Lucky over at One Mile at a Time is promoting Marriott SpringHill Suites with a $300 Marriott gift certificate prize to be given to one “lucky” reader who posts a comment on his blog by Sunday evening, November 29. The promotion is based around a video memory challenge game on the SpringHill Suites site.

BargainHuntingMoms also has been given a $300 SpringHill Suites gift certificate being offered to readers.

 

 

 

 

SpringHill Suites is Marriott’s upscale all suites brand. I was at the new SpringHill Suites Napa Valley property this past summer. This hotel is conveniently located at the southern end of Napa Valley, at the intersection of Highway 12 (the Napa Valley wine road) and Highway 29 (road to Vallejo).

 

The new SpringHill Suites property is on the opposite side of Napa from the much larger and old-style hotel design of the Marriott Napa and Spa.

 

 

 

 

The outdoor pool and barbeque area of the SpringHill Suites is a comfortable space to hang out, although the road is a little nearby and the newly developed area is sparse on trees.

 

I have a plea for assistance if anyone from SpringHill Suites management reads this post.  

Can you spare another gift certificate to donate as a prize to the Passports with Purpose raffle and help travel bloggers raise $13,000 over the next month to build a new school in rural Cambodia?

 

 

 

 

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Joie de Vivre Hotels calls itself California’s largest collection of boutique hotels. If the cookie-cutter design of another Hampton In, Holiday Inn, Residence Inn, aloft, or Hyatt Place is just too much for your individualistic sensibilities, then Joie de Vivre Hotels may be the change you are looking for in a California hotel.

 

The company’s “About Us” page fact-sheet pdf lists five word descriptors:

 

FIVE WORDS

Fresh, Inventive, Grassroots, Casual, Experience-driven.

From Orange County to Marin County, Sonoma, and Sacramento, nearly 40 hotels are under the Joie de Vivre umbrella of boutique hotels. Joie de Vivre started out in San Francisco and is best represented in this city with 16 San Francisco hotels including Hotel Vitale on the San Francisco Embarcadero waterfront. Local to my Monterey home-base is the Ventana Inn at Big Sur, directly across the road (non-ocean side) from Post Ranch Inn. Ventana Inn has some nice ocean views too from the hillside location and the restaurant just recently re-opened.

The Joie de Vivre hotel loyalty program, Joy of Life Club, provides opportunities to earn credit for your paid stays and spa visits. Joy of Life Club is a points based program tied to hotel and spa spend. There are three tiers of membership and your points earning rate increases as you accumulate more spending status.

Joy Seeker is the base membership level for members with fewer than 2,500 points earned. Points are awarded on room rate and spa services only. Members can receive credit for up to three rooms per stay. Members receive a “Welcome Indulgence”.

A friend of mine told me she and her husband signed up for Joy of Life Club last month at the hotel upon arrival and received a complimentary bottle of wine and fruit tray. She was the one who asked me if I ever write about Joie de Vivre hotels and although I have been in a couple of the properties, I have not written about the Joy of Life hotel loyalty program until now.

Here is a “Girlfriend’s Spa Trip” opportunity for the loyalty traveler. The Joy of Life member can receive points for up to three individuals per spa visit if eligible charges for the individuals appear on the member’s folio and the member received one of the services.

Based on the spa folio charges I have seen for my wife’s spa trips with the girlfriends, I’d say reaching elite membership in Joy of Life Club should not be too difficult for some individuals.

Earning Joy of Life Club Points

Joy Seekers        (0 – 2,499 points based on your lifetime program earnings)

$1 = 1 point at participating Joie de Vivre hotels

                $1 = 2 points at participating Joie de Vivre spa

Joy Enthusiasts (2,500 – 9,999 points)

$1 = 1 point at participating Joie de Vivre hotels

                $1 = 2 points at participating Joie de Vivre spa

Joy Aficionados (10,000+ points)

$1 = 2 points at participating Joie de Vivre hotels

                $1 = 4 points at participating Joie de Vivre spa

 

Redeeming Joy of Life Club Points

An account goes “to sleep” after two years of account inactivity. Your lifetime status points and membership level remains once your account is reactivated.

There are three points redemption levels at 2,500 points, 7,500 points, and 10,000 points.

On the redemption side of Joy of Life Club are experience opportunities like surfing and rock climbing lessons at 2,500 points.  Dining and tours or hotel/spa gift certificates are also offered.

2,500 points = $100 gift certificate for a hotel/spa

Assuming you earned 2,000 points on spa treatments ($1,000) and 500 points on hotels ($500), the certificate would be equivalent to just a 6.7% rebate. Based on hotel spend only and no spa services,  the value is a lowly 4% rebate. That is not comparable to the value you typically see with a major hotel loyalty program like Marriott Rewards or Starwood Preferred Guest where 20%+ value is typical for your hotel spending.

7,500 points rewards include hot air balloon ride or a year of monthly chocolate deliveries. The hotel or spa gift certificate is $300. There is basically no advantage to saving up to 7,500 points for a gift certificate which seems odd to me. Forget cashing in for gift certificates at this level since the much better value is found for 10,000 points.

10,000 points may be redeemed for the “Design Your Own California Adventure” hotel gift certificate package of $750 with five $100 certificates and one $250 certificate.

The Joy Aficionado member is looking at $5,000 in hotel spending to earn $750 in hotel/spa gift certificates. A 15% rebate on $5,000 hotel spending is a respectable loyalty program exchange.  Spa aficionados are looking at $750 in hotel/spa credit for $2,500 (4 points/$1) in spending.

Now, that is some California loyalty massaging for the Joy of Life member. 

Links: Joie de Vivre Hotels; Joy of Life Club hotel loyalty program

 

 

Here are a collection of hotel news items that I have seen over the past week. These items just don’t seem big enough to dedicate an entire post for details, so I’ll just toss some elevator sound bites out for readers with links for topics.

