While hotel chains have loyalty programs to take care of guests that are loyal to the brand as a whole, it’s not unusual for individual hotels to go out of their way to take care of frequent guests. For example, if you frequent a particular property they may upgrade you to a suite ahead of an elite member, or offer you free lounge access or breakfast even if you’re not otherwise entitled to it. It all depends on your individual relationship with the hotel, though it can be just as rewarding as elite status (if not more).

Hyatt House made an announcement today that’s interesting because it doesn’t reward those loyal to Hyatt as a whole or those loyal to a particular hotel, but rather those loyal to the Hyatt House brand. The recognition is called “Very Important Resident,” and is for those staying a total of 30 or more nights at Hyatt House properties. The benefits include the following:

  • Personalized service: From learning guests’ personal preferences to building a relationship with them during their stay, each property is committed to making guests feel like they’re right at home.
  • Pick-Your-Suite:  Guests will have the opportunity to pick their own suite from available rooms in their room type at the time of their arrival.
  • VIR Key Card:  Each key card will reflect guests’ VIR status so that hotel staff can quickly recognize a VIR guest and provide them with above and beyond personalized service.
  • VIR Tour: A personalized hotel tour from hotel management staff.
  • “Favorites” Folio:  A place to make note of guests’ likes, dislikes and special requests so HYATT house can personalize their stay in every way, every time.
  • Grocery Shopping Service: By providing a grocery list to the House Host, the staff will stock guests’ refrigerators and kitchens with their favorite food items before their arrival or for when they come home.
  • Grub Stub: Redeem for a $10 food and beverage credit from the H BAR or the Guest Market.
  • Scrub Stub: This voucher can be redeemed for one washer and dryer cycle.
  • VIP Welcome Amenity: Guests can select an amenity of their choice to be waiting for them when they arrive.

Admittedly there’s quite a bit of fluff in there, like “personalized service” (don’t they offer that to everyone?), a “VIP Key Card” (can’t wait to see entitled guests start slapping down their room keys), and a “VIP Tour” (might be useful if you run out of Ambien). But there’s also quite a bit of substance to the benefits, like the grocery shopping service, $10 food and beverage voucher, voucher for a washer and dryer cycle, and a welcome amenity of your choice (sounds a whole lot like Kimpton).

Kudos to Hyatt House for the innovation and while I doubt I’ll qualify, I think it’s a really smart move on their part.

Now if only they’d start a similar program for Park Hyatts… :D

Posted on May 20th, 2013 by lucky
Filed under: Hotels, Hyatt | 9 Comments »

In February I wrote about the four new properties in France for which Hyatt signed management contracts. As a refresher, these properties are as follows:

  • Hotel Martinez will be rebranded Grand Hyatt Cannes Hotel Martinez
  • Palais de la Mediterranée Hotel and Casino will be rebranded Hyatt Regency Nice Palais de la Mediterranée
  • Concorde Lafayette will be rebranded Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile
  • Hotel du Louvre will enter the Hyatt brand family with its identity intact and will be marketed initially as Hotel du Louvre. Following a renovation, the hotel is to become an Andaz.

Anyway, while they weren’t bookable at the time, it’s worth noting that all four are now bookable using Hyatt Gold Passport points.

First let’s look at the Hotel Martinez in Cannes, which I’m probably most excited about. This hotel seems to go for 500+ Euros per night in the high season, and will be a category six Gold Passport property, making it 22,000 Gold Passport points per night. I’ve been wanting to visit Cannes for a long time, and I think this new option will probably push me to finally go.

Next is the Palais de la Mediterranée Hotel in Nice, which is only about 30kms from the Hotel Martinez in Cannes. This hotel seems to go for ~400 Euros per night in the high season, and will be a category five Gold Passport property, making it 18,000 Gold Passport points per night.

