PanGalactic

Hello,

Apologies for cross posting, the Other Hotels forum has so little traffic, I thought I would try here instead

I wondered if anyone could share some hints and tips on how to book Jumeirah Hotels.

I stayed at the Mina A'Salam in Dubai last year with my family and had the most amazing time. It was the best hotel we ever stayed in bar none and the service was unbelievable.

We have already booked to go back there again this year and I can see us making it a regular thing.

Anyway, when I got back from there the last time, I found a SIRIUS club leaflet in one of my pockets and decided to look into it.

The SIRIUS points actually seem quite valuable and upon reading the T&C's I noticed that you could send in your receipts and get retrospective points!!!

So, I sent in the receipts and they added some points to my account for what we spent on the resort, however they would not give any points for the room because we had booked through an agent.

I did look into booking directly with Jumeirah this year in order to get the full SIRIUS points including the rooms, however their direct prices were about 1/3 more than what regular UK travel agents were quoting me, which seemed a bit silly.

In the end, I went through Amex Corporate Platinum Travel Concierge who were, after some negotiations about £200 more than the cheapest travel agent quoted me, however they offer a free meal in a choice of 3 decent restaurants, plus a "guaranteed" upgrade subject to availability.
The upgrade tempted me towards them as the upgrade from the executive room (50m2) we are paying for to a suite (120m2) would be an amazing result.

(I will post the result back here)

I'd be interested to know how others have gone about booking Jumeirah Hotels and getting sirius points because I can't believe anyone would pay the rack rates unless you own a country. After all, if you could afford to pay those prices, why would you need points?

I'd also be interested to know if there is any status matching going on, ie: HHonors Gold and Starwood Gold

Thanks in advance!

PG

Raffles

If you book via Amex, you get full points. I did this last year at Dar al Masyaf. This is very attractive - it is the equivalent of getting about 7.5% of your stay back in freebies. We tend to use ours for free meals or spa treatments at the Jumeirah hotels in London. You can also top up your Sirius points by transferring Amex Membership Rewards points at a 15:1 ratio.

For all of 2011, Amex was also offering '2 nights for 3' or '3 for 4' at all Jumeirah properties. Not sure if this is running for 2012 as well. We had an 8 night stay at Madinat booked (which we ended up cancelling) with 2 lots of '3 for 4' deals back-to-back.

You are right about agents having aggressively lower prices, although there tend to be cancellation fees involved. We found an agent who would give us the agent rates on the hotels without having to book a flight with them, which was attractive as we use Avios or DC miles to get down there. However, we have not yet booked via this guy.

It is also worth noting that if you stay at Emirates Towers in Dubai or the new one on the creek, you get full free access to Madinat Jumeirah, including the beaches and pool. Obviously you are running around in a taxi every day to get over to Madinat, but Emirates Towers is very cheap, especially for a suite - Al Qasr is about £1,200 a night in a suite, Emirates Towers is £400. On a 10-day stay you're looking at £8,000 + taxes saving for the sake of a few taxi rides!!

We did, by the way, get a decent upgrade on our Amex stay - they gave us an Ocean View instead of Canal View at Dar Al Masyaf. However, the hotel did owe us a favour after a problem with our previous stay, which probably contributed as well.

Frankly, the current rates at Madinat are scary. £1,200 for a suite, per night, is not good. Worth noting that, whilst suites are usually excluded from the Amex '2 for 3' / '3 for 4' deals, all standard rooms at Madinat inter-connect via the hallway so you can take 2 of those on a '3 for 4' deal for the same price, but with the discount, as a suite.

Whilst I may be simply tight, I also find - depending on flight times - it is worth spending the first and/or last nights in a resort near the airport, eg the Park Hyatt, or the Crowne Plaza / Interconti complex. If I am flying at 8am or landing at 1am, I don't want to pay for a full night at Madinat when I could crash nearer the airport for literally 15% of the price and then transfer at leisure the next day.

PanGalactic

Thanks for your reply, it is much appreciated

I thought about starting this thread with "Dear Raffles", as I have seen you are pretty much the only other FT'er who talks about Jumeirah

I could have just PM'd you or posted it to the Tesco and BA thread, but hey ho

Wow - That is absolutely fantastic news, you don't know how happy that has made me The points gods are smiling on me this week as I just found out I am also going to benefit from triple points on a 8 night Starwood booking in March.

I'm on the "summer flavors" package. Not sure if I have been given a 3 for 4 or not, it wasn't mentioned.

I did find cheaper rates than Amex too, but I think the upgrade and extra free meal is more than worth the extra £200 they charged.

That does sound good value actually, although with little miss it's nice to have the kids club so close by.

I have paid for the Premium Ocean View Executive, so if we get the next room up from that which is the Ocean suite, it's worth over 1/3 more according to the Jumeirah direct prices.