1.       InterContinental Hotels Group states it has 44 million Priority Club Rewards members globally. Perhaps they should rename the loyalty program Priority Club Nation.   http://www.ihgplc.com/index.asp?PageID=116&NewsID=2366

 

2.       UN World Tourism Organization says 2009 travel is down 4 to 6 % globally. This is the first decline since a less than 2% decline in 2003.

 

3.       US Domestic Travel overall is down 3.8 percent for the year through September 2009. Leisure travel is down 2.7% while business travel is down a whopping 7.5% attributed primarily to a decline in meetings.

 

4.       The cost of international flights from USA was down 20% in September 2009 from a year ago.

(2-4 source: http://www.hsmaieconnect.org/news/154000370/4044202.html)

 

5.       Hyatt Hotels Corporation initial public offering of $1.14 billion in stock occurred November 4. Hyatt posted a $31 million loss for the first nine-months of 2009. http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601084&sid=aPPIjpC8xV5w

 

6.       Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, GIC, purchased 3 million of the 38 million shares for a 6.9% stake in Hyatt Hotels. Hyatt has a strong cash position with more than 5x the cash of Marriott and Starwood combined. (Ric’s note: Makes me think acquisition of new Hyatt properties is in the near future.) http://themalaysianinsider.com/index.php/business/43408-singapores-gic-buys-69pc-stake-in-hyatt

 

7.       Post Ranch Inn in Big Sur is a jewel on the edge of the Pacific Ocean that I visited last week when the temperature was unseasonably warm with high 70s/low 80s. The perspective of looking down 1,200 feet from the Cliff House rooms to the Pacific Ocean is an extreme and unique hotel experience. The rooms I had a chance to visit were eye-popping, the view dizzying, but the $1,500 to $2,200 per night price tag is what prompted my vertigo. Here are my Facebook post photos.

 

 

 

 

8.       Fairmont Hotels has a winter sale through 11:59 EST, Thursday, February 19. The rates for Canada look good for now as opposed to the lack of room availability for the Winter Olympics. http://www.fairmont.com/promo/winter

 

9.       Marriott’s SpringHill Suites has a video memory contest for prizes. You need to recall ten items shown in a 2 minute video. I only got 8 of 10. http://videochallenge.spacetoinspire.com/

 

10.   Mexicana Airlines joined the oneworld alliance this month. There are two more days left to redeem Mexicana Go miles at 50% off for Mexicana operated flights systemwide for travel through March 25. US-Madrid or London via Mexico City in Business Class is 56,000 miles and around $500 in taxes. USA-Cancun is 30,000 miles First Class and about $100. Members can buy miles from Mexicana. http://www.mexicanago.com/en/page/promociones-go-welcome-p

 

11.   Hotels Magazine blogger Adam Kirby wrote his case for free hotel wi-fi and hoteliers roasted his feet over the poolside BBQ in their comments. http://www.hotelsmag.com/blog/1720000572/post/1170050517.html

 

12.   Ritz-Carlton Residences in Denver have gone into foreclosure after selling only one of 25 luxury units in the 202-room hotel building in downtown Denver. My first impression when I visited the property was “Hey, it looks out over the Greyhound bus station!” http://www.denverpost.com/ci_13776640

 

13.   The Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell released a new report stating a hotel’s presence on Expedia increases bookings made through the hotel website’s own systems. The researcher calls this the “billboard effect” whereby a potential guest just seeing the hotel listed on Expedia helps drive sales through the hotel’s own reservation channels. Perhaps Choice Hotels management read the report before agreeing to settle their contract with Expedia this past week.

http://www.hotelschool.cornell.edu/research/chr/pubs/reports/2009.html

 

 

There are three swimming pools at the St. Regis Monarch Beach. Across the Grand Lawn from the hotel is the main Ocean Pool. The name implies it might be a seawater pool, but it is actually a heated freshwater pool with views of the ocean from the pool area. The Lagoon Pool was primarily occupied by children along with the shallow wading pool for young kids. An outdoor adults-only Lap Pool is located at Spa Gaucin.

 

The Ocean Pool was primarily in use during day light hours with attendants assisting guests with towels, pool chairs, and drinks. Poolside cabanas can be rented complete with TV, CD and DVD system, phone, fax, fan, and wireless internet for the guests who desire these services while at the pool. Drinks and food service are provided poolside from the Pool Bar & Grill across the Grand Lawn.

 

The Lagoon Pool and a 1.5 ft deep wading pool for young children are located just south of the Ocean Pool in the same fenced and gated enclosure. The Lagoon Pool was primarily occupied by the child guests at the resort. There was a surprisingly large number of children in tow during our stay. While some children also swam at the Ocean Pool, the majority remained at the Lagoon Pool. A large Jacuzzi pool is located between the Lagoon Pool and the Ocean Pool.

 

Both the Ocean Pool and Lagoon Pool are a uniform depth of 4.0 ft. Music plays from speakers in the potted bushes.

 

Kelley was told the pools are accessible 24 hours although there is an impediment to 24 hour access. The pool crew hoses down the Ocean Pool area and all the pool lounge chairs sometime around sunset. When Kelley and I returned from the beach around 7:45pm the three gates around the Ocean Pool were deactivated for key card access.

Only the pool gate leading to the Lagoon Pool worked for key card access. On both nights of our stay there were guests trying to access the Ocean Pool gates for night swimming only to return to their room disappointed.

 

A simple sign directing guests to use the south end gate for pool access at night would have been helpful. I checked every pool area gate to find just one of four gates allowed access to the Lagoon Pool and Jacuzzi area. Crossing the dark walkways between the Lagoon Pool, spa, and cabanas allowed Ocean Pool swimming at night.

 

One observation I made while swimming is the symmetrical perspective of the resort one sees when situated in the center of the Ocean Pool. The Ocean Pool is a great location for gazing out around the Monarch Beach resort. The view at night looking from the pool to the main fountains at the hotel and the reciprocal view from the hotel seems to be what the designers had in mind when laying out the grounds.

