A few weekends ago I was in New York for my brother’s bachelor party. It was supposed to be on Saturday, so I flew out on Friday just to be on the safe (and well rested) side. Friday just happened to be my birthday, and I do what I can to not fly on my birthday, oddly enough. However it wasn’t preventable in this case, so I flew up to New York in the afternoon on American, and spent the first night at the Andaz Wall Street and the second night at the Andaz 5th Avenue.

The Andaz Wall Street was a bit cheaper for both nights, though my brother asked that I do what I can to get a two bedroom suite at the Andaz 5th Avenue, both so we could have drinks there beforehand and also in case anyone wanted to crash there afterwards.

So I ended up using one of my Diamond suite upgrades for the night at the Andaz 5th Avenue, and then emailed the hotel to see what could be done in terms of a better room. They offered to upgrade me to a two bedroom suite (similar to the one I had the first time I stayed here due to a mishap) for $250, which I gladly paid. Not something I’d usually do, but given the circumstances I figured it was worthwhile.

I’ve stayed at both hotels plenty of times, so I’ll keep the reviews pretty stay and room-centric. You can find my previous reviews of the Andaz Wall Street here and here, while you can find my previous reviews of the Andaz 5th Avenue here and here.

I arrived at the Andaz Wall Street at around 3PM where I was promptly helped at check-in. The “host” was pretty cold and didn’t exchange a word with me, which was certainly a change of pace from the usually overly talkative hosts.

The good news is that I had been upgraded to an Andaz XL King (basically a junior suite) on the top floor. As usual the room was beautiful. I especially love the decor of the Andaz Wall Street rooms.

There was a seating area near the entrance which faces a big closet (also where the TV is), on the other side of which is the bed.

Living room area

Facing bedroom area

Desk

Bed

As usual at Andaz hotels, the minibar soft drinks and snacks were complimentary, as well as the wifi.

Minibar

Snacks/booze

I especially love the bathrooms at the Andaz Wall Street, as they feature an enclosed shower/tub, which is among the nicest out there. I’m not usually a “tub” person, but once in a while I can be tempted, and the Andaz Wall Street is one of those instances.

Bathroom

Shower/tub

Toilet

There was a little birthday cake waiting on the table when I entered, which surprised me given that I made a reservation the night before. While I want to give Hyatt credit for this, apparently a friend called the hotel the morning of my arrival to let them know it was my birthday. So I guess Hyatt gets half credit in this instance for executing…

Birthday cake

On Saturday morning my brother joined me for breakfast at Wall & Water, which has a nice brunch on weekends. The non-hotel crowd is usually pretty odd (who has brunch on Wall Street on a Saturday, other than losers like me?), though the food is always good. I do wish the hotel would clarify their breakfast policy for Diamond members. The general consensus is a $50 credit per day, though that doesn’t really cover their standard offering, so seems a bit low. Anyway, we only had a few dollars of overage, so I wasn’t about to argue.

Wall & Water

Buffet

Buffet

After visiting some family and going to Central Park for a bit my brother and I headed over to the Andaz 5th Avenue for check-in. Our room was ready at around 3PM, and was one of the hotel’s two bedroom suites (they only have a total of two). The last one I stayed in was bigger though didn’t feature a balcony, so it was nice to be able to compare both rooms.

This one featured a nice sized living room with a couch facing a flat screen TV, as well as a desk with a kitchenette. The fridge was well stocked, and as is always the case, the soft drinks and snacks were complimentary.

Entryway

Living room

TV in living room

View from balcony

Kitchenette

Fridge

There was also a welcome amenity consisting of a chocolate tart and bottle of wine.

Welcome amenity

The suite also featured two nearly identical bedrooms and bathrooms. Unlike the Andaz Wall Street, the 5th Avenue hotel doesn’t have tubs in the bathrooms, though the showers themselves are awesome.

First bedroom

First bedroom

First bathroom

First shower

Second morning

The following morning we had breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant, The Shop, where there was about a 30 minute wait.

The Shop

The Shop

I ordered the hotel’s famous lemon poppy seed pancakes, while my brother ordered an omelet, both of which were delicious. This was my first time not ordering room service breakfast at the hotel (since they let Diamonds do that).

Lemon poppy seed pancakes

Omelet

Anyway, as usual both Andaz stays were great. While I prefer the location of the 5th Avenue location, there is something remarkably relaxing about Wall Street on weekends, and at the end of the day New York transportation is pretty inexpensive and efficient, so I don’t really care where I stay.

