As of today, Marriott is automating the process of assigning guest rooms, including elite upgrades. While replacing human tasks with AI doesn’t always sound like a customer centric move, maybe this is actually good news? I first covered this topic several weeks ago, but with this process being implemented as of today, I want to take a closer look as to how it works.
In this post:
Marriott automates the task of assigning rooms
Several weeks ago, Marriott Chief Technology Officer Naveen Manga participated in the Skift Data and AI Summit, talking about the incremental progress that the company is making with AI.
His most interesting commentary was about how Marriott is deploying an AI tool that automates the task of hotel room assignments for front desk staff. As described by Manga, “essentially, taking hours and hours of manual work — all that heads down work the associates do — and in a fraction of a second, 1.2 million rooms can be assigned.”
Hotels assigning rooms on a daily basis is a big task, both given that it needs to be done daily, and also given the number of considerations that go into this. Front desk staff have to consider things like arrival times, room preferences, occupancy levels, elite status or other upgrade eligibility, etc.
When it comes to upgrades, it’s my understanding that Marriott previously had a system that secretly prioritized guests for room upgrades, based on elite status and other factors. Then it was up to the front desk agents to run down that list, upgrade guests, and assign rooms.
Anyway, this new technology has been implemented as of today, Monday, July 14, 2025, and we also have more details as to how this works.
How Automatic Complimentary Upgrades (ACUs) work
Automatic Complimentary Upgrades (ACUs) is the internal name for Marriott’s new automated way of assigning elite upgrades. Here’s how the company describes the process:
To drive greater operational efficiency and enhance the guest experience, Marriott is launching a technology-driven enhancement that will streamline how upgrades are managed across hotels. ACUs will build on the current complimentary upgrade system to place Marriott Bonvoy Gold and higher-tier Elite members in a higher room category.
So, how does this actually work in practice? Many Bonvoy elite members are probably familiar with Nightly Upgrade Awards (NUAs), which are the elite upgrade certificates that members can select as part of the Choice Benefits program. With that process, starting three to five days before arrival, an automatic system can confirm those upgrades, at 2PM local hotel time.
How does the Automatic Complimentary Upgrade system work? As shared by a Reddit user:
- Starting at 3PM local time the day before arrival, the system will start checking for ACU availability for reservations arriving the next day, using remaining elite upgrade inventory
- If a match is found, an upgrade is granted, and the member receives a notification telling them that an upgrade has been granted
So it’s pretty cool that guests will actually be informed in advance of their upgrade, if available. Keep in mind that even if an upgrade isn’t granted at 3PM the day before arrival, it could still be granted later on. Hotels will continue to be able to designate what rooms are in their elite upgrade inventory, and it remains to be seen to what extent Marriott will intervene for hotels that choose not to follow the rules (probably not much).
Is automation good or bad for hotel guests?
Generally speaking, when we hear of AI in the hotel industry, it’s not good news. The intent is typically for the hotel to cut costs and improve the bottom line, rather than improving the guest experience. However, on the surface, I feel like automating room assignments might actually have some upside, or at worst, be neutral.
After all, a computer can assign room types most fairly based on a variety of factors. Furthermore, for hotels that aren’t great about upgrading, maybe automating the assigning of rooms will actually increase the number of upgrades that are given out.
The challenge continues to be that hotels still have control as to which rooms they designate as being in the elite upgrade inventory. Unfortunately just recently, Marriott updated its upgrade terms & conditions, to give hotels more discretion in terms of the types of rooms members can be upgraded to.
Bottom line
Marriott has officially rolled out its new Automatic Complimentary Upgrades (ACUs) process, whereby a front desk AI tool automatically starts assigning room upgrades at 3PM the day before arrival. While I’m generally skeptical of the extent to which AI improves customer experience, I have more faith in a computer than I do in the average front desk Marriott employee when it comes to assigning upgrades, so I wouldn’t necessarily consider this to be bad news.
To be clear, that’s not a dig at Marriott employees, as they’re typically just doing what they’re told to do. The issue is the hotel owners that want the global distribution power of Marriott (thanks largely to the Bonvoy program), without providing the benefits that make it popular.
With this now being rolled out, I’m curious if we notice any difference with upgrades and room assignments.
What do you make of this new Marriott AI tool for assigning rooms? And if you have any firsthand experiences with the new system please report back!
I'm so happy that I've achieved Lifetime Platinum status just in time for peak enshitification!
Curious at the practical adoption. Over the years I found many hotels preference upgrades based on individual hotel loyalty rather than my Marriott status. I stayed at the same Westin in Dublin for months and progressively got upgraded to better and better suites each week - none of which would have been eligible for elite upgrades. That behavior is more consistent than elite-status based upgrades in my experience.
As a lowly Gold thanks to Amex, I'm always a bit perplexed why people get so worked up about upgrades in hotels. If I want a suite, I book a suite? Ultimately for me at least, all I care about is that the room is clean, has hot shower and working air con and anything beyond that is a bonus. :-)
I long gave up on caring about Marriott upgrades and find I'm much happier because I've managed my own expectations. SPG used to be great about upgrades which did drive a certain expectation and behavior (because back then if you pushed for an upgrade you had decent odds of a good outcome). Once Marriott took over that quickly changed and I realized asking was basically a waste of time.
Now I prefer just booking hotels...