Next is the Hyatt Regency Paris Etoile, which looks to be a bit less luxurious than the rest. Revenue rates here seem to be under 200 Euros, so this is actually exciting for those looking to book revenue stays. Hyatt’s two current properties in Paris are both uber-luxurious and expensive, so are a great use of Gold Passport points. This property will be a great option for those looking to book revenue stays in order to earn stay credits and/or use suite upgrades.

It’s worth noting that this will be a category four Gold Passport property, making it 15,000 Gold Passport points per night. This is probably not a very good use of points, especially given the two excellent category six properties that Hyatt has in Paris.

Last is the Hotel du Louvre, which will simply operate as “a Hyatt hotel” for the time being. After a renovation it’ll be rebranded as an Andaz property, though that’s still a couple of years away at the earliest. This will also be a category five Gold Passport property, making it 18,000 Gold Passport points per night. Revenue rates seem semi-reasonable, at least, though on an award stay I’d probably still favor this to the Hyatt Regency Etoile.

Anyway, these are all exciting new properties, in my opinion. I love when properties are rebranded to join chains rather than new builds that just follow the brand “cookie cutter” model. This way you get a more “local” hotel while still getting the elite benefits that make chain hotels worthwhile.

Lastly it’s worth noting that with Hyatt you can redeem Gold Passport points for suites at a 50% premium over standard rooms. The catch is that you have to stay for a minimum of three nights to redeem for an award in a suite.

Racking up Hyatt points

Best of all is how easy it is to rack up Hyatt points. The Hyatt Visa (if you go to the Hyatt website and make a booking you can get a version of the card with a statement credit too) offers two free nights (and if you’re a Diamond member they’re in a suite) after spending $1,000 within three months. But beyond that the Chase Sapphire Preferred offers 40,000 bonus points after spending $3,000 within three months, and the Chase Ink Plus and Chase Ink Bold (and you can pick up both of them) offer 50,000 bonus points after spending $5,000 within three months. The category bonuses offered by each card also make points really easy to rack up beyond the sign-up bonuses, so accruing large Hyatt points balances really shouldn’t be difficult. I have a balance of over half a million Ultimate Rewards points right now, and I only started collecting them about two years ago.

(In the interest of full disclosure, some of the above links earn me a referral bonus, and all are for the best available offers for each card — thanks for your support!)

Posted on May 1st, 2013 by lucky
Filed under: Hyatt | 11 Comments »

While I love Hyatt, IT has never been their strong point. Then again I’m not really one to talk, given that my blog’s theme looks like it was created back when American Idol was still relevant (okay, maybe that’s because it was).

But Hyatt finally unveiled their new website over the weekend, and while it involves a lot of lipstick, there’s also some bacon to the pig (is that the logical continuation of that expression?).

It looks like one of the more minor functional improvements is that when you do a destination search and begin to enter the city name, you now have the option of searching for all hotels in that market or choosing a specific property, which wasn’t an option before.

I’d say the single biggest improvement, though, is that you can search reward night availability on the same page you search revenue rates. Previously you had to go to a different page to see whether a hotel had reward night availability and how much they were charging. You can now search reward night availability by ticking a box at the top of the results page.

The new site isn’t perfect. I find some of the boxes (like the calendars) to be too small, while other boxes (like the ones showing the types of rates) are too big. I also wish you could more easily compare reward rates among various hotels in a market, rather than having to click on each individual property to determine the prices.

Still, it’s a huge step forward, in my opinion, so kudos to Hyatt for that.

How do you guys feel about the new site?

Posted on April 23rd, 2013 by lucky
Filed under: Hyatt | 8 Comments »

Introduction
American Airlines Business Class New York to London
Andaz Amsterdam
American Airlines Business Class London to New York

Given that my itinerary had me spending two nights in London, I instead decided to add on a side trip to Amsterdam, a city I’ve never visited before. I was also excited that this would allow me to experience the Andaz Amsterdam, which opened just a few months ago. In this post I shared my thoughts regarding the hotel booking process, and in the end decided to pay cash for my two night stay, rather than using 18,000 Gold Passport points per night.

