Here’s my hotel upgrade strategy!
This strategy is super simple and effective. You do need American Express Platinum Card to get the most out of it, but if you don’t have or can’t get one, you can still do parts of the strategy, and you can use any card or “Virtuoso” level travel agent that offers an upgrade benefit.
First, book the room using the American Express Platinum Card, (or Virtuoso travel agent) which gives you an upgrade on arrival (subject to availability). I book with the Amex Black Card which frequently automatically gives you an upgrade when you book and then a second upgrade on arrival.
I look at the room categories when I book and then find the biggest price gaps and book the highest-priced room in the lower-priced rooms category so that my upgrade will be a major one.
Also, before I book through Amex, I look at the “Offers” section of the hotel’s website to see what specials they are running. Frequently, they will have a special they are NOT showing through Amex. You can then call the hotel and see if they would honor the Promo in addition to the Amex upgrade and other benefits.
Then, at the hotel, frequently they will courtesy upgrade you one or two categories if available in advance of your arrival. This is cool so your hotel upgrade negotiation starts at an even higher category than you originally booked.
Then, I ask if any upgrades are available at the desk on the check-in, and almost always if there’s an upgrade available they will either give it to me or offer it at a huge discount.
The key to giving the front desk a way to do this is to have booked through Amex because for some reason the desk staff and front desk manager have a LOT more leeway to justify the upgrade based on the Amex deal than if you just try to negotiate having booked the room yourself or through the hotel or another site. Several desk people have told me this.
Other than that, I am always nice and complimentary of the person at the front desk, and I ask them what their favorite room in the hotel is, which frequently leads to me getting upgraded to that room and it’s almost always awesome.
Always remember that you can negotiate at the front desk when you check-in. Don’t be afraid to just ignore their initial upgrade offer and tell them what you are willing to pay. Believe it or not, even big fancy hotels will negotiate with you at check-in. You won’t always get what you want but in my experience, you will about 80-90% of the time.
One last tip. Be sure to check availability and have a plan for the target room(s) you want. Even if they say nothing is available when you check-in, there just might actually be a great room their system doesn’t even know about!
Also, as you can tell from all of this, it pays to be willing to spend time negotiating at check-in. Plan to spend 15-30 minutes getting to know the front desk folks and work your way up to a manager who can make things happen. I’d say my average front desk time runs about 20-25 minutes and sometimes much longer, but it is so worth it!
So, there you go. Simple but effective and it has allowed me to stay in hundreds of the best and most expensive hotel rooms in the world.
Enjoy this. Use it, and message me back about your success with this. I’d love to hear it!
Cheers
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Roland Frasier is co-founder and principal of three current Inc. Magazine fastest-growing companies and he has founded, scaled, or sold 24 different 7 to 9 figure businesses ranging from consumer products to industrial machine manufacturing companies with adjusted sales ranging from $3 million to $337 million.
Currently growing Scalable.co, DigitalMarketer.com, RivalBrands.com, and Plattr.com while advising over 150 other companies on digitally centric customer acquisition, activation, referral, retention, and revenue strategies and plan implementation.
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