This past weekend I had to be in Redmond, Washington, so it seemed like a great opportunity to try out the Hyatt House. Hyatt House is Hyatt’s newest brand. This particular hotel used to be a Hotel Sierra, and then was rebranded as a Hyatt House earlier this year. I guess Hyatt House competes most closely with Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Courtyard, etc., given that they offer free internet and breakfast, as well as extended stay hotels, given that they offer kitchens and “studios.”

Well, I was actually really impressed by the property, and found it to be a step above what the competition offers in the same “category.”

The hotel exterior was beautiful, and the lobby was inviting and warm.

Hotel exterior

Lobby

Lobby

The check-in agent was friendly though seemed to have no concept of Hyatt status, since she just stared blankly at my Gold Passport card and I wasn’t offered an upgrade of any sort.

My room was on the 5th floor at the very end of the hallway, which was quite a haul. The hotel is deceivingly big.

Hallway

The room itself was the most impressive part of the hotel, though. I don’t know what it was, but it just felt very “livable,” something I can’t even say about many high end hotels I’ve stayed at. It featured a desk and kitchen right near the entrance. While I’m not one to cook in hotel rooms (or at home, for that matter), I can appreciate a full size fridge.

Room

Desk and kitchen

Kitchen

I suspect part of what made the room feel so livable was how high the ceilings were and how bright the room was.

High ceilings

Living room

The room featured a comfy king size bed.

Bedroom

View from my room

The bedroom led into the bathroom, which featured a separate sink area and then a door leading to the toilet and shower.

Instead of having individually bottled toiletries the hotel has “pumps” with toiletries. Usually that annoys me, though these pumps actually worked and were full, which I can’t say for 90% of hotels with a similar system.

Sink

Toilet

Shower

The hotel offered free breakfast for guests in their restaurant area. They had cereal, several hot options, and even an omelet station. While it was by no means gourmet, I did think it was much better than anything I’ve seen at other chain hotels that uniformly offer free breakfast.

Restaurant

Breakfast spread

Breakfast spread

The hotel also had a pretty basic gym which I used once.

Gym

Anyway, on the whole I was really impressed by Hyatt House. The rooms were clean and nicely furnished, the public facilities were inviting, and all the employees I interacted with were friendly. For a rate of under $100 per night, what more could you ask for?

And on a mildly unrelated note, I really love the state of Washington, especially compared to Tampa (which is filled with nothing but strip malls and strip clubs, neither of which I patronize).

A few days ago I wrote about American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts and Virtuoso, which are two methods of making reservations that can get you additional benefits on stays at hundreds of high end hotels.

Some of you brought up Visa Signature’s Luxury Hotel Collection, so I figured I’d make a follow up post about it. This is a bit smaller scale of a program that’s available to anyone with a US-issued Signature Visa credit card, like the Chase Sapphire Preferred, British Airways Visa, Hyatt Visa, United Explorer Visa, etc. To take advantage of this benefit you have to reserve and pay for hotel stays with a qualifying credit card.

The benefits for booking through the Visa Signature Luxury Hotel Collection are as follows:

• Best available rate guarantee
• Automatic room upgrade upon arrival, when available
• Free in-room Internet or Valet parking
• Complimentary continental breakfast
• 3PM check-out, when available
• VIP Guest status
• $25 food or beverage voucher

To break that down a bit further, it seems like the best rate guarantee applies exclusively to the prevailing or best flexible rate. In other words, when booking through this program you can’t use an advance purchase/AAA/senior/government/corporate rate, so in many cases the savings that can be had there might more than compensate for the extra benefits.

I think most of the other benefits are pretty self explanatory, though the one I find especially intriguing is “free in-room internet or valet parking.” If the hotel offers both you can choose, and if you choose valet parking it can be a value of up to $50 per day. The Andaz West Hollywood is part of this hotel collection, so between the free valet parking (if you rent a car) and food and beverage credit, booking through here would likely be consistently cheaper than booking an otherwise discounted rate.