 

Adults Only Lap Pool at Spa Gaucin

Spa Gaucin (pronounced gow-seen on the TV hotel channel) has an adults only lap pool. The adults only pool was the most appreciated feature of the resort for me. Located on the northeast side of the resort outside Spa Gaucin, the lap pool and Jacuzzi provided an adults only resort location within the Monarch Beach resort. There were lots of children at the hotel and Spa Gaucin provides a pool environment where the upbeat techno music and golf cart brakes are the loudest sounds.

 

Music plays through speakers in the pool. I have experienced this a couple of times before at Westin resorts and it is an interesting sensation to listen to music underwater. The beat kind of revs up a workout pace.

 

The fitness room at Spa Gaucin was always in use by multiple exercisers, yet few guests ventured out to the pool area and even fewer actually used the lap pool during our stay.

 

Monarch Beach

Several reviews of the St. Regis Monarch Beach resort describe the beach as being a private beach. That is not accurate. The resort’s own website describes the beach as “one of the most exclusive and beautiful beaches in Southern California”. That statement is accurate.

California has a beach public access law enacted in the 1970s under Governor Jerry Brown. The purpose of the law was to prohibit development along the coast of California that would impede access to the coast and beaches by the public. Any beach resort development must maintain a public access thoroughfare through the private property.

 

The beach is beautifully compact yet sizeable. The exclusivity is due more to the beach geography of cliff borders on the south and north. The beach is located between two luxury hotel resorts and surrounded by oceanfront high-end residences on the coastal bluffs. The beach is a relatively uncrowded stretch of sand about 3/4 mile long and one hundred yards wide and populated predominantly by hotel guests and local residents.

 

A small stream runs off the golf course through the sand to the sea adjacent to the Monarch Bay Club. The north end of the beach turns rocky past the St. Regis Monarch Bay Beach Club and the cliffs meet the sea.

 

The south end of the beach is below the Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel Resort Hotel on the cliff top.

Monarch Bay Beach Club is the only building right on the beach. 

 

The public is welcome to walk through the public access path across the Monarch Beach Golf Course, but our day on the beach in what was perfect beach weather of sun and 85 degrees suggested few people take advantage of the privilege due to the distance from the streets in Dana Point to this beach.

 

St. Regis Beach Shuttle

Large open-air golf carts with 3 sets of seats sufficient for 10 passengers take hotel guests to the Beach Club about every 15 minutes. There was a waiting line when we were ready to depart for the beach and the hotel brought a second shuttle cart over within a couple of minutes. This was an example of the service level that truly worked for guests from observations during my stay.

The shuttle travels from the entry drive of the resort, past the Golf Clubhouse, and along the golf course, through a tunnel under Pacific Coast Highway 1 (PCH).  The west end of the tunnel the tram goes right and enters a private electronic gate to the Beach Club parking lot. Pedestrians go left after the tunnel and the pedestrian path leads to a more southerly beach entrance at a location a couple hundred yards south of the Monarch Bay Club.

 

The Beach Club has an outdoor deck, bar and restaurant, outdoor showers, and a couple of restrooms. There are lockers on the north end of the building.

 

On the south end of the building is a lawn with tables and an outdoor bar tent was set-up with a full bar and complimentary water and water with fruit slice flavor.

 

There were attendants with motorized carts to assist guests with setting up chairs and umbrellas. There looked to be between 50 and 100 hotel guests at the beach with St. Regis chairs and umbrellas.

 

There were perhaps another 100 persons for around 200 people total on the beach, mostly south towards the Ritz Carlton hotel.

On a perfect beach weather Sunday in Orange County, California we truly felt an exclusive experience of the beautiful beach. There were surprisingly few people on this 7 acre stretch of beach. A great omen for the day was seeing several porpoises swimming north just a few hundred yards off the coast. While Monterey has abundant marine life, porpoises are a rare sighting so close to the shore in my experience.

 

There is a bit of seaweed in the water here, particularly pieces churning up in the waves. The seaweed was mostly small stuff just one to two feet long. The beach sand was clear of seaweed during the day and I don’t know if the responsibility for the absence of seaweed was the staff or the tide. Here on the Monterey Peninsula our bull kelp seaweed is often 10 to 20 feet long and can really pile up thick on the beach at times.

We walked to the beach for sunset. The path was easy to follow with sign directions and only took 15 to 20 minutes. There were a few dozen people on the entire beach as we watched the sun drop into the Pacific water from our solitary location on the sand.

 

Side note: There is a flashlight in the TV cabinet of the hotel room which is a good idea to take if you head out at night to the beach.

 

Suggestion for sign improvement: The St. Regis beach tram only picks up passengers in front of the hotel or at the Beach Club. There are several Tram Stop signs in different locations on the resort property. Perhaps in better days the tram did peruse the grounds picking up passengers, but that is not currently the case.

I know a French family waited with an infant at the Tram Stop sign near the Botanical Garden for 20 minutes in the 90 degree heat. The sign clearly states trams run 8 times per hour to the beach.

The hotel needs to place a notice on these tram stop signs to inform guests they are not currently in use.

Along with the Ocean pool locked gates, signage was the major issue I saw for improvement at the resort.

St. Regis service:

All in all, service levels from the variety of staff around the resort were cordial, helpful, friendly, and accommodating. The hotel provided the best service I have seen in quite some time of hotel travel. Just don’t discuss Starwood Preferred Guest. Cash receives more recognition.

St. Regis Monarch Beach – Part 1 – The Room

St. Regis Monarch Beach – Part 2 – The Hotel

Goldpoints Plus is offering unlimited double points with all Carlson Hotel stays through December 15, 2009. Goldpoints Plus regular earning rate is 20 points per $1 for Radisson, Regent, and Park Plaza brands; 15 points per $1 for Park Inn and Country Inns & Suites. Double points boosts these earning rates to 40 points per US$1 or 30 points per US$1. The high points earning ratio  is negated by the high points redemption cost for free hotel nights.

