My review of At Six Stockholm
After two days at the Clarion Sign hotel, I’m splashing out and changing to the At Six hotel. By splashing out I mean the cost has doubled, but still I paid like just $105 for the 20,000 points.
At Six is one of the best hotels of Stockholm and very centrally located, as in you can reach the main places within 10 to 20 minutes. Next-door in the same block is Hobo, another Strawberry hotel.
I was wondering what its name actually means, until my friend reminded me that the hotel’s street number is six…
As you can see from the plate at the entrance, At Six is also part of the Preferred Hotels group. It is not uncommon for high-end boutique hotels to join multiple groups at the same time, and you can expect to see crosses between Preferred Hotels / LHW / Mr & Mrs Smith / Melia / SLH.
Right in the middle of the lobby is a spotlight of the hotel: Mar Whispering by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa. I’m not an art person but I find the sculpture quite interesting, and I saw another piece of artwork from him at St Regis Venice a couple of months later.
The concierge welcomed us warmly with a glass of Prosecco upon entering. I just became a Strawberry Platinum member thanks to their tier match offer, but the staff never mentioned that at all during the check-in process. I did however get free breakfast and 4pm late check-out.
The hotel is almost full and no room upgrade was granted. The levelling is a bit weird – Ground floor is Floor 4 and the underground gym is Floor 1.
Our standard room is on Floor 8.
The room size is even smaller than Clarion Sign, but the materials and finish make a whole world of difference.
All the small pieces here and there show you it is a lavish hotel. I have only one complaint: the extensive use of granite and black wood dims the whole tune, and they should install more (brighter) lights to compensate that.
The room key:
There’s no swimming pool, but the gym and sauna room are free to all guests.
Breakfast buffet is priced at over 300 SEK pp which isn’t cheap.
In terms of spread it’s not much better than Clarion Sign, but the quality is finer and they make eggs too. Croissant is especially tasty.
All hotel staff are very enthusiastic and go out of their way to make sure your need is satisfied. Except for the lack of a pool I’m fairly impressed by the hotel, and my 20,000 points is well spent.
Instant Hilton Gold / Diamond for targeted corporate employees
Hilton is, again, running a promotion targeting select corporate partners that offers their employees a chance for instant elite status upgrade and a challenge.
There are quite a few variations:
- Instant Silver, and stay 6 nights by April 29th to upgrade to Gold
- Instant Silver, and stay 6 nights by April 29th to upgrade to Gold or 12 nights to Diamond
- Instant Gold, and stay 6 nights by April 29th to maintain Gold, or 12 nights to upgrade to Diamond
- Instant Diamond, and stay 12 nights by April 29th to maintain Diamond, or 6 nights to maintain Gold
To sign up. you must verify with an eligible corporate email address. If you manage to complete the challenge, your status will be valid through March 2026, which is over two years from now.
There’s a way to check whether your company is eligible. The following URL leads to the promo page for Shell: https://www.hilton.com/en/preferred-rates/shell/
… where you’ll see a blue banner promoting the Diamond offer. Likewise if you replace the “shell” bit in the URL with your company’s name you may see a landing page that shows the same or another offer.
Compared to its last reincarnation, Hilton is much more generous this time as the Diamond match has been extended to a lot more companies, including Amazon, Google, Apple, Oracle, Siemens, Shell, Deloitte, Accenture and Nestle, just to name a few,
It is a good offer especially if you can get the Diamond one. If you aren’t a Hilton member yet, there’s another offer which allows you to earn 3,000 bonus points after staying within six months.
Marriott soft landing and annual choice benefit
If you haven’t selected your 50-night and 75-night annual choice benefit, remember to do so before January 7th, otherwise Marriott will choose the suite night awards for you by default.
If you want to choose the 40K free-night certificate for the 75n benefit, there’s always an advantage waiting till January to make the election. Despite what the term says, your certificate will be valid for one more year.
As you can see, mine is valid through the end of the 2025. The suite night award on the other hand, doesn’t offer this quirk. That said, SNA is supposed to become more valuable soon, as Edition and Ritz Carlton hotels will start accepting them.
On a different subject – Marriott leaked its soft-landing policy a few months ago but quietly withdrew it. The FAQ page is now live again, confirming that members who failed to retain their status will be downgraded by only one level in March 2024.
Deep discount: Six Senses hotel from 70k IHG points
A new year present from IHG – not sure if it’s intentional or a system glitch, but many Six Senses hotel are available for redemption at a much-lower-than-usual price, throughout the year.
Six Senses Uluwatu Bali, 70,000 points
Six Senses Zil Pasyon Seychelles, 210,000 points
Six Senses Laamu Maldives, 110,000 points
Six Senses Nihn Van Bay, 85,000 points
Six Senses Ibiza, 120,000 points
My review of Clarion Hotel Sign Stockholm
I’m heading to Stockholm for a few days, and it’s finally an opportunity to burn my Choice points. When showcasing Choice points we usually use Oslo’s The Thief as an example, but Stockholm is also a sweet spot – all hotels are available for between 10,000 and 20,000 points.
The only five-star property amongst them is At Six. It’s not available for my first two nights though so I booked Clarion Hotel Sign instead. It costs only 10,000 points ($52) per night, with breakfast included and a swimming pool. From the online pictures I thought the two hotels are more or less in the same league, which turns out to be a huge misunderstanding.
The hotel is at the edge of the city centre, not very close to the main attractions but still within walking distance. There’s a small park in front.
