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My review of Hyatt Regency Birmingham
Before I start my new job, I decided to visit a friend in Birmingham for a few days. Hyatt Regency Birmingham happens to be offering complimentary 3rd night which makes its price very reasonable, and I’m attempting to fulfil my Globalist challenge, so it became my choice of accommodation.
The hotel is a modern high-rise near the city centre.
I booked a Club room as its premium over a Standard room was only £14 a night, so basically a no-brainer given the inclusive breakfast and access to Regency Club. They wouldn’t upgrade me further to a suite although it’s available – Explorist status isn’t much useful…
My room is located on the 22th floor. Its configuration is the same with a Standard King, apart from being on one of the top floors.
The decoration is a bit too plain to be honest, if not also dated. I understand it’s a business hotel which is why they don’t make a lot of effort.
You can overlook the city through the floor-to-ceiling window.
Breakfast is self-service in the main restaurant.
Spread isn’t great. I asked for a cup of Cappuccino and was told the coffee machine was broken…
The Regency Club is also located on the 22th floor. It’s a fairly spacious duplex, with some tasteful furnishings and a nice view.
Refreshment is available throughout the day.
During the evening Happy Hour, some canapes and desserts are served. There is one kind of beer, red, white and rose each available.
Three hot plates:
- Carrot coriander soup
- Stuffed goat cheese mushrooms
- Duck mushroom terrine
It’s still not a proper meal, but the offering in general is quite decent.
The thing I enjoyed most from this stay was the spa centre.
As I got a pretty good deal for the Club room, the stay was mostly enjoyable. I’ve also stayed once in the Crowne Plaza nearby a few years ago but I don’t think it’s as good as the Hyatt. I’d like to try one of the Marriott hotels as well, but their locations are not very desirable.
$150 daily credit at Waldorf Astoria, LXR and Conrad hotels
Hilton has started a new campaign with its luxury hotel brands – Waldorf Astoria, LXR and Conrad. By booking the specific rate you can take advantage of $150 daily credit throughout your stay.
- Book at least three days in advance
- Two-night minimum stay required
- Book via the page or use promo code PBEXC1
- $150 / £100 / €150 credit per night in respective regions, or $150 local currency equivalent in other regions
Looks too good to be true? Well you are right – you must book the specific rate plan to benefit, which is more expensive than the Best Flexible Rate.
Here are some of the hotels, with a comparison of BFR and exclusive credit rate:
- Waldorf Astoria Edinburgh £490 / £558
- Conrad Dublin €269 / €333
- Waldorf Astoria Berlin €336 / €414
- Waldorf Astoria Rome €357 / €436
- Conrad Istanbul Bosphorus €173 / €233
Remember that Honors Discount and Advance Purchase rates are also available, which are even cheaper than the BFR. As you’ll find out, in many or most scenarios the credit is largely offset by the rate difference, especially if you are booking in advance.
However that’s just the case in Europe. If you visit Istanbul or Asia, the rate difference is much smaller and this rate plan can actually be a very good deal, providing that you don’t mind eating at the hotel.
Hyatt triple dining points, new hotels 500 bonus
Hyatt has kicked off a new promotion that offers triple points on hotel dining. You can access the offer here.
Now through February 20th, 2022, you will earn triple points, i.e. 15 points / $1 when you eat at the restaurants of participating Hyatt hotels. The following UK hotels are participating:
- Great Scotland Yard
- Hyatt Regency London – The Churchill
- Andaz London Liverpool Street
- Hyatt Place London City East
- Hyatt Place West London Hayes
- Hyatt Regency Birmingham
- Hyatt Regency Manchester
If you are staying at the hotel, DO NOT bill to your room. You must pay at the spot and give them your World of Hyatt membership number instead, otherwise charges settled with the room bill will not earn any bonus points. The maximum bonus you can earn per transaction is 100,000, although it’s very unlike to be a problem.
Meanwhile it’s the time of the month when Hyatt updates its list for new hotel bonus. The only UK hotel on the list is Hyatt Centric Cambridge – if you stay there by the end of 2021 you will earn 500 bonus points per night.