Promotion registration is required:  https://www.goldpointsplus.com/home.do 

 

[Sep 28 update: Looking back over this post I see I focused more on Goldpoints Plus Cash&Points. After taking another look at this promotion and checking some local hotels, I see room rates are significantly higher for the Double Goldpoints rate compared to the lowest available rate.

 

Here are two examples:

 

October 16-18 (Fri-Sun) two night stay at Radisson San Francisco Airport.

$115.50 per night Double Goldpoints rate

$84 per night same room and includes $10 breakfast credit (nonrefundable).

 

October 16-18 (Fri-Sun) two night stay at Country Inn & Suites, San Carlos (near SFO).

 $97.90 per night Double Goldpoints rate.

 $66.75 per night 25% off special offer rate for same room (nonrefundable).

Those are hefty premiums for earning Double Goldpoints and the significantly higher room rate being charged for Double Goldpoints effectively negates the value of the extra points.]

 

Loyalty Traveler hotel loyalty promotion key rating = 1.5 of 5 keys.

 

 

 

 

 

Radisson Hotels is Carlson Hotels’ flagship brand with over 400 hotels globally. Radisson Hotels are comprised of Radisson, Radisson Blu (Europe, Middle East, and Africa), and Radisson Edwardian Hotels in the UK. Regent Hotels are the luxury brand of the Carlson portfolio with just a handful of hotels in destinations like Turks and Caicos, Maldives, Singapore, Bordeaux, Zagreb, Taipei, and Beijing.  Country Inn & Suites is a midscale hotel brand with about 480 hotels primarily located in the US. Park Plaza and Park Inn round out the Carlson Hotel portfolio.

Carlson Hotels is a slightly larger hotel chain than Starwood Hotels by number of properties with just over 1,000 hotels globally. Although Starwood Hotels has almost twice as many rooms globally.

The large amount of points required for a free room night reduces the value of Goldpoints Plus points and is Loyalty Traveler’s primary complaint about the program. The option for Points & Cash awards, periodic promotions like 50% off award nights, and brand-specific room rate discounts all combine to make Goldpoints Plus a competitive hotel loyalty program if you spend your points and cash wisely and take advantage of special offers.

 

https://www.goldpointsplus.com/offers/displayDetail.do?offerId=1826172

 

Earning Goldpoints Plus

Hey Goldpoints Plus. You need to redesign this webpage to enhance consumer useability. See my comments below.

I have not spent much time on the Goldpoints Plus website this past year. My first critique of the website is the difficulty in locating information about the points earning rate per dollar for hotel stays. There is a tab for “Earn” but the webpage it links to turns out to be hit or miss with information about how a member earns points from hotel stays.

The page highlights several ways a member can earn points. Unfortunately, the link for earning points from hotel stays is just one of a list of rotating options. Chances are that some consumers will have the page load without the link showing how points are earned from hotel stays. This happened to me several times as shown below.

You have to be lucky enough to have the Earn Points with Every Stay option be one of the choices loaded on the page to link to hotel stay earning rules. Several page loads did not show this link choice and I had almost given up before I noticed the link in an earlier screenshot I had saved. Refreshing the page several times eventually brought the “Earn points with every stay” link back.

 

 

https://www.goldpointsplus.com/fgp/earn/home.do

 

Earn points with every stay link (if you are fortunate enough to have it appear when the page loads), shows most hotel stays earn 20 points per $1, except Country Inns & Suites and Park Inn earn 15 points per $1.

Sizing Up Points Redemption with Goldpoints Plus

There are three Radisson Hotels locally in my area of San Francisco Bay coastal California. Radisson San Jose Airport,  Radisson San Francisco airport and the Radisson Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco. These three locations allow a comparison of the redemption rate of the Radisson Hotel compared to the redemption rate at a hotel with another major hotel chain at these same locations.

Comparing hotels across chains is challenging. Different hotel design, location, and amenities make it difficult to compare redemption rates, but it is a valid comparison for the frequent guest looking to assign comparative value of points with different hotel loyalty programs.

 

San Francisco Radisson Fisherman’s Wharf vs. Starwood’s Sheraton Fisherman’s Wharf

Radisson Fisherman’s Wharf is a Goldpoints Plus Category 5 redemption property at 60,000 points per night. The double points promotion allows a member to earn 40 points per US$1 at Radisson Hotels.You would need $1,500 in spending to earn 60,000 points for a free night. Without the double points promotion you would need $3,000 in hotel spending.

Assume as a Goldpoint Plus member you have 10 stays at $150 per night during double points. The member will earn 60,000 points + 5,000 points for online booking. 65,000 points earned for $1,500 in hotel spend.

Sheraton Fisherman’s Wharf is across the street from the Radisson. With Starwood Preferred Guest you need 10,000 points for a Category 4 hotel free night. At 2 Starpoints per $1 that would require $5,000 in hotel spend.

Assume an SPG member has 10 stays at $150 per night over the next couple of months during the 1,000 points per stay bonus. This SPG member earns $1,500 x 2 starpoints = 3,000 points from hotel spend. SPG bonuses add another 10,000 points. 13,000 points earned for $1,500 in hotel spend with Starwood.

$1,500 in hotel spend with Radisson earns sufficient points for one free night at Radisson Fisherman’s Wharf. The same spend and stays with Starwood hotels also earns one free night at the Sheraton Fisherman’s Wharf.

Goldpoints Plus and Starwood Preferred Guest tie for value with these two hotels in San Francisco. 

Goldpoints Points & Cash vs. SPG Cash & Points

Tuesday, October 20

10,000 points + $107.40. The lowest paid rate is $143.65.