Take a look at mid June, people say it's not the best time to go, but if you can take the heat, you will find cheap deals and the place generally pretty empty which is a bonus to us.

It's not being tight, you just dont like wasting it.

For me this was a newbie mistake, too late before I realised.

My inbound flight means we will arrive at the hotel around midnight and loose the first day, although we will get an extra pair of H/B vouchers which can be used for lunches since we paid of the night.

However at £320 per night, compared to £60 a night for the Hilton, I'll definately look into that next time, although the hotel transfers from DXB in the 7 series were a major highlight of our last trip so I wouldn't want to jeopardise that in anyway.

I wonder how Jumeirah would feel about us asking to use the free transfer to take us to the Hilton and then we would just pay then for another 7 series transfer from the Hilton->Jumeirah transfer the next day.

Raffles

In that case, I should clarify - I got full points on an Amex FHR stay last year, but it isn't actually written down anywhere that you get them! I assume they treat Amex bookings as bog-standard published-rate travel agent bookings (ie not a booking made on negotiated special rates).

Unlikely, although I'm sure they would pick you up at the Hilton for free. The airport / creek hotels are a max 10 minute drive anyway at that time of night so not really worth getting too bothered about. DXB is also not the sort of place where you will ever arrive to find them short of taxis!

PanGalactic

Interesting, the FHR program was never mentioned and I have had a look and our Hotel isn't listed, however on my confirmation letter from Amex it says:

You will receive all of the below:
· Complimentary room upgrade and early check in and late check out (subject to availability).
· A complimentary 2-course dinner for 2 at either "Pisces" or "Al Hambra" (excl. drinks).
<Snip> etc etc

It does look like and smell like FHR to me but I will call PTS tomorrow to check.
Thanks for the heads up.

Sure, I have heard DXB taxis are some of the best in the world, all owned by the king, spotlessly clean, wont rip you off otherwise they get their hands cut off etc etc.

But the Jumeirah hotel cars are on another level, proper VIP service. Cold towels, drinks, legroom etc.

I seriously don't mind paying for them

The first time I booked, I paid Emirates tours extra for airport transfers and when we landed we went to the Emirates tours desk airside.
They handed us a taxi voucher, once we got to arrivals a Jumeirah employee approached me and asked for me by name and led us to their LWB BMW 7 series limo which was waiting outside for us.
Needless to say I was much happier to be going off in the BMW rather than a Toyota Avensys or whatever it is they use as taxis out there

We used the hotel cars to visit a few places and remember thinking how cheap it was when we got the bill and that I would have used them more if I knew.

There are Rolls Royce cars available too, but I remember that they WERE expensive

I also managed to get the money we paid to Emirates tours refunded as they were an extra which it turned out we did not need to pay for.

Raffles

I doubt it matters whether its Amex FHR, Amex Travel Service or whoever. Should still all be treated the same way by Jumeirah.

spideysense

I stayed at al Qasr Madinat Jumeirah for a week and also signed up for Sirius when I was there. I paid around $750 a night through Expedia for a standard room, and I too did not receive any points. I had no idea that they only credit points if you book directly through them, which I find to be quite silly since their rates are higher. I doubt there are many people who would thus book through them, so I don't really see the point of the Sirius program.

I arrived at the hotel at 5 am, and ended up convincing them to give me the room for half the rate ($375) for the first night since I arrived so late.

I contacted several Virtuoso agents before booking, and none could match the Expedia rate. I am going there again in a few months, and I will probably stay there again, it was an excellent choice.

Raffles

The reason you didn't get points - as you highlighted - was the Expedia Special Rate. If you booked via Expedia at standard rate then you may have got points, since points do seem to be awarded for bookings via agents which book into published rates. Could be wrong, though, but I did get points for a booking via Amex as mentioned above.

intub8r

Hi all,
We are planning a trip to Dubai in November 2012 for a birthday for five nights. There are about 8 of us going, and we would need 4 rooms. I'd love to stay somewhere in the Madinat complex, but the prices seem breathtakingly high... Since it sounds like you have all been there before, can I ask for some advice on which hotel to stay in and what a "reasonable" price might be?

My thoughts so far:
Because we are in a group, it would be fantastic to stay in one of the villas at the Dar al Masyaf so we could all be together and have a common courtyard, sundowner drinks, etc. the standard Arabian king rooms there are 2500 AED++ per night for Novner, which is about 860 USD. Wow!

For a similar price, we can get executive floor rooms at either the Al Qasr or Mina A'Salam. Those include buffet breakfast and airport transfers and executive lounge access during the stay.

What are the pros and cons to executive rooms at the hotels vs the villas at the Dar?

Any advice or comments would be really appreciated. Thanks!

PanGalactic

November is definitely a "peak", or maybe even a "super peak" time for Dubai. I'd wait until the "Summer Flavours" offer is over and the "Winter Flavours" offer begins.