I checked in at 2.15pm, slightly earlier than the regular check-in time. Many of Strawberry’s staff aren’t very familiar with Choice’s integration, so you might need to explain that you booked with points.
Family Room and Superior Room are redeemable at the same price as standard rooms. I thus booked a Superior Room which has a bit more space.
Honestly speaking the room is too basic for a four-star hotel even by European standard. It’s reminiscent of the Ibis set-up, but with a tad more budget for the furniture – regular-sized table, coffee machine and bathtub.
According to this plate in the elevator, floors are designed by different artists:
I’m on the Danish floor. Finnish:
Norwegian:
Swedish:
I hope they are more distinguishable in the interior.
Spa is located on the eighth floor. Unfortunately the pool is closed for renovation. Sauna is open but you need to pay 100 SEK entry fee.
Gym:
Like many other hotels in the North, breakfast is complimentary to all guests.
The buffet:
SEK has been devaluing over the last few years – dining out in Stockholm is much cheaper than London!
Service here is not super warm but friendly enough. As you can see there’s nothing spectacular about this hotel – in fact it’s just mediocre. At the price I paid however, it is definitely a bargain worth going for.
20% off and free lounge access at Japan’s Oriental Hotels
Quite a niche offer I know, but it might come handy when you visit Japan. Smart Traveller, Plaza Premium’s membership program, has an ongoing promotion with Japan’s Oriental Hotels group which gives away upgrade to their Oriental Partner Passport status.
Oriental owns a few hotels in Japan, some branded Hilton, Sheraton and Holiday Inn. Only the Oriental branded hotels are participating though, and there are a handful in Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima, Okinawa and Kobe etc. You can expect the following benefits at these hotels:
- 20% off best flexible rate
- 25% off restaurant bills
- Free lounge access when applicable
It turns out the room discount can sometimes be greater than 20%, for example at 30%, and is still flexible.
Only three hotels have an executibe lounge:
- Kobe Meriken Park Oriental Hotel
- Oriental Hotel Okinawa Resort & Spa
- Okinawa Harborview Hotel
You must book the special rate for lounge access, and it generously applies to up to 3 rooms!
It seems that you don’t have to be a staying guest to avail the dining discount.
Once you’ve signed up with the link, the upgrade should be added to your account within a few days, after which you could start booking the special rate.
My review of Hotel Indigo Stratford-upon-Avon
I managed to burn my BA companion voucher and Hyatt’s free night voucher eventually, but still struggling to find anywhere decent to redeem my 40K free night voucher from the Chase credit card. It happens that IHG launched a 15%-off sale on reward nights, and the two IHG hotels at Stratford-upon-Avon became an option.
There’s a Crowne Plaza with larger guestrooms, swimming pool and a club lounge. The Hotel Indigo however, is ranked #1 on TripAdvisor and has a marginally better location, so we chose them instead.
The Hotel Indigo is just opposite to Shakespeare’s New Place, and about 10 minutes’ walk from the train station.
It is a Grade-II listed building that started off as a small house in circa 1500, and after centuries of renovation it became a hotel and joined IHG. The timber-framed Tudor architecture is commonly seen in Stratford-upon-Avon and some other English towns.
Entrance of the hotel is at the back, which in contrast is very modern.
The lobby has a very boutique-y style, as you would expect from an Indigo.
The hotel has a small storefront, but it is actually quite big with three buildings. The older Tudor and Georgia buildings have 32 guestrooms, whereas the new building has 61. Premium Room (above standard rooms) can be redeemed at the same cost, and I got one in the new building.
The room’s tone is dominated by blue and yellow, and measures just about 20sqm. The suites are not much bigger either at around 30sqm, but it is not unusual in Europe.
Ceramic tiles in the bathroom are the most shiny that I’ve ever seen and look quite expensive!
To be honest I’m surprised that they manage to squeeze a bathtub in. The bathroom is so small that there’s nowhere to place my washbag.
An Indigo perk: the minibar is completely free, including two bottles of water, two cans of coke, one sparkling wine and one lemonade. Safe to say that I’m drinking (or taking) them all…
A big trouble emerges when we are going to sleep. Soundproofing is terrible as we can hear our neighbour’s TV clearly. We have to phone the front desk to remind them.
Rooms in the new building are prefixed 1 or 2, and the old buildings with 3-7. Personally I prefer the new building – I can’t imagine how bad soundproofing is like in the old building.
Breakfast is complimentary for Diamond members, served at the Feasting Room. You can find all the buffet on one table:
An a-la-carte menu:
The eggs are tasty.
However compact the room is, the hotel has a lot of public space, with quite a few bars and lounges.
And even a private garden:
Regular checkout time is 11am. My late checkout is only extended till 12.30pm, which is understandable on a Saturday. Although soundproofing is a main issue, the hotel is really nice overall and I think it lives up to the #1 ranking on TripAdvisor.
Extension of IHG milestone rewards
IHG rolled out their milestone rewards in 2021 and there have been frictions in terms of implementing some of them, making them uneasy or even impractical to redeem. As a goodwill gesture IHG extended the expiry of the F&B rewards, but nothing was done to the confirmable suite upgrade ones.
As reported by a friend, followed by many others, you can apply for an extension of the CSUs through IHG’s customer service.
Give it a try if your CSU is due to expire soon. Note the language however – it is a “once-by-lifetime” extension, so only apply if you are sure about using it before it expires again.