Anyway, the program itself consists of over 800 hotels, and while they have a lot of luxury hotels, they also seem to include a few more mid-range properties than Virtuoso, which is probably useful for many of us. For example, all the US Andaz hotels are included in the collection. The website lets you search hotels either by their brand, name, or location, which is pretty useful, and the website is as easy to use as just about any booking site.

The results page will list all hotels in the area (I searched Los Angeles) along with their corresponding prices.

If you click on “See Rooms & Rates” you’ll see all the room options along with the corresponding benefits.

The cool thing is that at no point in the booking process do you have to log in (though you can choose to have a username and password so your info will be saved). On the next page you simply have to complete the purchase with a Signature Visa credit card, and your reservation will be confirmed.

I actually hadn’t known about this program until a few weeks ago, and it really pained to me to think for how long I’ve been missing out on these benefits for the Andaz hotels I’ve been staying at.

As always you should look at all the options before making a booking, including advance purchase rates, AAA rates, etc. But in many cases the additional benefits with this program may total $100 per night. I think the biggest potential benefit here is free valet parking for up to a $50 per day value, which both American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts and Virtuoso don’t offer as a benefit. So while I still generally prefer the offerings of those two programs, I can see many circumstances under which I’d use the Signature Visa program instead.

Happy booking!

I think both Virtuoso and American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts are among the most overlooked programs when it comes to adding additional benefits to your hotel stays at no additional cost. As some of you may recall I was temporarily a luxury travel agent with access to Virtuoso properties, though I had a bit too much on my plate and in the end wasn’t able to do it justice while keeping up with my other obligations. I don’t for a second regret having done it, though, since I learned a ton about the travel industry, and hopefully in turn I can use that to provide you guys with an unbiased opinion about the programs.

So what are Virtuoso and American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts? Basically they’re both booking channels through which you can get additional benefits for stays at select luxury hotels that belong to both groups while not paying more than the prevailing/flexible rate (it’s worth noting that you can’t get these benefits on points stays, corporate rates, discounted rates, or advance purchase rates). In some instances booking through Virtuoso or American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts is even cheaper than booking directly through the hotel (I specifically remember this being the case at a couple of InterContinental hotels in Europe), though that’s more the exception than the norm. The benefits typically include free breakfast, a room upgrade upon availability (typically one category), late check-out, and an added amenity that’s valued at about $100 (resort credit, spa credit, food and beverage credit, free lunch/dinner/afternoon tea, etc.).

View from the Ritz Carlton Hong Kong

The two programs are very similar, though there are a few distinctions that should help in your decision making process.

It’s worth noting that regardless of which program you book through, you can still earn points and elite credit if the hotel you’re staying at belongs to a loyalty program. For all practical purposes it’s like booking directly through the hotel. With that in mind, let me break down the basics:

How do you book through the programs?

American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts

American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts is open to all American Express Platinum and Centurion card members (in the interest of full disclosure I do receive a referral credit for anyone that applies through that link). While you don’t have to settle your bill with your Platinum/Centurion card, you do have to use an American Express branded card.

Virtuoso

Virtuoso hotels can be booked through any travel agency with a Virtuoso affiliation. Typically these are the top agencies since being a member isn’t cheap/easy. Many Virtuoso agents don’t charge service fees, so as a consumer you shouldn’t have any issue finding a Virtuoso agent willing to work with you.

How do you search rates and benefits?

American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts

If you’re a Platinum or Centurion card member you can go to this page to search for affiliated hotels. Once you log-in and select your preferred city or hotel, both the price and benefits will be displayed. Like I said earlier, in 90%+ of cases the rate will match the flexible/best available rate displayed on the hotel’s website directly.

Search page

Benefits page

Pricing page

Virtuoso

While Virtuoso won’t let you search rates online, they will let you search the hotels and benefits. Simply go to virtuoso.com, click on “Exclusive Offers,” and then click on the “Properties” tab, which will bring you to this page. From there you can either search by the property’s name in the “Keyword” section, or narrow down the hotels by region.