This includes 1/2 board, which gives you a choice of about 30 restaurants you gan go to. It's worth spending the extra for this as restaurants will be far from cheap otherwise.

Are you looking at the prices on their site, or going through an agent?

I wouldn't bother looking at the prices on their site as they are extreme!

The executive rooms give you access to the lounge (free non alcoholic beverages all day) and also free afternoon tea (which can be a very good lunch substitute, if you don't mind eating lunch a bit late).

In the lounge, they also serve free pre-dinner drinks (including champagne) and canapees which are again excellent.

You also get to check in/out in the comfort of the lounge which is much nicer than standing at the main reception.

The staff at the exec lounge are also excellent and will know you by name rom the moment you arrive.

Well worth it in my opinion!

If you are able to get 1/2 board or a "Flavours" deal for a decent price, go for it, you wont be disappointed, and you will hardly need to spend anything on extras (apart from your drinks in the restaurants) while you are there.

Can you tell I'm itching to get back there!!!

Raffles

The Al Qasr lounge, in my view, is poor. Was very unexcited by the food offerings, especially with kids, who I think are now banned after noon anyway. I also wouldn't put much value on airport transfer since DXB is cab central and you won't get ripped off. Franky, take a B&B deal instead since the restaurant breakfast is good.

DAM. The key here is to take a Gulf Summer House, because these are beachfront. It doesn't, to me, matter if your room is sea facing or not, but it IS key to be beach front because otherwise it can be quite a trek down to the beach. The evening drinks reception inthe courtyard of each summer house is 10 times more civilised than the exec lounge in the hotel and you take breakfast in the restaurant by the pool.

Pricing - as discussed above, try agents, try Amex, try online. Amex had 3 for 2 deals last year on most Jumeirah properties.

To really save money, remember that guests at all Jumeirah properties can use Madinat. You can stay in luxury at Emirates Towers for a fraction of the price and still use the beach and pool at Madinat - there is even a free shuttle bus to get you there. Obviously it is not quite the same, but the saving is drastic.

Costs can also be cut by booking the first and last night somewhere cheap near the airport if you arrive late and leave early, eg the Park Hyatt or Crowne Plaza Festival City.

For something else, Hilton has just opened a residence suites behind their Jumeirah hotel. Not sureof the quality but you may get a 4 bed apartment there which would be an aggressive saving on your current options.

PanGalactic

Raffles - We'll have to agree to disagree on the airport transfers, for me it was one of the highlights of our trip last year to be driven in a LWB luxury 7 Series BMW rather than those Toyotas they use for cabs out there

(OK, I admit I'm a bit of a car snob )

Children were most welcome in the exec club at Mina A'Salam last year, I hope this hasn't changed. Emailing them now to check..... Will post back here with the answer.

Kagehitokiri

dar al masyaf
"29 private or shared summer houses with exclusive pools"
11 - 11BR gulf
http://www.jumeirah.com/Global/Prope...0GF%20PLAN.pdf
http://www.jumeirah.com/Global/Prope...stF%20PLAN.pdf
18 - 9BR arabian
http://www.jumeirah.com/Global/Prope...0GF%20PLAN.pdf
http://www.jumeirah.com/Global/Prope...stF%20PLAN.pdf

http://www.jumeirah.com/Global/Docum...t_Map_2007.pdf
this shows 6 DAM pools, interesting only 10 gulf houses, but also that 3 of them are not beachfront, but around a pool

jumeirah beach hotel reservations dont seem to be working so cant check beit al bahar villas

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/luxur...lton-difc.html (use other RC's beach for 200x8=1,600 AED)
3BR = 4,030 AED
4BR = ?

new kempinski palm has 2BR-5BR suites, penthouses, villas, some with private pools

privacy - stay OO residence, visit OO palm

Raffles

Lounge - it is actually Emirates Towers that now bans kids from the lounge after 12.30. Madinat is not affected. Apologies for the inconvenience!

PanGalactic

No problem, phew!

I'd just like to reiterate that the exec lounge staff at the Mina A'Salam just can't do enough for you!

For example, small things, like the way I like my capuchino done, (4 shots and extra dry) explained this on the first day, and they made it exactly the same way every day at breakfast for the rest of the week, even by a different member of staff. They must have been briefed or something

(Oh yes, thats another thing, you can take breakfast in the exec lounge which is much quieter than the main restaurant)

Also big things like when we asked to visit Burj Al Arab, they said we could go on one of the chauffeured golf carts and I said I would prefer to go in the 7 series BMW and they arranged this for me there and back and didn't charge us for it, saying that this would be complimentary because we had a 1yo baby with us at the time.

They also handled our restaurant reservations, made recommendations of things we could do, etc etc the list goes on.