 

Sheraton Fisherman’s Wharf

No Cash & Points available for October 20. Paid room rate is $179

GoldPoints wins. 10,000 points saves $36.25 + tax on room rate, but I believe it is better to save points in this situation since $143 would earn 5,720 points for this stay during the double points promotion. 

These are roughly equivalent values for two hotels in different hotel loyalty programs in the same location.

In my opinion though, the Sheraton is a nicer property.

San Francisco Airport: Radisson SFO vs. Hilton’s Homewood Suites SFO

Radisson SFO actually shares a parking lot with Homewood Suites in a bayside business park a few miles north of the San Francisco Airport in Brisbane.

Radisson SFO is a Category 3 redemption requiring 30,000 points per night. Assume the same $1,500 in hotel spend for 10 stays and the 65,000 points earned is sufficient for 2 free nights at Radisson SFO.

Homewood Suites SFO

HHonors Category 3 Hotel = 25,000 points for free night.

Hilton Points& Points preference earns 15 points per US$1 for non-elite members. Assume $1,500 in spend for 10 stays = 22,500 points earned.

Hilton currently has a promotion to earn 10,000 points after 5 stays. The frequent guest would earn 32,500 points after 10 stays with $1,500 in hotel spend.

The Goldpoints Plus member earns two free nights with equivalent spending while the Hilton member only earns one free night.

Radisson SFO Points & Cash rate for Tuesday, October 20

Rate is 5,000 points + $95.40. The lowest available paid rate for this night is $135.15. In this case 5,000 points is worth a $40 cash savings. The value of Goldpoints is double at the airport hotel compared to Radisson Fisherman’s Wharf Points & Cash example since 5,000 points for the SFO property is only 50% of the 10,000 points needed at Radisson Fisherman’s Wharf using Points & Cash to save $40.

Note to Carlson Hotels’ Goldpoints Plus and InterContinental Hotels Group Priority Club on your Points & Cash bad and good points:

I had a boss once who repeatedly would say, “Don’t just tell me the problem. Give me a solution.” I have been on a Priority Club rant this week about the widespread promotion of Points & Cash option over the web without any substantial information on how this option works.

Looking over the Goldpoints Plus website I have to commend the designers for laying out an easy-to-follow page for points redemption choices. Under the Goldpoints homepage is a Redeem tab with a direct link to the Points & Cash option containing descriptive information.

This is a page IHG Priority Club could try to emulate in promoting their new Points & Cash hotel option.

The Priority Club and SPG models for Points & Cash are more consumer friendly with a defined Cash portion for this hotel payment option. Goldpoints Plus has the Points & Cash disadvantage of the member having to look up each hotel and a specific date to determine how much cash is required for a Points & Cash stay.

 

Napa Valley Marriott is an older hotel design with modern room furnishings. My physical survey of the hotel showed some nice touches on an old shell of a hotel. My overall impression is the Napa Valley Marriott is subpar for what one would expect for a Marriott Hotel charging rates over $200 per night much of the time. General consensus is Renaissance Hotel’s The Lodge at Sonoma, in the Sonoma Valley just 16 miles west of Napa is the premier choice for a Marriott brand resort experience. 

The Napa Valley Marriott hotel provided a nice opportunity to compare online hotel reviews with my on-site impressions. There are a lot of happy campers on TripAdvisor. The reviews are less glowing from frequent guests on FlyerTalk. 

I can’t be so kind with my impression of the Napa Valley Marriott simply based on the aesthetic qualities of the hotel design. The long wall fountain in front of the hotel is an eye-pleasing water feature.

The guest rooms are my main issue with this hotel. Rooms are based around long corridors and rooms either face the interior garden or exterior parking lot on the ground floor or the second floor. This is a hotel where you definitely want a garden/courtyard facing room.

There was a $23 million remodel recently. The website appears to focus on photos of the Amadeus Spa located in a separate building away from the hotel.

Marriott Napa is categorized as a Marriott Rewards Category 6 hotel and by AAA as a 3-Diamond property. The 270 room hotel is a two-floor long corridor design with 4 suites and a concierge lounge. The parlor suites and Presidential suite are specialty rooms. First floor patios are open to the central courtyard on the north end and the wedding courtyard on the south end.

I had just spent the night at the much newer Westin Verasa with better facilities and I thought the Embassy Suites Napa had a bit more charm in its old body of a hotel. The restaurants at the Marriott are one competitive factor compared to these other two hotels.

The Marriott looked to be a solid 3-star property simply based on facilities like the pool and courtyards, concierge lounge, and restaurants. The hotel location borders busy Highway 29 and an adjacent surface road. About one quarter of the hotel rooms face the frontage road. These guest rooms facing the parking lot on the frontside of the hotel are the least desirable location. The large two story complex surrounds a large courtyard and interior facing rooms are preferable for less noise and garden views.

The rooms on the north wings of the hotel looked like standard hotel rooms with adequate furnishings.  The rooms appeared fine with good condition linens, drapes, and furniture. Bathrooms appeared standard. The rooms on the south end are concierge level.

The lobby has a small reading area and seating for around 12 persons in the entrance area across the room opposite the front desk.

Harvest Café and Characters Sports Bar are adjacent to the lobby. A store off the front desk sells wine and basic items.

Pool seating area is spacious, but the pool is a non-linear shape with a narrow bottleneck in the middle limiting lap swimming.

The spa tub is adjacent to the pool.

The central courtyard on the north end is large with green landscaping and a small redwood grove.

Parking is free and directly in front of exterior rooms. These rooms are the hotel’s least desirable due to the motel style parking just outside the windows and the proximity of Highway 29 in front of the hotel.

 

The hotel is overpriced much of the time due to its location in southern Napa just off wine highway 129. Rates are $249 for a single night or $219 for a three night stay in a Garden View balcony over Labor Day weekend.  Concierge level for $259 or $229 for a three night stay is a better value.

