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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.
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.
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!
My review of Hyatt Regency Cologne
After one year I’m finally comfortable travelling abroad again, and my first stop is Cologne in Germany. In fact I’m desperate to make use of the Amex Hyatt cashback offer, which plays a big part in me deciding where to go 😉
Cologne has its own airport albert quite small and only Ryanair flies here from Stansted. Instead I choose to fly into Dusseldorf on BA and Cologne is just 30-60 minutes away from its airport, depending on the train you take. The Hyatt Regency is only 5 minutes’ walk from Köln Messe/Deutz station.
The hotel is located on the “wrong” side of the river, which reminds me of the Hilton in Newcastle. All the attractions, shops and restaurants are on the west riverbank so it’s not very convenient for tourists, however it has the advantage of being much quieter, and owning the amazing view of the city centre including the Cologne Cathedral.
I booked a Hyatt Prive rate, which comes with room upgrade, free breakfast and $100 credit. Unfortunately the current 3-for-2 sale only includes suites, and I can’t really justify the extra cost.
Being a measly Explorist, I’m granted a one-level upgrade to a King Room with River View.
The room is okay, although lacking in any innovation or spirit.
Some chocolate as a welcome gift:
The river view is impressive, and I’m thankful to my free Explorist status.
The Hyatt has four restaurants open at the moment. One Italian and one fast-food in the cubic houses in front of the hotel:
A lobby bar on the ground floor, and the main Glashaus restaurant where breakfast is served.
If you don’t have a river view room, the Glashaus is worth visiting.
The breakfast spread is good with a few cook-to-order options. Sunday morning is very busy though and service is bit chaotic.
I had dinner here to use my €85 credit. I ordered Pluma Iberica which turned out to be excellent – in fact it’s one of the best pork I’ve ever had in my life!
Hotel residents can book to use the spa. There’s no sauna or steam room, but the swimming pool and jacuzzi are decent enough.
I read good things about the Regency Club but unfortunately I don’t have access to it. Overall the hotel is fine, although for a five-star I’d expect more elements in the room. If you prefer to stay in the city centre and don’t mind the view, Hilton Cologne might be a better choice.
Free night voucher and 50% dining discount for joining Hyatt Gourmet Club in Germany
For some unknown reason, many of the mainstream hotel groups have dedicated dining schemes in Asia Pacific that offer great discounts, but not in other continents. Whilst staying at Hyatt Regency Cologne I found out that it exists for Hyatt hotels in Germany as well.
You can visit the Gourmet Club homepage here. There are six participating hotels:
- Grand Hyatt Berlin
- Hyatt Regency Cologne
- Hyatt Regency Mainz
- Park Hyatt Hamburg
- Hyatt Regency Dusseldorf
- Hyatt Place Frankfurt Airport
For €299 a year you enjoy the following benefits:
One Free Night Voucher
You get a complimentary night voucher for the hotel from whom you purchase the membership.
Dining Discount
When at least two people dine in participating restaurants, one complimentary meal is offered, which means 50% off for two, 33.3% off for three and 25% off for four etc. This works quite similarly to Accor Plus in Asia Pacific.
The discount can be redeemed up to 12 times in the membership year.
Room Discount
10% off at participating Hyatt hotels.
Free Bottle of Champagne
One SPA Day Pass
The free night voucher itself can be quite valuable already, as it costs typically €200+ to stay one night at Park Hyatt Hamburg or Grand Hyatt Berlin. If you plan to stay at any of these hotels and dine, the Gourmet Club could make sense even if it’s just for one-time use.
It’s also specified in the terms that all benefits are transferable. So in theory you can share the membership with your friends and family when they visit Germany.
Success: Hyatt Globalist challenge registration
(UPDATE: I successfully registered for this promotion via Andaz London Liverpool Street)
I wrote about the new Hyatt status challenge offer not long ago, and decided to give it a try myself. Although I don’t see myself being able to stay 20 nights for the bump to Globalist, Explorist benefits are also nice in case I’ll stay at any Hyatt hotels by the end of this year.
I emailed Andaz London Liverpool Street, the reason being I have just completed my first-ever Hyatt stay there in June. The sales department had never heard of this offer so I forwarded the following poster to them:
It didn’t take them long to come back to me, saying that the registration had been done 🙂 The new status was reflected in my account the following day:
So give it a go if you are interested. There’s another similar challenge available to American Airlines elite members, however less generous as you have only 90 days for Explorist trial and to complete the challenge.
World of Hyatt status challenge relaunches – 20 nights to Globalist
Compared to other major hotel groups Hyatt rarely provides status match or fast track opportunities. Something new has just come out though, and you should take a look if you have any upcoming Hyatt stays.
