Thanks to a recent “flash sale” by Accor, I have finally regained Platinum status which I lost years ago due to them stopping all the free fast tracks.
A relative new benefit Accor introduced is the “suite night upgrade”.
- You receive two upgrades when achieving Platinum status
- Starting at 18,000 status points, you’ll earn one additional upgrade for every 4,000 status points
- You can receive up to 12 upgrades per calendar year
- They are valid until the end of next year
As you can reach Platinum purely with status nights, you could have zero status points but that doesn’t prevent you from getting the first two upgrades. There’s no shortcut for further upgrades other than spending money or subscribing to All Signature.
The way the upgrade works is very different to Marriott or IHG. To start with, the two upgrades are only valid on one night each, making it much less generous.
Secondly, you make a new reservation with the upgrade, instead of booking and then applying it later. As long as you have at least one upgrade in your account, you’ll see the option when searching for hotels.
If you’ve checked the box, the search will return all hotel options where you can apply the upgrade.
Note that many, but not all Accor hotels are participating and you can check the list on this page. You can click an individual hotel to see the options, and some hotels may offer more than one suite type.
Here’s the deal: you’ll book a suite directly, but only get charged at the rate of a lower room type which is mysteriously decided by the system. As the example above shows (from Raffles London), you can choose to either book a Junior Suite at the price of a Deluxe Room, or book a Westminster Suite at the price of an Executive Room.
So it’s more like a discount. It works out best if you do need a suite e.g. for extra space, but otherwise Fairmont hotels are worthy considerations because Accor Platinum doesn’t get complimentary access to their Gold Lounge. The picture below is an example of Fairmont Peace Shanghai where you get a suite at the Gold level.
The main problem is limited rate types are eligible for the upgrade, which seems to be the best flexible rate, standard member-only rates and standard advance saver rates.
Sale rates and corporate rates are excluded which is a shame. You can however still part pay your bill with points.
Only valid for one night and they force you to book at an unknown/arbitrary cash rate which cannot be a discounted corporate or promo rate. That is pretty awful. Combined with all the limited benefits of Platinum status, does it even make sense focusing on Accor?
In Asia yes – great footprint, many hotels with a lounge and free breakfast for Platinum. For Europe / America definitely not.
The savings are fantastic, shame they are just on a per day basis not a voucher for multi day upgrades like IHG (5 days). I settled on applying mine to 2 days in Prague, paid $USD500 for the two days the lessor room and received a suite of over 80m2 selling for about $1600USD. Hopefully they will give me the suite on the third day when I made a separate booking for the lessor room again.
I would definitely save these for Fairmont’s next year if possible as the gold room suites are a nice benefit. The Prague Fairmont is charging insane prices so it was a no go. Alas the lack of breakfasts for Accor platinum’s mean all my other Euro travel is with IHG
Nice one!