Advice: Marriott Napa has adequate facilities in an old style hotel. Rooms are fine. Restaurants and concierge lounge provide space for guests spending time in the hotel. There is a pool, spa tub, fitness room, and open garden space for time outside the room and outside. The apartment motel design of the guest room wings is a major detractor for a romantic hotel stay compared to what you would expect for a Marriott Spa Hotel in Napa.

Marriott Napa ranked #9 of 26 Napa hotels on TripAdvisor September 3, 2009. Reviews on FlyerTalk are mixed, but generally positive on the concierge lounge and rooms, more negative on the hotel property.

Charlyn Keating Chisholm of About.com put it simply, “This basic resort offers guests few frills except for its distinctive Amadeus Spa & Salon.”

Napa Valley Marriott Hotel website.

Napa Valley Marriott Hotel website photos.

Update: Tuesday August 4. The website gave away 25 rooms at 9am today. I checked around 9:15  am when I saw the announcement on Twitter. I found room availability for both Thursday, August 13 and Friday, August 14. I posted on Twitter. Westin Bonaventure posted 3 minutes later all rooms gone.

I do not plan to write any more about this promotion on Loyalty Traveler. If interested follow @thebonaventure on Twitter.

5 more rooms to be given out at 10am Tuesday on Twitter.

Update Monday August 3,  9 am: Fooled again. The time is 10am Tuesday according to @thebonaventure tweet.

“Look alive, LA! #U.O.Me returns at 10am Tues. Giving away rooms for Sun. Aug 9-Thurs, Aug. 13. Six rooms every night. “

 

This is a reminder for the Westin Bonaventure, Los Angeles free night giveaway in case you missed or just plain forgot last week’s post .

Try for a free room through Twitter or online at the hotel’s website Monday morning at 9am PDT.

I think booking online is the easier route myself since you can easily tell if the rate is available as it shows up as $0.01. Otherwise, wait to see if you win the Twitter race to be in the first ten responders.

The W Silicon Valley in Newark, California gets no respect. While birds may flock, the people don’t when it comes to hotel life in this southeast portion of San Francisco Bay. Guest complaints are not focused on the rooms. The standard rooms are large for a W Hotel. The hotel has an outdoor pool, free parking, a BBQ pit, games and books in the lobby, dark lighting, and constant music. But the East Bay location between a tech business park and a wildlife refuge in the salt marsh of the southern end of San Francisco Bay, 25 miles from the W San Francisco, gives it a reputation for being in the middle of nowhere.

 

I have stayed here every year since 2003. This is the cheapest W Hotel in the brand. Rates lately have dropped as low as $79 for Friday and Saturday nights. Back in 2003 and 2004 rates were frequently only $59 per night on weekends and rose to $109 in 2007-2008 before the latest room rate collapse. The hotel’s location in a corporate business park means weeknight rates are much more expensive with average rates still between $139 and $200 per night.

 

The lobby design and room amenities will seem familiar to hotel guests who have frequented W Hotels. The TV in guest rooms is still 20^th century. No flat screens here. The presence of a microwave and sink sort of make up for the retro TV. And there is a DVD player with a library of selections available from the front desk.

 

 

The pool is outdoors and can be lively at times.

 

The restaurant and bar are much less lively most of the time. The main difference between this W Hotel and most other W Hotels is a lack of spark among the clientele visiting the hotel. (Perhaps I’m just being introspective.) The W San Francisco is a cosmopolitan happening place with people dropping into the bar to hang out for the ambience. W Silicon Valley clientele is techs on business and families or couples booking a nice hotel in a cheap East Bay location. “I’ll stay in tonight and watch TV dear.”

 

The workout room is small, but I have never seen it overly crowded.

The feature of the hotel that gets the bulk of complaints is its location. All food eateries are a couple of miles east in the shopping district of the city of Newark. A car is essential for this hotel, or at least a bicycle.

The aspect of the hotel that I want to focus on and rarely see referenced in hotel reviews for the W Silicon Valley is its location adjacent to the San Francisco Bay Wildlife Refuge. The preferred view for the W Silicon Valley looks west to the San Francisco Bay and tidal marshlands. The area between the hotel and the hill a mile west used to be salt crystallizer ponds as recently as the 1970s.

 

If you have flown over San Francisco Bay and seen the large squares of different colored water near the land’s edge of the southern San Francisco Bay, you may have wondered, What kind of water pollution problem is happening?” These large ponds of water enclosed by levees and dikes are actually salt crystallizer ponds where water is evaporated and sea salt harvested. There are still a dozen square miles of salt ponds operated by Cargill Salt.

 

 

Salt harvesting was practiced by the local indigenous people at the time of the Gold Rush. Salt ponds were a naturally occurring phenomenon in the San Francisco Bay prior to the Gold Rush years of the 1850s. Winter rains established large ponds in the marshland called “salinas”. The six month dry season from May to October in coastal California meant the salinas naturally dried in the summer heat and left sea salt deposits.

Salt harvesting has been a lucrative business in the San Francisco Bay area for 150 years when industrious businessmen realized there were better fortunes to be earned through harvesting sea salt rather than gold prospecting. By the turn of the 20^th century the entire marshland of the southern San Francisco Bay had been reshaped into large levee-enclosed salt ponds and the ecosystem was dramatically changed for the Bay as levees and dikes prevented tidal surge into the estuaries. The marshes disappeared over decades.

 

 

The past 30 years has witnessed a concerted effort to reestablish the southern San Francisco Bay wetlands from salt crystallizer ponds to marshlands. This is bird land. The southern San Francisco Bay is an important location on the shorebirds Pacific flyway. Over one million shorebirds pass by or nest here every year. The Don Edwards San Francisco Bay Wildlife Refuge has a visitor center a mile west of the W Silicon Valley hotel. There are trails to walk in the marsh and along the bay front. Colorful patches of red, white, and green water are visible in parts of the refuge where active salt crystallizer ponds are still present.

