TravelingForMiles.com may receive commission from card issuers. Some or all of the card offers that appear on TravelingForMiles.com are from advertisers and may impact how and where card products appear on the site. TravelingForMiles.com does not include all card companies or all available card offers.
Some links to products and travel providers on this website will earn Traveling For Miles a commission that helps contribute to the running of the site. Traveling For Miles has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Traveling For Miles and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities. For more details please see the disclosures found at the bottom of every page.
One of the few positives we saw emerge from the Marriott/SPG merger was the inclusion of Starwood’s suite night awards into the new Marriott Bonvoy loyalty program and, despite the fact that Marriott has somehow managed to make these upgrade awards considerably less valuable than they could be, they’re still a benefit that gets a good number of Bonvoy elites excited.
Marriott Bonvoy allows its members to choose 5 suite night awards as part of their benefits package when they earn 50 elite night credits in a year (the Annual Choice Benefits), and it allows members to choose a further 5 suite night awards as part of their benefits when they earn 75 elite nights in a year. That makes it pretty important to know how to apply these upgrades online.
Before I go on to show how easy it can be to apply a Marriott suite night award to a reservation it’s worth pointing out that you can’t use these awards at all Marriott properties.
Not all Participating Properties participate in Suite Night Awards. Suite Night Awards are not redeemable at the following brands: The Ritz-Carlton, The Ritz-Carlton Reserve, The Ritz-Carlton Destination Club, The Ritz-Carlton Residences, EDITION, Protea Hotels, Aloft, Element, Design HotelsTM, all-Suite Hotels, Marriott Executive Apartments, ExecuStay, Marriott Vacation Club, Marriott Grand Residence Club properties and Vistana properties.
In addition, Suite Night Awards are not redeemable at select Participating Properties. Contact a Customer Engagement Center for individual Participating Property Suite Night Award participation.
In the case of some of these brands, the exclusion is understandable (the timeshare/fractional ownership properties for example) and in some cases, it doesn’t really matter as the properties don’t really offer suites anyway, but Marriott has yet to convince most people that there’s a valid reason to allow brands like Ritz-Carlton and EDITION to choose not to offer this supposed core, high-level, Marriott benefit. Still, that’s a discussion for another day.
Applying A Marriott Suite Night Award To An Existing Reservation – 6 Simple Steps
Step 1
Head over to Marriott.com and log in using the link in the top right corner of the page.
Step 2
Click on the “My Trips” link in the top right corner of the webpage.
Step 3
From the list of your booked trips that now appear, find the one you’d like to upgrade and click on the “details” link to the right of the reservation.
Step 4
The reservation you just chose will have now expanded to reveal an option to “view/modify” the reservation. Click on this button.
Step 5
Full details of your reservation should now be on the screen and, partway down the screen, you should see the option to apply your suite night awards to the reservation. Click on “start upgrade request”.
Step 6
You’ll now be presented with a list of rooms that the property is willing to consider upgrading you into should your upgrade clear. The number and nature of the options can vary significantly from property to property, and some of the options may be true suites while others may just be slightly larger rooms or rooms with a better view…so choose carefully.
The text on the page clearly reads “The more rooms you select, the more likely you are to be upgraded” so bear this in mind when making your selection.
When you’ve made your selection, click on “submit upgrade request” that will appear on the screen.
That’s It!
Once you’ve selected the room(s) you’re happy to be upgraded into and submitted the form that’s it. There’s nothing more for you to do.
You’ll get a confirmation screen that looks something like this…
…and on it, you’ll see that Marriott will “start looking for your perfect room” availability 5 days before your stay and will keep you updated on progress via email.
Almost as soon as you submit your suite upgrade award request you’ll also get a confirmation email from Marriott to let you know that your request is in progress.
Time to sit back and wait to see what happens.
Featured image: Living area of a JW Suite at the JW Marriott LA Live courtesy of Marriott
I have not.
I tried to use my 10 nights for an 8 night stay. This process has been around for at least 3 months or more. It’s still pretty worthless. My “request” was cancelled twice. I was told by Marriot, the first time that the CNX request came from the hotel….b.s… I know the hotel very well and they told me they do not have the ability to CNX these suite night upgrade requests. Second time, Marriot said the CNX request came from my app, which is b.s. They tell you that they will try to confirm at the 5 day mark..and then if it does not happen, the request is cnx…and they do not keep trying for you….even if you are in their very top tier….so it feels pretty much like a con getting these things…
Wow..just wow. That’s a terrible experience! I have two requests pending right now for 2019 so it will be interesting to see just how well or badly they turn out…I suspect my request at the Gritti in Venice (award booking) has a very low chance of being honored.
It doesn’t show for some brands for me. Do we have any info on how to handle it for places like this (St. Regis comes to mind most prominently).