My rate was about 240 Euros per night. While that’s far from cheap it seemed worthwhile given that I’d be earning stay credits, could use a confirmed suite upgrade, and they had a promotion for 2,000 bonus points for any paid stay, given that it’s a new property.

I had asked for hotel suggestions on Twitter and the Andaz Amsterdam’s Twitter team got involved and offered to help with anything related to my booking. After confirming my booking I realized that they didn’t actually have standard suites available anymore for both nights (but rather just the first night), so I sent them a direct message asking if they’d still be able to offer a confirmed suite upgrade. I’ve found many hotels to be more than happy to confirm an upgrade in a non-base suite using a confirmed Diamond suite upgrade, especially only a few days out.

They direct messaged me back to say they had a suite upgrade available for me and that I should contact Gold Passport to have it applied. I did so as soon as I received that message, and direct messaged them back to confirm the suite upgrade had been applied.

Anyway, fast forward to the day of my stay. Due to my extremely late flight from New York to London I missed my connection to Amsterdam and was rebooked on a later one, which got me in around 5PM. I took a train to the central train station in Amsterdam, and a cab from there to the Andaz.

My first impressions of Amsterdam from being driven to the hotel in the cab were really favorable. As the cab driver stopped and said “here we are” I didn’t even realize the Andaz was a hotel, as it blends into the neighborhood so well. That being said, Amsterdam seems to have a lot more boutique hotels than just about any other city I’ve visited.


View outside the Andaz


Andaz exterior

While there were no bellman outside I was warmly welcomed once in the lobby, where I was offered a drink. The lobby was really creatively designed, and felt “hip” without feeling too douchey. On the side of the lobby was a big news-style screen with a video of a girl jumping up and down on a bed playing continuously.


Andaz lobby


Andaz lobby Read More…

Posted on April 18th, 2013 by lucky
Filed under: Hotels, Hyatt, Travel, Trip Reports | 34 Comments »

Let’s be honest, accruing miles and points can be a bit of a pain sometimes if you’re an addict. For example, all the torturous domestic redeye flights I take with the sole intention of earning miles suddenly become worth it when I find myself in Cathay Pacific first class headed somewhere warm.

Similarly, I’ve done a countless number of hotel “mattress runs” over the years, and while they’re hardly “painful,” they do still require quite a bit of effort. And similar to redeeming miles for first class on a premium airline, Park Hyatt stays make earning hotel points so rewarding.

This past weekend I stayed at the Park Hyatt Buenos Aires, and had a flawless stay. I’m a pretty tough critic when it comes to hotels (many call it whining, I call it sharing the positives and negatives), though I don’t think there’s a mainstream chain that delivers as consistently as Park Hyatts. And my favorite thing about the chain is how unique each property is. The only thing they have in common is a modern decor and consistent treatment and benefits, while each property is unique and local.

I’ve stayed at the Park Hyatts in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Istanbul, Melbourne, Mendoza, Seoul, Shanghai, and Tokyo, and just about each stay has been as close to flawless as possible.

And my stay this past weekend at the Park Hyatt Buenos Aires (a category five property for which I redeemed 18,000 Gold Passport points per night) may just have been one of my favorites.

The hotel itself is stunning, with both a historic wing and a contemporary wing, which are separated by a beautiful courtyard and an underground walkway (which in reality is an art gallery).


Historic wing lobby


Park Hyatt Buenos Aires courtyard


Park Hyatt Buenos Aires courtyard


Park Hyatt Buenos Aires pool

The rooms were stunning. The service was spectacular (including housekeeping!). And the hotel was even super generous with Diamond benefits. You could have breakfast in either of their restaurants or via room service with no limits (at least not any they mentioned).

8AM check-in? No problem. 8PM check-out due to a late flight? No problem (though in fairness they weren’t totally full and I had no expectation of this, as I’ve never had a hotel be so generous before).

I hate to say it, but I think hotels are giving me my new points redemption “highs.” Redeeming points for Park Hyatts makes me just as excited as snagging a Lufthansa first class award ticket.