My review of InterContinental O2, London
The InterContinental O2 hotel was closed last year when the pandemic started, and then bid to become a quarantine hotel for LCY passengers arriving from Red-List countries. On September 18th, the hotel finally re-opened its door after more than a year’s break.
As a “new” hotel, it came with a perk – the award night pricing was relatively low at around 37,000 points compared to £200+ cash rate, at least on some dates. I happened to have an 40k Ambassador Free Night voucher from a recent promotion, and I thought it would be a perfect occasion to redeem it.
The hotel is located near the North Greenwich tube station, however directions are a bit confusing. Coming out of the station you should take the exit for the bus stop, and then you’ll see the signs leading you to the hotel. An alternative is to walk in and out of the O2 centre.
The location is not great for tourists, or anything to be honest unless you are attending an event at O2. Food and drink options are decent though in the shopping centre, and if you are a fan of Chinese hotpot Haidilao is a great venue.
Built in 2016, InterContinental O2 is possibly one of the youngest five-star hotels in London.
I saw in the app that I was pre-upgraded one level to a deluxe room, which isn’t quite generous given my recent experiences at InterContinentals and Kimptons. Upon my enquiry regarding further upgrade possibilities, they assigned me a club room on the 13th floor – with no club benefits of course.
The room is okay, nothing particular to pick on however I’d expect more from a new hotel. On the other hand it’s already showing age – many stains on the carpet, and the bath knob just dropped when I tried to turn it…
The view however, is absolutely stunning. Be sure to book or ask for a river-view room if you stay here.
Gym and spa are fully open now, and no prior reservation is needed.
Again, they are functional but I expect better facilities given it’s a new hotel (see Waldorf Astoria Berlin).
If you pre-book breakfast at check-in you can enjoy a special price of £20pp (as opposed to £25+12.5%), which should be further reduced to £5 thanks to the £15 Ambassador credit. I happily took the offer.
Unfortunately, it is the worst breakfast I’ve ever had at a hotel. There’s no cook-to-order menu and everything is self service except for a few egg-based items (they weren’t able to name them specifically). Variety and quality are appalling.
The bacon is extremely over-salted and barely eatable, which is also used as an ingredient of my omelette. There isn’t a single item in the entire breakfast spread that was acceptable to me. I’m not sure if things are ill-prepared due to the very recent reopening, or if it’s their usual standard.
Hotel staff are very friendly throughout my stay, but also unprofessional. It appears that the Ambassador credit cannot be used in conjunction with the breakfast offer but no one mentioned it to me at check-in, and they agreed to make an exception. I had to point out multiple times that I was the only guest and guess what, they still charged me for two breakfast in the end which took me an email to sort it out.
I believe the hotel has been generally receiving good reviews, but my experience this time was mostly a let-down unfortunately. If you have the 40k Ambassador as well which will expire in a couple of months, it’s not a bad idea to burn it here, but in terms of spending actual cash I’ll think twice.
How to find hidden Hyatt reward availability
Hyatt is generally quite good with reward availability, since as long as a standard room is for sale it should be available for redeeming with points too (not applicable to Small Luxury Hotels). However sometimes it may still be difficult to find availability at certain hotels, and today we’ll talk about a couple of tricks that are helpful.
Take Hyatt Centric Waikiki Beach for example, which is a hotel in Honolulu, Hawaii. The problem is, they are blocking standard rooms at the moment, and you must book at least 5 consecutive nights to be able to see them and thereafter redeem standard awards.
Here is what you see when booking 4 nights:
And when booking 5 nights:
Which means, if you want to stay four nights only or less, you are stuck unless you are willing to pay more for a suite.
[Book and Delete]
The first trick is, book five nights on points, and then delete the first or last night(s) you don’t want. By doing this you basically circumvent the minimum-night stay requirement imposed by the hotel.
Note that you can’t possibly manage it yourself. You must phone World of Hyatt’s hotline for help.
[Pay My Way]
The only trouble with the approach above is you need enough points in your account to make the placeholder booking in the first place. There’s a further trick to work around it.