Hmm…that’s interesting. I’ll see if there’s a way I can look into this. I don’t have any ex-Starwood properties reserved right now so I can’t check right away…but I’ll work on it.
Is it only the former Starwood brands for which the upgrade option isn’t showing for you?
Hi,
I have used reward certificates now at three different categories of hotels and also applied at others where I did not get the option to upgrade. I have used at St. Regis , JW Marriott and regular Marriott successfully. However I was not given the option to upgrade at W Goa in India. When called the service desk after 3 hrs of wait I was told not all hotels participated and not all the times the upgrade certificates are accepted.
Hope this helps.
AJ
Very useful information – thanks!
It would appear that certain brands and certain (unnamed) properties are not participating in the suite upgrade award benefit so it’s likely that the W Goa is one of these properties.
I’m surprised you managed to use s suite upgrade award at an RC as that appears to be one of the excluded brands.
It looks like not all brands have to honor suite night awards which is probably why you’re not seeing the option to upgrade (blog post now updated to show which brands are excluded).
Interestingly St Regis isn’t one of the excluded brands so I’m left to wonder if the St Regis that you’re trying to upgrade is an all-suite property (which are excluded)
Very useful guide. Thank you. Can you inform us as to which brands this works with and which ones do not participate i.e. Ritz Carlton.
I’m looking into this and I’ll update this post as and when I have all the information available – not sure when that will be right now but I’ll do my best to be quick!
Blog post now updated to show which brands are participating and which are not.
[…] Follow this link for more information on how to request a Marriott suite upgrade award online. […]
Hello! Thank you for such an informative post. Attempted to use upgrades at Wailea Beach-Maui with no success.
Did you check to see if the property was selling its entry-level suites for the nights you stayed? It would be interesting to know if the property simply doesn’t honor suite upgrades or if the case that you were unlucky and all the suite had been booked/allocated to other upgraders.
Yeah, using these SNA’s are complete b******t [edited TFM]. You can now add Westin Grand Cayman to the secret excluded property list too. Even though they always accepted them when they were SPG. And Marriott is being really sneaky about the participating property list. I have a 5 night stay booked and 5 SNA nights. When I click modify reservation it says Use your suite nights and has the “Start Upgrade Request” button. I click the button and it shows me all of the rooms available to request an upgrade to. I select 2 of the list and click submit. Then it goes to an error page. I immediately get 2 emails simultaneously, the first says we received your request and the second email says your suite night request has been removed. The first 5 separate days I try this I get the same result, I tried on different days over a 3 week period thinking this was just a tech glitch with all the problems they are having. I finally call and after a long time on hold they tell me it is a non-participating property even though the website invites you to use your SNA’s. So the only way to learn that it is on the secret excluded list is to actually book the room, and actually submit your SNA’s. They probably figure it will piss fewer people off if they pretend it is available until you get to the actual point of using them.
That’s pretty bad (I may try to pull together a post about this).
Ultimately, if there’s no way of seeing which properties are “non-participating” while you’re booking we will end up with situations where people make non-refundable reservations in the belief that they have a shot at an upgrade only to find out that they have no shot at all.
Underhand seems to be a good word to use here.
Underhanded is exactly right. And with all of the talk about the agents giving wrong answers, I really wonder what one is supposed to do when they ultimately tell you it’s on a list that I can’t show you? He guessed, “well it’s probably because it’s a resort property.” At that point I didn’t challenge him further, but thought to myself that would be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. So now SNA’s are not usable at resort properties? Isn’t that pretty much the only time anyone asks for a suite? When they go to a resort with their family and need extra room, not when they are on a business trip in a city.
[…] if I genuinely cared about Marriott’s ‘suite night upgrades’ I’d still need to spend 75 nights with Marriott every year but, as I’ve explained […]
I know everyone out there says pick SNA’s as your bonus. I would pick the 5 stays.
I’m going to make Platinum here after my next stay and this sounds really painful. And what’s the deal with only making them good for 1 actual night?? I”m a Hyatt Globalist and they are so amazing to allow you to use your Suite Upgrade award for up to 7 nights!
I think I’ll stick to Hyatt whenever I can. Hopefully I’ll be able to use these suite night awards easily. Can you use these on the free annual night from credit card bookings?
Yes you can. Suite night awards can be used on free nights (points and cc certificates) as well as in paid stays.
My GOD I will be glad when travel returns and travel bloggers can actually write about something informative instead of recycling the same old “sign up for this great card” message or writing a blog on something that is so damn straightforward!
If you can’t figure out how to apply the upgrade you frankly don’t deserve it and this is about as stupid a waste of time/space as I can imagine.
Please half the bloggers go dark – the world would be a better place!!
Please call the police and report whomever is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to read this. They’re clearly a danger to society.