The other funny thing about Park Hyatts is that with every stay at one I’m reminded why Gold Passport is my favorite hotel loyalty program. Hyatt is lacking in terms of the number of properties they have (though they’re growing quickly), but they more than make up for it with their reasonable redemption rates at some of the world’s most aspirational properties.

I love other programs for the ability to convert points into miles or for mid-tier property redemptions, but I think Hyatt is the winner by far for high end redemptions.

Don’t change a thing, Gold Passport (actually, if you’d like to introduce cash & points, allow suite upgrades to be used on award stays, and count award stays towards elite status I wouldn’t mind, but other than that…). ;)

Anyone else as addicted to Park Hyatts as I am?

Posted on April 16th, 2013 by lucky
Filed under: Hotels, Hyatt | 47 Comments »

Last Sunday I posted about the unconfirmed reports that Hyatt would begin offering 1,000 Gold Passport points as a Diamond amenity option at all full service properties, and not just those in the US. I figured it’s worth mentioning that this has now been confirmed by Hyatt directly:

As a Diamond member you may have recently experienced something new with our Diamond welcome amenity.

What’s new? At Park Hyatt®, Grand Hyatt®, Hyatt® Hyatt Regency® and Andaz® locations outside the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean, Diamond members now have a choice of welcome amenity. Diamond members can choose either a food and beverage amenity (locally inspired amenity at Andaz hotels) or 1,000 Hyatt Gold Passport® bonus points.

What remains the same? At Park Hyatt, Grand Hyatt, Hyatt and Hyatt Regency locations in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean, Diamond members can continue to select a food and beverage welcome amenity or 1,000 Hyatt Gold Passport® bonus points. And, at all Hyatt Place® and HYATT houseTM locations, Diamond members will continue to enjoy a choice of 500 bonus points or in-hotel selection (complimentary beverage at Hyatt Place or $5 credit in the Guest Market at HYATT house).

We sincerely hope you enjoy this new option, and we look forward to welcoming you again soon.

Safe travels,
Gold Passport Concierge

Interestingly checking in at the Park Hyatt Buenos Aires on Friday I wasn’t proactively offered the points amenity, and they instead brought me a bottle of red wine and some fruit (some of y’all may know about my feelings towards red wine as a welcome amenity).

So it’s nice to have it confirmed that this is now an offering. I guess from now on I’ll be asking at check-in what the welcome amenity is, as there are still some cases where I’ll take it over 1,000 Gold Passport points (which I value at ~$16).

Posted on April 14th, 2013 by lucky
Filed under: Hyatt | 5 Comments »

Introduction
American Airlines Business Class New York to London
Andaz Amsterdam
American Airlines Business Class London to New York

A couple of months ago American started taking delivery of their new 777-300ER aircraft. This was exciting not only because it finally represented some “fresh blood” in their longhaul fleet, but also because these were the first aircraft to feature their new first and business class products, as well as wifi on longhaul flights.

Given that their new 777-300ERs are a huge leap for them in terms of the premium cabin longhaul flying experience, they invited me to fly the new business class product on a flight to London. In the interest of full disclosure (and as I’ll disclose at the top of subsequent installments) they covered my flights between Seattle and London in business class, though as you’ll see all opinions expressed are my own.

The funny thing is that this trip was pretty last minute and I actually took exactly the same flights between Seattle and London just a few weeks prior while enroute to Kuala Lumpur. You can read about that trip here.

While on one hand it might seem boring to try exactly the same flights again, I actually thought it provided a good opportunity to do a side-by-side comparison of the experience between the two products.