Search page

For example, when searching for Florida, here are some of the results that are returned:

Results page

Once you select a specific hotel you’ll be brought to a page which displays a lot of information about the hotel. If you scroll all the way down you’ll see the “Virtuoso Exclusive Benefits.” In the case of the Four Seasons Miami, for example, they’re as follows:

Benefits page

How do the benefits differ?

American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts

For reasons I really can’t understand, American Express really has their affiliate hotels by the you-know-what. They have the exclusive rights to offering guaranteed 4PM late check-out at their hotels. So while you may get 4PM late check-out subject to availability through Virtuoso, they’re not technically allowed to offer it on a guaranteed basis.

Virtuoso

While American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts offers continental breakfast, Virtuoso typically offers full breakfast.

Customer service

American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts

It’s rather convenient to be able to make bookings online, though at the same time you typically don’t have a dedicated travel agent like you’d have if working with a Virtuoso agent.

Virtuoso

The beauty of Virtuoso is that if you have a good agent they can work wonders for you and really customize your stay. At the end of the day if you’re a good customer of their’s, they can make just about anything happen if they have the right contacts at a hotel.

While mildly unrelated, let me say this as an onlooker: understand that for the most part your agent is working on a commission, so the more money you spend on hotels, the more the agent will want to go out of their way to take care of you. Along the same lines if you’re working with an agent for the first time and making a one-night booking at a mid-range hotel, don’t expect them to secure you a suite upgrade at the time of booking or anything like that. At the end of the day they have to leverage their relationships to make “one time exceptions” happen, and it isn’t fair to do that to them if you’re a first time customer. But by building a relationship with a Virtuoso affiliate agent they usually will go the extra mile for you over time.

Other random observations

American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts seems to have more properties. In the past six months I’ve used Fine Hotels & Resorts more often than Virtuoso due to the fact that they have a lot of properties that Virtuoso doesn’t, including the Westin Grand Frankfurt, Le Meridien San Francisco, St. Regis Bangkok, etc. Keep in mind that participation in both programs is reviewed annually, so it could be that they’ll still be added to Virtuoso, or they might not meet their “standards.” So while there is a lot of overlap, there are some properties unique to each program.

St. Regis Bangkok

Always compare the benefits. The obvious benefit that sets apart Fine Hotels & Resorts is the guaranteed 4PM late check-out. The obvious benefit that sets apart Virtuoso is the full breakfast (instead of continental breakfast). While everyone places different value on those things, always compare the other benefits. Typically the “added amenity” is about $100 of retail value, though one program might offer a $100 spa credit while another offers a $100 food and beverage credit. Depending on which you prefer, that could make a huge difference in the value you get out of the program, and for me is often the deciding factor when choosing which program to book through. For example, I’d rather have a $100 food and beverage credit than afternoon tea.

Added amenity is on a per stay basis. While the room upgrade and breakfast are benefits applicable throughout the entire stay, the “added amenity” is only offered once per stay. That’s why it’s often advantageous to book just one or two night stays, since a $100 resort credit (for example) goes a lot further on a one night stay than a five night stay.

Make your life easier by looking up rates first. Rather than findind a Virtuoso agent and waiting to hear from them with rate quotes, you can cut out a lot of the communication lag by looking up rates on your own first. For example, if you want to stay at the Four Seasons Seattle, go to their website and type in your dates. The first rate displayed will be the best flexible rate.

Rates on fourseasons.com

Combine that with searching the Virtuoso website and American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts website for the benefits, and you have as much information as the agent does.

Virtuoso benefits

Fine Hotels & Resorts benefits

Nothing makes an agent’s day quite like getting a request from a client that knows exactly what they want.

Free night promotions. I saved among the best for last here. One of the other huge benefits of these two programs is that they’re often running third or fourth night free promotions. Sometimes both programs are running overlapping promotions, while at other times they’re not. For example, back in January I stayed at the Park Hyatt Shanghai on a fourth night free promotion through American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts, since Virtuoso wasn’t offering the same promotion. At the same time I’ll be staying at the Four Seasons Dublin next month on a Virtuoso booking, since both American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts and Virtuoso were offering the third night free.