I long gave up on caring about Marriott upgrades and find I'm much happier because I've managed my own expectations. SPG used to be great about upgrades which did drive a certain expectation and behavior (because back then if you pushed for an upgrade you had decent odds of a good outcome). Once Marriott took over that quickly changed and I realized asking was basically a waste of time.
Now I prefer just booking hotels like Four Seasons where I actually consistently get upgrades just by using their Preferred partner program.
How about they automate posting nights and points correctly. Lately, for every stay, I had to go through the Ambassador desk and even then the general ambassador associates would take many follow ups, and (re)sending folios multiple times before a stay is posted correctly.
My hot take? This is only potentially good news for guests because Marriott is otherwise such a hot mess when it comes to upgrades.
My biggest concern is that I've occasionally had to get into a fight with a hotel to the effect that "No, if the upgraded room is a King room only accessed through a wardrobe in a British estate, I don't want it".
Yes, there's some sarcasm there, but there are hotels...
My hot take? This is only potentially good news for guests because Marriott is otherwise such a hot mess when it comes to upgrades.
My biggest concern is that I've occasionally had to get into a fight with a hotel to the effect that "No, if the upgraded room is a King room only accessed through a wardrobe in a British estate, I don't want it".
Yes, there's some sarcasm there, but there are hotels where it feels like the layout can put you at the far end of the universe...and if I'm catching sleep between flights/before an early flight and am weighed down by luggage? I probably don't consider giving up my preferred smaller bed for that.
The other issue is whether the system will do a good job of pairing up stays that get spilt over 2-3 reservations due to rate availability issues.
If a front desk agent or manager can override it then it is okay I guess.
As a lowly lifetime platinum, I haven't gotten significant room upgrades at many Marriot properties for a while. With the new software, the chances of upgrades are even slimmer. I'll choose to stay elsewhere as loyalty means very little these days.
I wonder how this will affect other types of upgrades, such as Marriott STARS.
Am I the only person that sees this as an improvement? At least front desk AI has some "intelligence".
Since the old comments were purged, I have to re quote myself.
@OMAAT
Why some recycled posts keep the comments and why some the entire comments got purged?
If a hotel company says AI enough times in an earnings call, it will get the same multiple as OpenAI
We need to convince them it's like saying candyman five times into a mirror and maybe they'll stop
A few things:
1) This is hardly AI. It’s certainly not as advanced as was originally reported.
2) It is highly unlikely that a majority of the 70% of Marriott properties operated by a franchisees/licensee or third party for a franchisee/licensee will actually use this. It’s almost certainly only going to be a reliable thing at Marriott-operated properties.
3) This won’t stop the games that many properties play. Many properties avoid suite upgrades by...
A few things:
1) This is hardly AI. It’s certainly not as advanced as was originally reported.
2) It is highly unlikely that a majority of the 70% of Marriott properties operated by a franchisees/licensee or third party for a franchisee/licensee will actually use this. It’s almost certainly only going to be a reliable thing at Marriott-operated properties.
3) This won’t stop the games that many properties play. Many properties avoid suite upgrades by not placing suites into Marriott’s inventory. If you want a suite at these properties you have to book directly through the property. So the properties with cheap owners or cheap management companies will continue to cheat elites out of suite upgrades.
4) What’s sad is I think the vast majority of customers would probably prefer Marriott fix certain benefits like the breakfast benefit. Considering this is hardly AI or hardly fully automated, I’m not sure this will fix anything. It certainly sounds like hotel staff will still need to manually do things.
No it won't stop the games that properties play, what it will do is provide another party to blame. They will use it to absolve themselves of all responsibility by claiming the AI did not.
The best case for uptake on it is that some franchisees might use it as a cheap way to get rid of a paid position and save some money.
That being said, I wish Marriott would decide that they were better served by losing a few hundred bad properties and sorting out their guarantees.
Why do I sense that award inventory management will expand? And, why do I sense that individual properties will be able to somehow override the process? After everything Marriott management has done and said, why?
One thought is that like at AA, Lifetime Plats who no longer stay frequently may be disadvantaged here, if the algorithm prioritizes current year nights and/or revenue.
As it should. Lifetime anything is ridiculous, you're not worth anything to the brand anymore.
Not sure why AI is needed for this. This kind of process automation is what computers have been used for for decades.
It's not.
And from the description it doesn't sound to involved what most informed people mean by AI.
But labelling any piece of software as AI is how to get the development budget approved.
Bonvoy instituted a similar system several years ago following the Starwood merger. It works like this:
Bonvoy number and Status Leve: 245 011 945 Lifetime Titanium
Available Upgrade inventory: nil
Upgrade?: DENIED
It's been working perfectly for years.
Why even bother with nights. If anything, all else being equal, for 2 members who spend the same amount of money, the one who spends less nights should get a higher upgrade priority. It’s better to encourage high value (per night) customers to spend more nights at the chain.
I agree that this is a good thing; particularly if AI 'learns' and can be enhanced/improved/refined as the system matures, to factor in exceptions, etc. I'm curious how it factors in arrival time (from the emails) and whether that's automated or fed into the tool manually (both would be possible, in theory).
But I cannot charm AI into upgrading me due to my winning personality
This sounds a lot like the automatic room upgrade algorithm that Hilton has been using for awhile, including notifying members in advance that they have been upgraded.
Though the Hilton system has its drawbacks- no automatic upgrades are run if the hotel is at a certain occupancy level, and real world experience is that front desk agents rely on the algorithm, and generally won’t proactive look to see if a better room is available upon check-in