My flights left me with two nights in London, a city I’ve visited several times before. Rather than spend my time there I decided to book my own flights to Amsterdam, which I’ve been wanting to visit for a long time now. I redeemed 9,000 British Airways Avios per direction in Club Europe (business class), which seemed well worth it to experience a new city. In the end my itinerary looked as follows:

03/18 AA268 Seattle to New York departing 7:10AM arriving 3:29PM
03/18 AA100 New York to London departing 7:10PM arriving 6:20AM (+1 day)
03/19 BA434 London to Amsterdam departing 11:45AM arriving 2:05PM
03/21 BA423 Amsterdam to London departing at 7:45AM and arriving at 8:05AM
03/21 AA139 London to New York departing 12:35PM arriving 4:40PM
03/21 AA269 New York to Seattle departing 6:30PM arriving 10:05PM

While the connection times in London weren’t ideal — especially given the little time I had in Europe to begin with — I figured it was still worth seeing Amsterdam for a full day rather than visiting London again.

In Amsterdam I decided to book the Andaz, which opened just a few months ago. As I shared in this post, I had the choice between redeeming 18,000 Gold Passport points or spending ~242 Euros per night. I value Gold Passport points at 1.6 cents each, so that means I value 18,000 points at ~$288USD. As a Diamond member I earn 6.5 points per dollar spent at Hyatt, so I’d be giving up ~2,000 Gold Passport points per night by booking an award stay, which I further value at $32. So in other words an award stay would really “cost” me 20,000 points per night, or $320 factoring in the points I’d be giving up. This is about as close to breakeven as I’ve ever seen on the redemption front.

Given that the hotel had a promotion for 2,000 bonus points per stay I decided to book a revenue stay, especially since it would allow me to apply a Diamond confirmed suite upgrade to the reservation.

Anyway, I have lots of travel to report on (including a trip to Asia that I took last week), so to keep this report brief I’m going to stick to the highlights, and focus solely on my flights between New York and London and my stay at the Andaz Amsterdam. I’ll skip my flights between New York and Seattle, the American Flagship Lounge New York, the British Airways Galleries First Lounge Heathrow, British Airways Club Europe service, the American Flagship Lounge Heathrow, and the British Airways Galleries First Lounge Heathrow T3.

Lastly, you can read my initial impressions of all cabins on the American 777-300ER in this post.

Thanks for reading, sit back, relax, and enjoy. I’ll have the trip report wrapped up before the end of the week.

Posted on April 8th, 2013 by lucky
Filed under: American, Hotels, Hyatt, Travel, Trip Reports | 5 Comments »

While it hasn’t been officially announced yet, per this FlyerTalk thread it appears as if Hyatt is now offering 1,000 Gold Passport points as a Diamond amenity option at international properties. Up until now you’ve automatically received the food and beverage welcome amenity at international Hyatt properties, while at US properties you had the choice between the points or the amenity.

This has always been a frustrating policy, so it’s nice to see them finally change it.

Now, at the more generous properties I may still choose the food and beverage amenity over the 1,000 points. For example, this was my Diamond welcome amenity at the Park Hyatt Saadiyat Island:

Conversely, at the Hyatt Regnecy Mainz, this was the extent of the food and beverage amenity:

I’ll let you guys guess at which property I’d take the 1,000 points. ;)

Posted on April 7th, 2013 by lucky
Filed under: Hyatt | 7 Comments »

Introduction
American Airlines Flagship Lounge New York
American Airlines Business Class New York to London
American Airlines Arrivals Lounge London
Malaysia Airlines First Class Golden Lounge London
Malaysia Airlines First Class London to Kuala Lumpur
Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia Airlines First Class Golden Lounge Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia Airlines First Class Kuala Lumpur to London
Hilton London Heathrow Terminal 4
American Airlines Flagship Lounge & British Airways Galleries First Lounge Terminal 3 London Heathrow
American Airlines Business Class London to New York

We booked the Grand Hyatt for our two night stay for 600MYR (~$200USD) per night. This is a category four property meaning it would have otherwise cost 15,000 Gold Passport points per night, and that’s a cost at which I’d much rather pay cash.

The hotel opened just last year and I had heard great things about it, so I was excited to experience it firsthand. I applied an expiring Hyatt Diamond confirmed suite upgrade to the reservation, which confirmed us into a Grand Suite.

We made it to the hotel via taxi by around 9AM, and were immediately welcomed by the bellman and walked inside.