You can find these promotions on the Fine Hotels & Resorts website by the gold stars that display next to the hotels with the words “SPECIAL OFFER.”

Special offer listings

As you can see in New York, just about every hotel is offering the third or fourth night free. By clicking on “View Details” you can see the eligible dates and fine print of the promotion.

Mandarin Oriental fourth night free

Anyway, hopefully this was at least a useful explanation of the basics. If you have any questions about either program please let me know in the comments below!

Later today I’ll have a post explaining the benefits of the Visa Signature Luxury Hotel Collection, which is a more mild version of these programs offered to Visa Signature card members.

Despite living in Florida I very rarely visit the Caribbean. Fares from Tampa to San Juan are consistently low, often as low as $69 each way thanks to JetBlue flying between the two cities nonstop. So I finally pulled the trigger and booked a 24-hour trip to San Juan. A friend found equally good fares from the west coast, so booked a stay at the same time.

I really struggled in regards to where to stay. I try to stick to Hyatt, Starwood, and Priority Club as much as possible, though in this case no option was ideal. Hyatt doesn’t have a hotel in San Juan, so they weren’t an option. The InterContinental San Juan gets awful reviews in terms of their Royal Ambassador treatment, so I did what I could to avoid it.

That narrowed it down to the two Sheratons, one of which is at the convention center, and the other of which is in Old Town. I was tempted to go with the convention center location since it’s a new hotel and gets generally good reviews. The Old Town Sheraton also gets good reviews, though is a much older hotel.

So in the end as a result of indecisiveness I decided to book the Ritz Carlton, which seemed to offer the best of both worlds (though at a cost). It’s close to the airport, at the beach, and gets all around great reviews.

The rate for one night was $339. That’s by no means cheap, though by booking through a Virtuoso agent we received a $100 resort credit, full daily breakfast, and a room upgrade at no additional cost. Like I said it isn’t cheap, though when you’re splitting the costs two ways and get all those extra perks, it really is a pretty good value, in my opinion.

Anyway, I arrived in San Juan at around 1PM and we took a taxi to the Ritz Carlton. San Juan seems to have a bit of a taxi mafia as all the prices are fixed. In the case of the Ritz Carlton, a taxi cost $10 plus $1 per bag (there was a bit of a discrepancy as to whether a backpack or laptop bag counts as a bag for these purposes, since we were charged $12 on the way out and $14 on the way back). The ride took less than 10 minutes.

Ritz Carlton placard

As soon as we arrived at the hotel we were helped with our bags by the bellman and escorted to check-in which was located just inside of the lobby on the right.

Hotel exterior

Hotel entrance

There was a wait of about five minutes, though I was happy to see they had bottled water and juice set up on the side of the lobby, since it was hot as heck outside.

Lobby bar

Lobby

Water and juice

Our check-in agent was courteous and explained to us all the benefits we would be entitled to. He checked on the best room upgrade for a room with either a king bed or two double beds, and the best he could do was a king bed with a pool view on a low floor (which is a one category upgrade). The hotel was packed due to a wedding party taking up half of the hotel, so we were perfectly happy with that.

The elevators are key activated, and we took it up to the third floor, where our room was located pretty close to the elevators.

Hallway

Room entrance

The room itself wasn’t huge though was nicely decorated and arranged. It featured a very comfortable king bed, large seat, and desk with comfortable chair. There was also a well stocked minibar, though the only place I ever use minibars is at hotels where they’re free or at InterContinental hotels, where I get free beverages as a Royal Ambassador member.

Room

TV and desk

View from room

Minibar

Room

The bathroom featured a shower, double sinks, and a separate room with the toilet. All the toiletries were Ritz Carlton branded.

Bathroom

Toiletries

Shower

While it has been a few years since the hotel was renovated, I feel they did a spectacular job maintaining the rooms, since there were virtually no scratches/stains.

The only negative was that the room had no bottled water (with the exception of in the minibar), which I found strange given that they even had free bottled water at check-in.