These two hotels are my “go to” hotels in New York, though I’m still not sure which I prefer. I’m leaning towards the 5th Avenue hotel since I think they’ve really improved a lot since opening (especially in terms of Diamond recognition), though I’ll continue to choose based on their rates and where in the city I need to be.

I’ve been giving hotels a lot of thought lately, and now that I’ve just about requalified for both Hyatt Diamond and Starwood Platinum for the year (in both cases on stays instead of nights), I figured I’d provide my general thoughts about both programs, as well as InterContinental. It’s also worth noting that I’ve now been a Starwood Platinum for a bit over year since status matching last April, so I now have more of a basis on which to judge Starwood. With that in mind, here are my general thoughts about both programs:

Hyatt

I love Park Hyatt properties. I mean, I really, really love Park Hyatt properties. The more I think about it, the more I realize that Park Hyatts are really what keeps me loyal to Hyatt. The ability to redeem no more than 22,000 Gold Passport points per night (or no more than 33,000 points per night for a suite) at a Park Hyatt hotel is really what drives my loyalty to the chain.

Park Hyatt Abu Dhabi

Don’t get me wrong, Hyatt gets tons of points from me for their consistency. There’s not a more consistent hotel chain, a chain that under promises and over delivers as consistently. But the more Hyatt hotels I stay at, the more I realize that aside from Park Hyatt and Andaz properties, most of their hotels are pretty boring.

Andaz Shanghai

But now that Starwood really stepped up the game, especially in terms of incremental benefits over initial qualification, I think it’s time for Hyatt to step up their’s. I actually don’t necessarily think they should start counting award nights towards elite qualification like Starwood does. I mean, I have no problem if they do, but I think what they really need are marginal benefits above the first 25 stays or 50 nights.

In the past Hyatt’s amazing promotions were reason enough to stay at their hotels since you could earn a free night at a Park Hyatt after every few nights. Obviously that’s not sustainable, so it doesn’t have to be that drastic. But I think where Hyatt is missing the boat is that marginal benefits actually decrease after the first 25 stays and 50 nights. You get four confirmed Diamond suite upgrades after qualifying, but then get nothing extra if you stay double or triple as many nights/stays. So they’re not giving any sort of an incentive to stay with them. It’s still a really solid program, though without the promotions and with Starwood recently stepping up their game, I don’t think it’s the clear winner anymore.

Starwood

I’ve always referred to Starwood as the chain that over promises and under delivers. This is because as a chain they offer “unlimited space available suite upgrades” to Platinum members, but in practice a lot of the franchised hotels don’t seem to be aboard and will do just about anything to avoid giving an upgrade. My frustration with Starwood was that as a Platinum member you could have a stay where you literally get no benefits except free internet, since breakfast wasn’t guaranteed either.

Fortunately back in March they revamped their program to add breakfast as a Platinum amenity option, and also to add incremental benefits for those that more than qualify for Platinum status. As usual with Starwood it sounded great on paper, though I was curious about the implementation. Surprisingly enough I have to say that in my experience so far the implementation has been excellent. While the breakfast amenity does have to be chosen in place of the 500 SPG point Platinum welcome amenity, for my stays thus far the hotels have gone beyond the minimum required. At Le Meridien Munich, for example, I even got access to the full buffet.

Le Meridien Munich breakfast

But what’s really tempting me about Starwood is the marginal benefits beyond the initial 25 stays and 50 nights, which really force me to stay at their hotels instead of at Hyatt properties. The most tempting of those benefits are the 10 confirmed suite night awards after 50 nights, which I’m aiming for this year. This allows you to confirm 10 nights in a suite five days before arrival, which is hugely useful in basically “jumping” the Platinum upgrade queue. With Starwood I seem to always get suite upgrades for my one-night airport hotel stays, but not for the “vacation” stays that really count. So being able to confirm those would be hugely valuable.

Furthermore, the fact that award nights now count towards elite qualification with Starwood make this even more of a no brainer, since I can redeem points for stays at mid-range hotels and have those work towards the additional benefits.

But that still doesn’t solve my major frustration with Starwood, which is the number of points required for their high end hotels. I value SPG points at over two cents each, so at 30,000+ points per night for a category seven hotel, there are almost no circumstances under which a points redemption is a good value. Worst of all is that all villa hotels like the W Retreat Koh Samui charge double of the normal points required given that they don’t have any “standard” rooms. I’ll never understand that, since the redemption category a hotel belongs to is already based on the cost of rooms, so you’re basically being penalized twice.