Hotel driveway

The hotel is rather interesting in that the lobby is on the 39th floor, the top floor of the building, so in order to access any of the other floors you first have to go to the lobby, and then take a separate set of elevators to the guest room floors. Even the ground floor of the hotel feels pretty grand, though, and there’s a concierge desk located there.


Hotel ground floor


Hotel ground floor


Elevator leading to rooms Read More…

Posted on March 29th, 2013 by lucky
Filed under: Hotels, Hyatt, Travel, Trip Reports | 13 Comments »

Usually I’m not much for artsy hotels. I find far too many of them to be style over substance, with little thought given to what’s important for the frequent traveler. To that end I actually find Andaz hotels to be a good mix between style and substance, given that they’re trendy (though not over the top) yet practically designed.

I’m staying at the new Andaz Amsterdam, and this is by far the artsiest Andaz I’ve visited (and I’ve visited almost all of them). I mean, the design in the room is downright bizarre, though in an awesome way. The one thing that pleasantly surprised me is that even though it’s super-artsy, it’s also practical.

The bathroom and shower are actually separated from the rest of the room (I’m looking at you, W hotels). There are several outlets near the desk. There’s even an adapter near the desk.

I did have a couple of hiccups though that are leaving me shaking my head. As I blogged about a few days ago, I was trying to decide between booking the Andaz Amsterdam on cash or points. In the end I decided to pay cash, given that they were also running a promotion for 2,000 bonus points per stay, and a reader pointed out that the suites at this hotel are nice, so that would allow me to use a Diamond suite upgrade.

After making the booking I realized they only had the “large suite” available for the first night, while the standard suite was available for the second night. The way Hyatt processes Diamond suite upgrades is that you call up Gold Passport, and then they call the hotel. While there are published rooms that the suite upgrades confirm into, I’ve found hotels somewhat flexible with it, though you often have to contact them directly.

When I asked you guys on Twitter where I should stay and you recommend the Andaz Amsterdam they Tweeted me and said to let them know if I needed any assistance. So I direct messaged them, gave them my confirmation number, and asked them if they’d be able to confirm a suite upgrade using a Diamond certificate for my stay. They responded that they could, so I called Gold Passport to apply it right away. Hyatt could only confirm it for the first night, as I expected, though I direct messaged the hotel to let them know it had been applied, thinking they’d take care of it from there.

Anyway, I went to check in and sure enough they didn’t have a suite upgrade available for the first night, but only the second night. I showed them the direct messages I had sent the hotel on Twitter, and all of the associates explained that the Twitter account is run outside of the hotel in the US. If so, that’s the first time I’ve ever heard of a hotel’s individual Twitter account not being run by someone at the hotel, and if true, that’s a really bad strategy in my opinion. For that matter it’s bad news when the employees at a 100 room hotel don’t know who runs their Twitter account.

It wasn’t a big deal (I was more confused by the location of their Twitter account than the miscommunication), so I asked them to go ahead and downgrade me for both nights since I didn’t want to switch rooms. However they had blocked me in a garden view king room, which is just about their entry level room. Given that they were still selling canal view rooms online for both nights I told them this was rather disappointing. They said they weren’t available, so gave me a large garden view king instead. But below you can see what rooms they’re still selling as of the time of this post.

I took a nap this evening after two very short nights and ordered a sandwich and dessert from room service. Five minutes after I order it they call me back to ask if I want dessert. Yes, I believe I ordered it. Then five minutes after my food is delivered they call me to tell me that they don’t have mozzarella cheese for the sandwich, and ask if I’d prefer a different type of cheese. What the…?

Lastly. I’ve gotta say their minibar “complimentary snack selection” sure leaves a bit to be desired.

Anyway, I really do love this hotel, and I actually found all the front desk associates to be exceedingly friendly, though there are definitely some areas for improvement in the few hours I’ve been here.

Posted on March 19th, 2013 by lucky
Filed under: Hotels, Hyatt, Travel | 12 Comments »

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