 

 

The San Francisco Bay landscape is changing once again. And the W Hotel Silicon Valley is on the front lines of this urban restoration project.

Links to Loyalty Traveler Videos  of W Silicon Valley, Newark, California on YouTube:

Room Tour #536 Spectacular Suite with Bay view

Lobby

Pool

San Francisco Bay view from hill in Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge south of Dumbarton Bridge 

Educational resource San Francisco Bay Restoration links: 

 

 

 http://www.southbayrestoration.org/FAQ.html

Cargill Salt San Francisco Bay:  http://www.cargill.com/static/sb/

Hey parents – here is an excellent source for a school project on SF Bay restoration and ways to get involved:  http://www.southbayrestoration.org/pdf_files/BayNature%20Oct%202004.pdf

Offer: Triple Stay Promotion earns 10,000 frequent flyer miles for stays in three different Wyndham Rewards hotel brands through September 10, 2009. You can earn 10,000 miles with one of these 10 airlines or Amtrak:

1.      Air Canada Aeroplan

2.      American Airlines

3.      Continental

4.      Delta

5.      Midwest

6.      Northwest

7.      Spirit

8.      United

9.      US Airways

10.  Sun Country (100 UFly points)

11.  Amtrak Guest Rewards (10,000 points)

Rates are $50 or less per night for many of these brand hotels in many locations across the USA. You have a great opportunity to save money on hotels while earning a substantial boost to your frequent flyer account.

Register: for this miles promotion or enroll in Wyndham Rewards at this link: http://www.wyndhamrewards.com/triplestay

Important: Your Wyndham Rewards account earning preference must be set for miles instead of points. Change this yourself online or call Wyndham Rewards Member Services at 1-866-996-7937 to enroll in promotion and set your earning preference to miles. You must select a frequent flyer program for miles.

Wyndham Hotel Group consists of 11 brands:

1.      Days Inn,

2.      Super 8,

3.      Ramada,

4.      Travelodge,

5.      Howard Johnson,

6.      Knights Inn,

7.      Baymont Inn,

8.      Hawthorn Suites,

9.      Microtel Inn,

10.  Wingate

11.  Wyndham Hotels and Resorts

Wyndham Hotels is the largest hotel chain in the world with over 7,000 hotels. The 11 hotel brands are primarily in the economy market segment and about 80% of the Wyndham brand hotels are located in the USA. Days Inn, Super 8, and Ramada are three Wyndham brands in the top 20 brands in the world by number of hotel rooms.

Apparently, Travelodge in Canada does not participate in Wyndham Rewards, so keep that detail in mind when fulfilling this promotion.

 

Loyalty Traveler analysis: I missed this promotion when I wrote my InsideFlyer column for July 2009 on earning airline miles with hotel stays. I like this deal for its ability to earn 10,000 airline miles on budget-price hotel stays. The value of the miles can be worth as much as the three hotel stays.

 

I personally have a couple of accounts where 10,000 miles will put me at an award level for travel and I look forward to some cheap rooms and air travel. Considering airlines typically sell miles at $25 per 1,000 I view this promotion as a cheaper way to miles without flying.

 

10,000 Mile Action Plan for a Monterey Vacation (or in my case Staycation)

 

Come to Monterey for a midweek vacation and earn some Wyndham Rewards miles while basking in the sun or bundling up in the fog. Monterey has two streets with a high density of hotels. Munras Avenue and Fremont Street both have several Wyndham Rewards hotel brands within a few blocks of each other. Both of these locations are located in the Monterey sun belt.

 

This past week on the Monterey Peninsula has seen constant fog in Carmel, Pebble Beach, and Pacific Grove while Monterey has enjoyed a cool sun with the fog sitting just hundreds of yards away along the ridgetop of the hills separating the city of Monterey from Carmel and Pebble Beach.

 

Here are the rates from last night, a Tuesday night, at six different Wyndham brand hotels in Monterey:

 

Knights Inn Carmel Hill $49 (Munras Ave)

Howard Johnson Express $50 (Munras Ave)

Monterey Bay Travelodge $50 (Fremont St.)

Super 8 Monterey/Carmel $54 (Munras Ave)

Ramada Limited $59 (Fremont St.)

Days Inn Monterey $65 (Munras Ave)

Days Inn Monterey Downtown $69 (Abrego St.)

Ramada Limited Carmel Hill Monterey $69 (Cass St)

 

I was blown away that rates are so low in the summer for Monterey. These are truly tough times for hotels. Weekend hotel rates are always higher in this tourist location.

 

And if economy lodging is not your style, then the three resorts at Pebble Beach just over the hill are still running $595 to $845 per night. Pebble Beach Resorts are offering free golf, but no miles.

 

Promotion Terms and Conditions fine print:

To qualify for the Triple Stay promotion and earn 10,000 airline miles, rail points,or 100 Ufly Rewards Points the member must (i) choose to earn airline miles or rail points in his/her Wyndham Rewards member profile, (ii) register at wyndhamrewards.com/triplestay or at 1-866-WYN-RWDS (1-866-996-7937), (iii) book a reservation for, and complete a total of three (3) stays at three (3) different hotel brands participating in the Wyndham Rewards program at a qualifying rate between May 14, 2009 and September 10, 2009, and (iv) complete his/her hotel stay by October 10, 2009. Members who check-out after October 10, 2009 will not receive the 10,000 bonus miles. Members will receive, the regular two (2) miles per dollar spent for all qualified stays at participating hotels in the following Wyndham Rewards hotels brands: Baymont Inn & Suites®, Days Inn®, Howard Johnson®, Knights Inn®, Microtel Inn & Suites®, Ramada®, Super 8®, Travelodge® (U.S. hotels only), and Wingate® by Wyndham. Miles are earned on the qualifying room rate only, not on taxes, food and beverage or other incidental expenses. For stays at participating Hawthorn Suites® (U.S hotels only) and participating Wyndham Hotels and Resorts properties members will receive the regular five hundred (500) miles per stay. For the full list of countries in which there are participating hotels please vist http://www.wyndhamrewards.com/earn/hotels/countries/ Members should allow six to eight weeks after completion of registration and stay for the standard airline miles, rail points or Ufly points to be credited to their account, and six to eight weeks after the completion of promotion for the bonus 10,000 airline miles, rail points or 100 Ufly Rewards Points to be credited to their account. Rates offered by most on-line travel agencies and certain other rates do not qualify. One stay includes all consecutive nights at the same hotel regardless of check-ins or check-outs. Currency for Amtrak Guest Rewards program is points.

