When is the best time to offer an upgrade?
Between booking and arrival. Once a guest has booked, the biggest decision is made, but plenty of smaller ones are still open. Where will they eat that first evening? Do they need the room early, or the morning to linger? Is this trip quietly a birthday?
Most hotels never ask. The traditional moment for selling an upgrade is check-in, and it is the worst one: there is a queue behind the guest, their plans are set, and the person at the desk has thirty seconds and a room key to hand over. The better moment came days earlier, in the guest’s inbox, when the stay was still taking shape. That moment usually passes in silence, because nobody has time to write those messages by hand.
Selling the stay, three ways
| At the desk, at check-in | Manual pre-arrival emails | An always-on agent (Sorino) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| The moment | Too late, plans are set | Hit and miss | Days before arrival, while plans are open |
| Fits the stay | Whatever is on offer that day | Depends who writes it | Read from the booking, so a couple’s weekend and a one-night stop get different offers |
| Every booking covered | Only quiet check-ins | The ones someone got round to | All of them |
What does the agent actually offer?
It reads the booking and offers only from your approved extras, at your prices, using live availability. A couple staying two nights might be offered a table for the first evening and a late checkout for the last morning. A guest arriving on the early train might be offered early check-in. If a better room is open that week, the upgrade is offered before arrival, when it is a treat, rather than at the desk, when it is an upsell.
Nothing is offered that cannot be honoured, because the agent works from the same availability your team sees. And every offer is in your hotel’s voice, part of a warm pre-arrival message, not a coupon.
Will it feel like being sold to?
No, and this is the boundary the agent keeps. It is one well-timed message with a couple of genuinely useful options, not a campaign. A guest who says no thanks is not asked again. A guest who asks for something bespoke, the good champagne, a surprise for their partner, flowers in the room, is handed to your team, because delight is a human job. The agent’s job is to make the offer at the right moment and get out of the way.
How quickly can it go live?
Live in two to six weeks. You build your hotel’s agent on the site, load your rooms, rates and extras, and set what may be offered and when. Then the pre-arrival messages go live alongside the confirmations and reminders the agent already sends, with reporting on what was offered, what was taken, and what it added to the stay.
The same pre-arrival messages that sell the stay also protect it.
Cut no-shows and late cancellationsThe short version
- The revenue is in the gap between booking and arrival, while the guest’s plans are still open.
- Check-in is the worst moment to offer an upgrade; the inbox days before is the best.
- The agent offers real extras from your own rates and live availability, in your hotel’s voice.
- One well-timed message, never a campaign; bespoke requests go to your team.
- It runs alongside the confirmations and reminders, live in two to six weeks.