InterContinental

I also have Royal Ambassador status with InterContinental, though for me this is the program which is becoming less and less valuable by the day. InterContinental Royal Ambassador used to be the best top tier status by far, in my opinion, though over the past couple of years has decreased in value to me, partly because the competition has caught up and partly because InterContinental has done everything they can to “standardize” benefits, which is rarely a good thing.

Nowadays I’m not really loyal to the chain, but rather mainly to a few of their individual hotels, which make me want to keep Royal Ambassador status. For example, the InterContinental San Francisco and InterContinental Berchtesgaden are among my favorite hotels, and I’d hate to give up Royal Ambassador because of how much I love these hotels.

InterContinental Berchtesgaden — my favorite place on earth

At the same time, the status really isn’t sustainable. While they’ve continued to quietly reduce benefits they’ve also increased qualification requirements. While the requirements are unpublished, anecdotal evidence suggests it takes at least 60 nights per year to be invited to Royal Ambassador. If Priority Club had more “middle ground” between InterContinental and their other brands that might not be so bad, but as things stand now, I can’t see myself staying 60 nights per year with them. The most frustrating part of the program is the lack of elite benefits on award stays, which is the biggest slap in the face of all.

Finding value in short stays outside the main chains

Here’s the last challenge I’m having. I’m increasingly finding a lot of value in one to two night stays at Virtuoso and American Express Fine Hotels & Resorts properties that don’t belong to Hyatt, Starwood, or Priority Club. For example, if I see a Ritz Carlton available for $250 per night and it comes with a room upgrade, $100 food and beverage credit, and daily breakfast for two, I’d be hard pressed to book a Westin for $200. And while that’s not always the case, it certainly makes me a bit less “focused,” which is never a good thing when trying to requalify for status.

Ritz Carlton San Juan

The bottom line

There is no perfect hotel chain. I love Hyatt for the ability to stay at mid-range hotels and redeem for high-end hotels. I just wish their mid-range hotels were more interesting. I love Starwood for the benefits I receive when staying at mid-range hotels and the reasonable award redemption costs for mid-range hotels. I just wish their high-end hotels would be priced more reasonably for award redemptions.

My hotel decisions for the rest of the year will be dictated first and foremost by which chain gives me the best value on the promotion front. Unfortunately both Hyatt and Starwood‘s second quarter promotions are pretty lackluster. Barring decent promotions, my decisions will be driven by incremental benefits, which is where Starwood wins for now.

Who is everyone else favoring this year?

As I blogged about a couple of weeks ago, Hyatt is selling Gold Passport points for about a cent each through Daily Getaways tomorrow. As a reminder, the quantities and costs are as follows:

24,000 points for $234 with an American Express card, for a total of 0.975 cents per point (100 available, 20 during presale)
30,000 points for $300 with an American Express card, for a total of 1.0 cents per point (35 available)
36,000 points for $373.50 with an American Express card, for a total of 1.0375 cents per point (15 available)
69,000 points for $697.5 with an American Express card, for a total of 1.011 cents per point (15 available)

The sale goes live at 1PM ET tomorrow, while the pre-sale goes live at 12PM ET (though there are only 20 packages, so you have a better shot at finding a US Airways agent with geographical competence than bagging one of these). To try and get in on the pre-sale you’ll have to “like” Hyatt on Facebook and get the code that they’ll post on their Facebook page at exactly 12PM ET tomorrow.

Don’t get your hopes up on this offer too much, since there are very few packages and lots of interest. Either way, it’s a fun “game.”

Daily Getaways, a promotion sponsored by the US Travel Association and American Express, just revealed their week five “sales.” You can read about their week one and two offerings here, and about their week three offerings here.

Anyway, they’ve just unveiled the details of their week five promotion here, which looks pretty good to me.

The Best Western deal on Monday doesn’t really interest me, since they don’t have any real “aspirational” awards, and points can only be converted into miles at a 5:1 ratio. That means the $60 purchase would earn you 2,000 miles, which is three cents per mile. No thanks.

The Fairmont offer can be a good deal. They’re selling both six nights in Hawaii for $1,750 ($1,575 if paying with an American Express), and two nights at the Plaza New York for $950 ($855 if paying with an American Express). Both offers include breakfast. There’s no doubt that in both instances these are savings over the prevailing rates, though in both destinations there are other hotels I’d rather use points for. So if it works for you, great, but for me, it’s just not worth it.

