Whenever I book a hotel room, I don’t leave the additional “requests” section blank. If I’m a Hilton Gold elite member, I would put “HHONORS GOLD VIP GUEST – PLS UPGRADE TO THE BEST SUITE AVAILABLE. THANKS.” I’m sure that it has worked in my favor before, but of course it’s always YMMV.
I started looking at hotels yesterday and found an amazing boutique hotel in Santiago, Chile for $29. I needed a simple day room to possibly nap and store my belongings for one of my upcoming mileage runs. The amazingly low $29 rate was just for a single private room with a shared bathroom. I decided to try my luck at a free upgrade by writing on the comments section, “Please upgrade to a single room with a private bathroom if available. Thanks.”
Later that evening, I received an e-mail from the hotel:
Dear Jamison,
We have received yours reservation to arrival /11/2013 and leave /11/2013. It asked for a single room with shared bathroom that costs US$ 29. A note of “booking” website asking us to upgrade to a single room with private bathroom that costs US$ 50. You should confirm it changing on the page where you created the reservation, and making a new one with the characteristics of the room you request.
Best regards,
Carlos
In all the history of my hotel bookings, I have never heard this type of response from a hotel. Usually, they would either ignore my request or comply before arrival. Honestly, I felt very embarrassed and ashamed of myself. In the frequent flyer world, we always preach the term, “It never hurts to ask”. Well, today it did hurt because when I read the e-mail, I felt like I was trying to scam the boutique hotel.
I will continue asking for complimentary upgrades, but this one really hit it home on a small boutique hotel trying to make money.
Think you’re being too hard on yourself. It’s really no different than other hotels that, in response to email requests for an upgrade, offers a higher-tier room for additional money.
Asking for a specific free upgrade to a different room type than you paid for, when you have no status, at an independent hotel? That does take balls.
Understandable that the proprietor of a private hotel, in a nin-English speaking country, thought you were just confused, not greedy.
“I felt like I was trying to scam the boutique hotel.”
But you were, right? You wanted them to give you something you weren’t intending to pay for.
I simply “requested” a better room which is like gambling and they don’t have an obligation to fulfill such requests. Don’t we all want a free upgrade?
And of course you need a bigger room to “take a nap and store stuff”?
I think upgrades are totally fine to ask for if you have some kind of status or history at a hotel. It’s like being rewarded for your loyalty, although that’s up to the hotel to decide if or how they want to go through with that. For a boutique hotel (or what sounds more like a hostel in this case with the shared bathroom) in which you have no status or history with or special occasion to celebrate, it seems a bit strange to ask for an upgrade. Maybe this would be a better request to make in-person if you can hit it off with the front desk. 🙂