentary upgrades.
Instead, with upgrades, putting in a little bit of legwork on your end – otherwise known as the art of “suite-talking” – can significantly improve your chances of securing an upgrade, while also giving you the chance to score unbelievable upgrades to a hotel’s biggest and best suites.
What Is Suite-Talking?
Suite-talking is the practice of proactively reaching out to your hotel after making a reservation and before arriving for your stay, in order to request a suite upgrade as an elite member who’s eligible for one.
Suite-talking can be conducted via email, phone, text message, or the dedicated chat service on the hotel chain’s mobile app. It can also happen as part of the check-in interaction itself on your day of arrival, which is typically your final chance to work some suite-talking magic.
It might surprise you just how effective suite-talking can be to significantly elevate your hotel stays when you travel.
Why Is Suite-Talking Necessary?
You might be wondering: if elite status members are entitled to suite upgrades as part of their benefits, why would they need to explicitly ask for them? Shouldn’t suite upgrades be granted automatically?
Sadly, the answer is no. To understand why, it’s important to realize a key fact about how hotel loyalty programs work: even though members are rewarded for their loyalty to a specific hotel chain, the actual benefits are delivered by individual hotels, which are usually a separate entity from the hotel chain itself.
As a result, incentives aren’t always aligned. The loyalty program very much intends to reward members with suite upgrades every time, but the hotel itself may prefer to keep the suites unoccupied so that they have a chance of selling it for cash later that day.
Therefore, you’ll find that hotels tend to offer upgrades with varying degrees of proactivity. Some hotels will be more generous with upgrades, while others will be more stingy.
This uneven landscape is why suite-talking is…
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