The resort itself was really beautiful. It featured both a huge pool with plenty of seating, as well as a beach. Admittedly there are nicer beaches in the Caribbean than in San Juan, though this one seemed very nice by San Juan standards.

Pool

Pool

Resort exterior

Beach entrance

As you approach the beach there are employees there that help with setting up the lounge chairs based on where you want to sit, and that can help with any other requests. As an aviation geek I thought it was pretty awesome that there were great airplane views from the beach, as the runway is only about a mile away.

Beach

One of the reasons the hotel was so packed was because of a huge Indian wedding at the hotel, and they got married on the beach, which I thought was pretty cool.

Wedding

And these people really did know how to party morning, day, and night. The morning we left they seemed to have some impromptu rock concert on the driveway of the hotel.

Some concert

At around 4PM we were pretty hungry so decided to have a late lunch at obg, the beachfront restaurant. It was much more casual and we were wearing shorts and t-shirts, not to mention I really wanted to enjoy the beach views.

Menu

Pina colada

The prices were what you’d expect for a Ritz Carlton restaurant with a beach view. I had a pina colada, which was $14, and then had fish tacos, which were $19. Fortunately the $100 resort credit more than took care of lunch.

Fish tacos

All the employees I interacted with were friendly and eager to help. They were a bit more laid back than at the Ritz Carlton Hong Kong, for example, but I kind of expect that for a beach hotel in Puerto Rico.

The hotel also has a huge gym that’s actually located inside the spa. The downside of being located inside the spa is that it’s only open from 6AM till 9AM, so if you have weird hours like that be sure to keep that in mind. That being said, the quality and variety of the equipment was excellent.

Gym

Gym

In the evening we went to Old San Juan. Once again the taxi prices are fixed, and it was $20 for the roughly 15-minute ride to the Old Town. Old San Juan was stunning, and I can’t wait to return.

It was a Friday night so the atmosphere was great, with live music on the street, all kinds of street vendors, and plenty of people watching.

Street market

Concert

We had dinner at a restaurant we found along the way, which was delicious. I had sausage to start, and shrimp with yellow rice as the main course. For dessert was tres leches cake, which was among the best I’ve had.

Appetizer

Shrimp with yellow rice

Amazing tres leches cake

I was a bit surprised to return to the hotel and find that they hadn’t done turndown service on our room. I’m not sure if it was an oversight or they only do it upon request, but we at no point had the “do not disturb” sign out, so I’m not sure why.

Like I said breakfast was included since we booked through Virtuoso, so we had breakfast at around 8AM at Mares Restaurant. We had the full buffet, which would have cost $28 per person.

Mares Restaurant

The spread was top notch in terms of quality and variety. They had all kinds of pastries and breads, yogurt, hot dishes (scrambled eggs, quesadillas, etc.), fruit, cereal, etc. The service was really attentive as well.

Breakfast spread

Breakfast spread

Breakfast spread

Breakfast spread

Breakfast spread

The biggest props, though, have to go to the chef at the omelet station. I was looking at the various options, and he said “I see you eying my food. Let me know if you need the lowdown on anything, I ga’cha covered.”

At around 11AM the following morning it was back to the airport after an all too quick trip.

I can’t believe I haven’t visited San Juan before because it really is beautiful, and from what I’ve heard there are plenty of other things to explore on the island of Puerto Rico as well. Also, Puerto Rico feels nothing like the rest of the US, so it really is a nice change of pace.

The Ritz Carlton is a fantastic choice, especially when booking through Virtuoso or American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts, and I wouldn’t for a second hesitate to return if the value is right. That being said, I’d also consider staying at hotels on other parts of the island, which I’ve heard great things about as well.

Here’s a quick Saturday morning poll. I can’t say I’m usually fazed by connecting doors, though I’m presently staying in a hotel room which has connecting doors on both sides, and I can’t say I’ve ever noticed that before.

Which brings me to the poll question:

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If the poll options don’t do your answer justice (or you’ve had a weird/entertaining/loud experience with connecting doors), feel free to answer in the comments section below.