The following poster has been shared on FlyerT (a Chinese FFP forum), and looks very credible:
In short:
- You need to register by November 30
- You receive an instant upgrade to Explorist upon registration, which is valid through 2021
- Stay 10 nights by December 31 to extend the status to February 2023
- Stay an additional 10 nights by December 31 for an upgrade to Globalist
If you are already an Explorist, you could also register and fast track to Globalist for 20 nights. Given that the standard qualification criteria have been halved for the current year, this offer isn’t actually hugely generous, as you’d otherwise need to stay 15 and 30 nights to qualify for Explorist and Globalist respectively.
Hyatt Explorist enjoys bonus points, room upgrade and late check-out. Globalist receives the enhanced version of them plus free breakfast and club lounge access.
The offer doesn’t look targeted or regional to me, however you can’t register yourself – you must contact the sales representative of a Hyatt hotel and ask if they could sign you up. According to the discussions on FlyerT, some hotels’ sales departments are indeed aware of the offer and happy to help.
My review of Andaz London Liverpool Street
I’ve never set foot in any Hyatt hotel in my life, largely due to their poor footprint in UK and Europe. However I spotted an awesome deal from the Andaz London hotel, and decided to have a staycation in east London for a few days!
The rate I booked was Hyatt Prive with complimentary third night. For three nights in a King Deluxe room I paid a more-than-reasonable £340, reduced further to £240 thanks to the Amex Hyatt cashback deal. The rate also comes with free breakfast, $100 dining credit and room upgrade, which is very useful since I obviously have no status with Hyatt.
Being the first Andaz hotel in the world, the property is formerly the Great Eastern hotel dated back to 1884. It is just around of the corner of the Liverpool Street station, so transport connection is not a problem. There are also many dining options and shopping outlets in proximity, although the location may be not ideal for tourist purposes.
At check-in I’m told that room upgrade is not included in the rate, which is definitely a lie but I don’t really bother that much. In the meantime they actually honour a credit of £100 instead of $100, which is to our advantage.
I’ve had great troubles with the rooms though. This is the first room I’m given:
The room is in perfect cubic shape, of a very decent size by London standard. It feels more business than leisure for sure, but not necessarily cold or monochrome. The floor lamp is very funky.
Mini-bar is free to all hotel guests. Its content include mineral water, juice and Coca-Cola.
But so much for the good things. Long story short, I had change room twice because:
- Many rooms have no drape, but only blinds. It’s impossible not to be waken up by the early sun.
- The air conditioning unit outside my first room has water leak which leads to noises that prevents me from sleeping
There are some other teething issues but I’m not going to dwell upon them.
This is a floor plan of the building:
As you can see, there are more rooms on the outer circle which also tend to be larger. However the noise level is also higher, plus due to design one wall inclines inward which can be a big nuisance if it’s next to your shower.
I finally got a room on the inner circle, which is larger than the original and features a sofa and a bathtub.
Let’ talk about food then. I was amazed to learn that the hotel has as many as five eating outlets, all of which have opened with the exception of Wine 1901. Average dining cost is about £20 to £25 per person, and during my stay I’ve got a chance to try them all.
Eastway Brasserie
It was the only open one on Sunday evening, which is a pub next to the hotel’s main hall. I ordered a Wagyu steak which has a surprisingly low price tag of £13, and it’s ok.
Lady Abercorn’s Pub & Kitchen
A smaller pub which specialises in drinks and nibbles, with exotic recipes from South Korea, Indonesia and India. My chorizo rolls and buffalo wings are very tasty, and I really like the service and vibes here.
Miyako
A Japanese restaurant, and I generally prefer Asian cuisine. Unfortunately my sushi and ramen are well below expectations, and Miyako has to be my least favourite on-site restaurants.
Rake’s Café Bar
I didn’t dine in this Italian restaurant, but had breakfast here every day. I have to say that breakfast is the biggest highlight of my entire stay.
It’s fully a-la-carte with an extensive menu, varying from Full English and its vegan version, Eggs Benedict, Shakshuka Eggs (very rarely seen in a UK hotel), pancakes and porridges etc. You could easily eat here for a week without repeating the same breakfast.
Both presentation and food quality are great.
There is a daily social hour between 7pm and 8pm. All hotel guests can enjoy a free glass of wine with some snacks from the Miyako restaurant.
I was given a bottle of red wine to say sorry about the troubles I had with my rooms. All hotel staff I interacted with after the incident were already informed about it, and I was made sure that the preferences had been added to my profile to prevent such things from happening should I stay in the future.
I can’t say it’s a great stay, and I will stick to IHG, Marriott and Hilton for my future stays unless there’s another great deal with Hyatt.