First of all, switch from View Points to View Rates and assuming that you are signed-in, you should see the option to Use Pay My way:
Click it and then you can customise the payment methods for your stay. Let’s say your desired stay dates are 11-14 November, choose to pay cash for the first two nights and points for the next three.
Then it’s the same story – call Hyatt’s customer service to delete the first two nights. This way you don’t need more points than you actually pay, unlike in Book and Delete.
And this concludes my blog post. The question, of course, is whether Hyatt’s call centre is able or happy to delete the nights as you request. This is not something I can guarantee, however from the many data points that I have seen, it is absolute doable at least for now, although you may need to try HUACA if unlucky.
Marriott dining benefits in Asia Pacific
Marriott has a special dining scheme in Asia Pacific, which you should know if you are a resident or plan to visit the region.
Unlike Accor Plus, you don’t need to join a separate membership plan to take advantage of it. In a way it works quite similar to Shangri-La. Before I go into any details, all of the following benefits apply even if you not a hotel guest, and this makes a big difference.
[Dining Discount]
All Marriott Bonvoy members enjoy a dining discount at participating hotels, and the actual percentage depends on the membership tier plus the country. In general:
- Member & Silver: 10%
- Gold: 15%
- Platinum, Titanium & Ambassador: 20%
In Greater China the percentages are higher, at 10%, 20% and 30% respectively.
[Earn Points]
In addition to the discount you also earn points, at the regular rate of 10 points per USD.
[Redeem Points]
This is a new feature they introduced recently. Instead of paying cash and earning points, you can now redeem your points. The rate is the same as Instant Redemption, i.e. 10,000 points for $40.
The discount above can be applied in conjunction with the redemption.
The redeeming option doesn’t look very attractive, however the discount is significant (up to 30% off) and earning points on top is even better. In fact Hilton and IHG have similar programs in China / Asia Pacific, not sure why nobody has introduced them to Europe or Americas.
My review of Hyatt Place London East
Hyatt just opened this new hotel in London very recently, and has been offering the 500 points per night new hotel bonus. Bored enough, and as I have registered to their Globalist fast track, I decided to give the hotel a try.
The hotel is located at Whitechapel, and I don’t think it’s a secret why they don’t want “Whitechapel” in the hotel’s name. I mean, the area is definitely not as dangerous as its old reputation goes, however it still feels rough and not many would choose to live or stay here. If you need easy access to the City, London Bridge and Canary Wharf are much better and not necessarily more expensive.
Lobby and reception are at the -1 floor. It’s definitely got the correct business look for “London East”. There’s a small business centre for hotel guests to print.
As an Explorist I’m upgraded one-level to a King Bed High Floor room, although I personally wouldn’t classify it as an upgrade.
Weirdly the room reminds me of Accor’s Ibis brand probably due to its colours, but admittedly it’s more complete. The room is actually surprisingly homey which some of my friends really like, and it’s not what I would expect from a business hotel.
One of the room’s selling points is “Stunning Views” as described on their website. But seriously who are we kidding here…
As an Explorist I’m not entitled to free breakfast, and I didn’t eat anything at the hotel so cannot comment. To be honest I’m a bit confused what Hyatt is trying to do here – I’m not a Hyatt fan but as far as I understand they are much more upmarket than the other hotel groups, and although Hyatt Place is understandably more mid-range, I don’t think this hotel adds any value to their portfolio!
New IHG promotion: triple points from the 3rd stay
IHG has just launched their Q4 promotion which, hmm, is identical to the 3X promotion they ran earlier this year.
You can sign up to the offer via this link. There is a FAQ section this time which makes everything a bit clearer.
- Valid for stays between October 1st and December 31st
- Double points on second paid stay
- Triple points on third paid stay onwards
- Total bonus points is capped at 70k
There is also an “IHG credit card 6,000 bonus points” offer mentioned in the FAQ although no detail is given. If you hold an IHG credit card watch the space.
Beware that the offer doesn’t start until October. Since triple points is only awarded from the third stay, make sure you plan your stays accordingly to avoid missing out the bonus on expensive hotel stays.
A targeted Q3 promotion is currently running until the end of September.