For Wednesday, May 9, Hyatt has the following on sale:

24,000 points for $234 with an American Express card, for a total of 0.975 cents per point (100 available, 20 during presale)
30,000 points for $300 with an American Express card, for a total of 1.0 cents per point (35 available)
36,000 points for $373.50 with an American Express card, for a total of 1.0375 cents per point (15 available)
69,000 points for $697.5 with an American Express card, for a total of 1.011 cents per point (15 available)

All of these are amazing deals. Hyatt’s top hotels cost 22,000 points per night, so you’re basically looking at paying around $220 per night for hotels like the Park Hyatt Tokyo, Park Hyatt Maldives, Park Hyatt Paris, etc.

The huge catch here is that the quantities available are minimal. There will probably be thousands (if not tens of thousands) of people competing for under 200 packages. So while you might as well show up when they start the promotion, think of it more as a fun lottery game than a serious chance at scoring some Hyatt points, in my opinion.

Good luck to everyone, though!

Update: It appears there’s an even better publicly available offer which has all the same benefits except offers a $75 statement credit after the first purchase. The link for that can be found here.

Link: Chase Hyatt Visa Card Application

I don’t for a second take for granted the fact that I get to do what I love every day, from my 10 second commute from my bedroom to my living room, to the fact that I don’t have to report to anyone except you guys. And one of the ways I’m able to do that is through the blog.

Anyway, I just wanted to mention that I now have an affiliate link for the Chase Hyatt Visa credit card. Previously they only allowed select publishers to promote the card, though we now have access to it as well. The link appears both at the top of the post as well as on the “Best Credit Card Offers” page of the blog. The reason I mention it is because I’m always surprised by the generosity of some of you guys. When I don’t have a link to a certain credit card I often get emails from readers asking if there’s a link of mine they can use to support the blog. Typically when I don’t post an affiliate link of mine it’s because there’s a better publicly available offer or because the card doesn’t have one.

The Chase Hyatt Visa really is a great card, though. The standard sign-up bonus is two free nights at any Hyatt hotel in the world after your first purchase. If you’re a Platinum member you get two free nights plus two confirmed suite upgrades you can use on a revenue stay. And if you’re a Diamond member you get two free nights in a suite at any Hyatt in the world.

The cool thing is that Hyatt is currently offering a free 90-day Platinum trial if you have a Visa Signature credit card (such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred, British Airways card, etc.). That means that if you sign up for the Platinum trial and then sign-up for the credit card you’ll receive both the two free nights and two confirmed suite upgrades.

Those confirmed suite upgrades can be used to upgrade any Hyatt revenue Hyatt stay for up to seven nights each. I’ve used my suite upgrades at the Andaz West Hollywood, Park Hyatt Shanghai, Andaz 5th Avenue, and Andaz Wall Street, just to name a few.

So anyway, while there’s no rush to sign-up, it is a very good sign-up bonus that I plan on taking advantage of during my next churn (I’m one of the more cautious people when it comes to Chase personal applications).

As far as the sign-up bonus goes, in the past I recommended that non-Diamond members get the Chase Sapphire Preferred card instead, given that it used to offered 50,000 Ultimate Rewards points. Ultimate Rewards points can be transferred to Hyatt, and the highest category Hyatt costs 22,000 points per night, so you could get that card and still come out ahead compared to the Chase Hyatt Visa. But now that the bonus has dropped to 40,000 points, the Hyatt offer is once again more compelling.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that while the annual fee is $75, you get a free night at any category 1-4 Hyatt upon your card anniversary each year, so that more than covers the annual fee (you can find a list of category four Hyatt hotels here). Furthermore, you get Gold Passport Platinum status for as long as you have the card, which gets you free internet, late check-out, and the occasional room upgrade at Hyatt hotels. That makes this a card that’s not just worth getting for the sign-up bonus, but actually worth keeping.

And on an unrelated note, tonight or tomorrow I get to announce a really exciting promo/contest/whatchamacallit that will have me going some fun places, and a handful of you going to fun places as well!

And once again, a sincere thanks to all of you for the continued support. I hope to cross paths with more of you over the coming months.

Through May 11 Hyatt is offering a 90-day Platinum trial to those with Visa Signature credit cards (that includes the Chase Sapphire Preferred, United Explorer Visa, Alaska Airlines Visa, and many more). You simply have to go to this page and enter your card number to activate your 90-day trial.

Platinum is Hyatt’s entry level status, which offers free internet, a 15% points bonus, preferred rooms, and 2PM late check-out. It’s also worth noting that Hyatt Signature Visa cardholders get Platinum status for as long as they have the card.