Starting Today, Marriott’s AI Takes Control Of Room Upgrades—Forget Charm, Algorithm Decides If You Deserve A Suite
Marriott revealed several weeks ago that they were turning elite member upgrades over to artificial intelligence. This was designed to reduce the time hotels spend on the task, to save salary costs.
This new Automated Complimentary Upgrade (‘ACU’) system rolled out today.
Instead of a hotel’s rooms controller running upgrades the day before check-in, an algorithm does it and the room controller signs off on the list. This effectively, then, replaces the Guest Experiences Dashboard ranking elite members in terms of priority for upgrade.
Here’s how the new automated AI upgrade process works, from Marriott’s own internal documentation in DLZ, or Digital Learning Zone.
Currently hotels receive lists of guests checking in each day with the priority order Marriott recommends for assigning upgrades – the hotel should go down that list and assign better rooms until upgrades are no longer available. Not all hotels do this, and hotels still decide what ‘better’ means.
- Hotels still decides what rooms count as inventory for automatic upgrades.
- It will mean less work for staff (and, ultimately, fewer staff)
It is especially interesting to me that the process runs out of what appears to be the same inventory as nightly upgrade awards (“ACU checks eligible reservations against remaining Elite Upgrades Inventory”). Remember that not all rooms are made available for upgrade, only rooms Marriott expects not to sell. So a junior suite might be available for sale, but not for upgrade.
And Marriott quietly removed from its terms the promise to upgrade elite members to the best available rooms, including suites.
If a suite is available for sale and ready at the time of check-in for the full length of the stay, Marriott hotels no longer have to give it to you. (And some hotels leave suites not fully cleaned and ready until someone books them for cash in order to avoid offering them as upgrades, anyway.)
It’s still not clear how much this changes for the guest. The ‘system’ should be processing upgrades based on available inventory, instead of leaving it up to humans. But the rooms controller might use more generous inventory than the computer will, leaving Marriott elites less likely to be upgraded. On the other hand, a squeaky wheel today might press for an upgrade and get an upgrade assigned to someone else unblocked. This new process – which notifies the member of their new AI upgrade in advance – makes that harder.
Ultimately if this was somehow going to be good for Marriott guests, we’d have heard about it from Marriott – and they have not trumpeted the change.
(HT: One Mile at a Time)
