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!
Extra reward stamp for Hotels.com bookings
If you are contemplating booking a hotel stay, Hotels.com has a decent flash sale which is worth considering.
It is valid for the UK site only, and full terms and conditions are available here.
- Book by September 23
- Stay by April 30, 2022
- Get an extra reward stamp for any hotel booking
- Promo code RWD1921 is needed at check-out
Since you are awarded one extra stamp no matter how long your stay is, the best scenario is for an one-night stay where you earn two rewards stamps in total, equal to a 20% rebate roughly.
Free Deliveroo Plus for Amazon Prime customers
Interesting new development from Amazon Prime – you can now enjoy free Deliveroo Plus membership.
For details and activation please visit this page. To be clear, the complimentary subscription offered is Deliveroo Plus Silver (previously called Family), which means you have to spend £25 on an order for free delivery. It’s usually charged at £3.49 per month.
Moreover, the subscription is valid for up to 12 months, subject to you continuously being an Amazon Prime member. So if you are only an occasional Deliveroo user don’t rush to activate, do it right before you want to place an order instead.
If you are not yet an Amazon Prime member, you can start you 30-day free trial here which should give you the Deliveroo benefit too. Remember to cancel the renewal though if you don’t want to pay, however your Deliveroo benefit will terminate if you opt to do so. Meanwhile, new Deliveroo customers can enjoy four £2.5 off discounts if signing up using my referral link here (thanks!).
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.
Complimentary Avis President’s Club membership for Mastercard members
Hertz, Avis and Europcar all have different partnerships with hotel groups etc that offer elite status and rent discounts. If you are a customer of Avis, there is now a such chance for free status elevation.
The offer which is through an agreement with Mastercard can be accessed here.
- Mastercard Black and World Elite cardholders receive complimentary President’s Club membership
- Mastercard Platinum, Gold and World or Business cardholders receive complimentary Preferred membership
Use the link on the page and the respective passcode shown to sign up. There doesn’t appear to be any verification though, unless I have missed something.
(EDIT: you do need to link your account with a Mastercard although I don’t know if they verify the card type too. If you have an Amex card, try the passcode Centurion instead.)
I don’t drive myself so can’t really comment on how useful the status would be. But from what I understand Preferred is a free scheme which anyone can sign up to. President’s Club seems to be the sweet spot as you can expect a single or double upgrade at least.
My review of Tempelhof Lounge, Brandenburg Airport Berlin
After a nine-year delay, the Berlin Brandenburg Airport finally opened in October 2020, and this is where I fly from to get back to London after my one-week trip in Germany.
Most of the flights depart from Terminal 1, and there are two lounge options here: Lufthansa Business Lounge for Star Alliance customers, and Tempelhof Lounge for everyone else. If you are in economy class, have no status and rely on Priority Pass then you are out of luck, as the Tempelhof doesn’t accept Priority Pass or LoungeKey. If you have DragonPass though, you can get access to the Tempelhof AND the Lufthansa Business Lounge!
I’m flying British Airways so entitled to the Tempelhof Lounge. It is located near A20 which is quite a trek after security.
The Lounge is big and bright.
At 11am, there are potato soup, meatballs with rice and scrambled eggs served in sealed jars. I applaud their effort to make hot food available 🙂
One of the best features of this lounge is a dedicated passport control service. After exiting the lounge there are two border control desks which are reserved for lounge guests only, and you’ll be entering Zone B/C immediately for non-Schengen departures. This saves you around 20 minutes’ time!
In general I find it a very pleasant lounge and definitely much better than the previous options at Tegel. It’s worth spending some time here before your flight the next time you travel from Brandenburg.