How to Get a Room Upgrade at a Five-Star Hotel

No one can promise you an upgrade on arrival. The hotel decides on the day, from the better rooms still empty that night. What you can do is arrive as a guest the hotel has already marked for one: book through a program that lists an upgrade among its amenities, choose the room and the nights with care, and say before you arrive why the stay matters.

Who decides, and when

An upgrade is the hotel's decision, made close to arrival, when it knows which rooms are free. A better room that is sold, or free tonight but booked tomorrow, can't be given to you for the whole stay. That is what “subject to availability” means on an amenity list: the upgrade is requested, not reserved.

So the question is not how to get a promise. It is how to be on the hotel's list when a better room is free, and how to book a room you will be glad of if none is.

Book through a program that lists one

Hotels give travel advisors' programs a set of amenities to add to a stay, and an upgrade is generally among them. Virtuoso, a network of luxury travel agencies, says its travelers generally receive “upgrades upon arrival (if available)”, with daily breakfast for two, early check-in or late checkout, and Virtuoso-only amenities such as spa credits, varying by property. Booked through a Virtuoso advisor, those amenities come with the reservation, so the request for an upgrade reaches the hotel before you do.

Across the 2,000+ hotels Stay Perks lists, the package usually comes down to four lines: breakfast for two daily, a hotel credit, typically $100 per stay, an upgrade on arrival when one is available, and early check-in or late check-out when available. You pay the hotel's own rate, and there is no fee on hotel bookings: you pay the hotel directly, and the hotel pays the advisor a commission. How that compares with booking direct, and what the perks are worth.

Some hotel brands run programs of their own for advisors. Four Seasons Preferred Partner, for Four Seasons' owned and operated hotels, carries the same amenities as Virtuoso, with small differences from property to property, and a stay gets one set, not both: the two compared. Geisel is a partner in 22 such programs, from Belmond Bellini Club to Hyatt Privé and the Mandarin Oriental Fan Club (the full list). What each includes varies by program and by hotel, and Geisel confirms the amenities with each quote.

Read the upgrade line before you book

The line is short, and the details matter. Where a listing spells out the upgrade, it has limits, and a few hotels offer none. On their Virtuoso listings:

As each hotel lists it on Virtuoso (Hôtel de Crillon, Amanjena, Amanpulo, Amankora), for 2026; Amankora's listing still carries a 2025 label. Each hotel page here shows the hotel's amenities where the hotel allows them to be shown before booking; otherwise Geisel's written quote lists them.

What raises your chances

None of these is a guarantee. Each makes it easier for the hotel to say yes.

• Book a room you would be glad to keep. An upgrade, where a listing defines it, is a step with limits, like the next room level at Amanjena. The category just below the room you hope for is a sensible booking if you would be happy to stay in it.
• Choose nights when the hotel has room. An upgrade needs a better room that is empty for every night of your stay. Holiday weeks and full weekends leave little to give; quieter nights and the shoulder seasons either side of the busy months tend to leave more.
• Say why the stay matters, before you arrive. An anniversary, a honeymoon, a birthday: tell the hotel ahead, through whoever books the stay. It gives the hotel a reason to choose you, never a promise.
• Put the request on the booking. Ask your advisor to note the upgrade request and the occasion on the reservation before arrival, when the hotel is planning its rooms, not only at the desk on the day.
• Weigh the length of the stay. A longer stay is worth more to the hotel, but the better room has to be free for every night of it. For a long stay at a busy time, booking the room you want may serve you better than hoping.
• Use status at chain hotels. Elite status with a hotel brand can help at that brand's hotels: Hilton Honors, for one, lists space-available room upgrades among the benefits of its Gold tier and above. Give your member number when you book, and ask how status and advisor amenities work together at that brand.
• Ask at check-in. If no upgrade has been offered, it costs nothing to ask, politely, whether a better room is free.

When the room matters, book the room

An upgrade is a pleasant surprise, not a plan. If the trip depends on a particular room, a suite for the family or the sea view for a proposal, book that room, and let the amenities add to it. It costs more than hoping, and it is the only way to be sure.

How to book a stay through Geisel

Send the hotel, your dates and the number of guests, and mention the occasion if there is one. Within 24 hours Geisel replies with a written quote: the room, the rate, taxes and fees, the total, the hotel's cancellation policy for that rate, and the amenities. Nothing is booked until you say yes. She spent two decades in hotels, including a long tenure with Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, before founding her own travel advisory, and she books as an independent affiliate of Travel Experts, Inc., a Virtuoso member agency. Hotels whose Virtuoso listings include an upgrade on arrival include:

• Copacabana PalaceRio de Janeiro
• Hôtel de CrillonParis
• The CarlyleNew York
• Four Seasons Hotel Gresham PalaceBudapest
• CarusoRavello, Amalfi Coast
• Mandarin OrientalBangkok
• Rosewood MayakobaRiviera Maya, Mexico
• AmanjenaMarrakech
• AmanpuloPalawan, Philippines
• All 2,000+ hotelsSearch the catalogue