Airline and rail programs participating in the Triple Stay Promotion include: Aeroplan, American Airlines, Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Midwest Airlines, Northwest Airlines, Spirit Airlines, United Airlines, US Airways, Sun Country Airlines and Amtrak.

San Jose bought a derelict estate in the 1990s called Hayes Mansion located on the southern end of the city not far off Highway 101. Fortunately the place is on the National Register of Historic Places and there are numerous landmark street signs or you would probably find yourself making U-turns in the residential neighborhood assuming you were not in the correct location for a nice hotel.

Hayes Mansion is now a city-owned, Dolce Hotels managed hotel property, restaurant, and conference center known as Dolce Hayes Mansion in hotel search engines.

This hotel property is a unique experience and low rates make this hotel one of San Jose’s best kept luxury bargains for the hotel guest. You would be hard-pressed to find another hotel suite in California with the kind of furnishings surrounding you in the Hayes Mansion at a rate even $100 more than these rooms. Weekend nights in a main house upper floor suites have been as low as $110 these past few months and are running $139 this weekend ($126 AAA rate).

Hayes Mansion was built as a Santa Clara Valley estate in 1905. The Santa Clara Valley is more familiarly known around-the-world these days  as “Silicon Valley”. Hayes Mansion is located in the southern part of San Jose in a city district known as Edenvale. The remaining agricultural fields and orchards from here south over the southernmost 20 miles of Santa Clara Valley has maintained some sense of  open space in the narrow part of the flatlands between the coastal mountains and the inland hills despite the creation of more housing tracts and golf courses in the past 20 years.

Before freeways and silicon chips this land was known for fruit. Our climate here in Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, and Monterey Counties is one of year-round crop growing. Temperatures below freezing rarely occur this close to the Pacific coastal waters of California.

This is Steinbeck Country where life maintains a pace of year-round production. We have the sun, we have the rain, and we now have lots of people. I’ve seen agricultural land cut in half in my lifetime from newly built housing developments in most neighborhoods where I have lived in California.

Hayes Mansion transports me back to an earlier time. The hotel is situated in a park-like space surrounded by residential neighborhoods. I feel like the estate stopped the clock of passing time while the city grew around Hayes Mansion to surround it with people’s homes. One feature I particularly enjoy about Hayes Mansion is the small city block park, a natural setting that seems to be part urban cultivation and part neglected just outside the Hayes Mansion northern fence.

The kind of architectural and style detail you see in Hayes Mansion is what you might find in Victorian B&Bs that would cost triple the nightly rate of Dolce Hayes Mansion.

Here is the wording of the plaque displayed at the historic site:

“Mary Hayes Chynoweth, matriarch of the Hayes family, built this 65 room, 41,000 square foot Mediterranean Revival-style mansion to replace an earlier Victorian one which had been destroyed by fire. While she did not live to occupy the mansion herself, her two sons and their families lived in the house for four decades.

Everis Anson Hayes and Jay Orley Hayes were two of San Jose’s most influential and illustrious citizens. E. A. Hayes served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1904 to 1918. J.O. Hayes was founder and president of the California Prune and Apricot Growers Association, which later became known as Sunsweet Growers. Together the two brothers owned and published the San Jose Mercury and the San Jose Herald Newspapers.

The Edenvale Estate was a center of social and political activity for the Santa Clara Valley and was visited by many distinguished public figures.

The Hayes Mansion was designed by architect George Page and completed in 1905. Renovation and remodeling was completed in 1994 by the public/private partnership of the City of San Jose and the Renaissance Conference Company.”

 

On a weeknight the early bird guest will fare much better than worms with a Steak Dinner for $14.95, available until 6pm. Kelley and I thoroughly enjoyed being the youngest guests (I am still 49, while Kelley is an old AARP 50) dining at the darkly lit dining room on a sunny April evening.

 

The Hayes Mansion pool has been disturbingly unoccupied on my last three trips to the hotel. This place is paradise on an 85 degree noon sun bake in San Jose. Palm trees rustling overhead and blue sky, clear water is constant heaven (when you can’t be on Carmel Beach).

 

Loyalty Traveler recommends you check this hotel out when you come to San Jose. You will be surprised at what this place offers compared to some of the other city hotel offerings.

There is a full service spa at the hotel:

This hotel has over 200 rooms and almost all those rooms are in wings around the Hayes Mansion original estate house. Two floors of corridors with regular rooms wrap the south and east side of the estate house, restaurant, spa, and pool. Some rooms at Dolce Hayes Mansion may not feel much different than a Hilton Garden Inn overlooking the parking lot if you end up in the backside hotel wing room.

The cost to upgrade big-time at this hotel to a parlor suite is so low compared to most hotels of this caliber that you should really splurge and do Hayes Mansion in style. This might be one of the best $50 upgrades you ever bought to get in an historic estate hotel suite at Hayes Mansion.

Spread the word, but not too loudly. I don’t want the $125 weekend suites in my Santa Clara “Big Silicon Valley” fantasy estate home to become an urban legend I reminisce about in the 20-teens.

Links: Wikipedia – Hayes Mansion, San Jose, California http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayes_Mansion

Dolce Hayes Mansion website: http://www.dolce-hayes-mansion-hotel.com/