One question regarding Andaz 5th Ave: is it possible to book a suite (or even just a larger room or view room) with points? I only see 22k options for either the King or 2 Twin categories. I chose the 5th Ave over the Wall Street purely because of the great location, but I'm a bit worried about getting stuck in a lower floor cramped room.
Just to throw my advice, I haven't been to either of the hotels but I've been doing research for an upcoming stay in NYC. I'm pretty indecisive but ultimately ended up choosing the Hyatt 48 Lex for a Thursday night and then switching to the Andaz 5th Ave for Friday/Saturday. I won't be in the city the full day on Thursday so at 15k points the Hyatt 48 Lex was a steal. Plus they have the Terrace Studio as one of there awards for 15k (among a few other suites) and I'm pretty sure having a nice terrace balcony will be a winner.
I'll echo the poster above and say that both View From the Wing and One Mile at a Time had very helpful posts on all of these hotels. Keep in mind though that they both did paid stays and they're travel bloggers so there was potential for special treatment for them:
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfr...=Google+Reader
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/milesf...-october-2011/
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfr...=Google+Reader
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfr...o-in-new-york/
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfr...k-wall-street/
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/onemil...enue-new-york/
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/onemil...enue-new-york/
http://boardingarea.com/blogs/viewfr...-with-balcony/
A good source of pictures is also the tripadvisor websites for each of the hotels. My stay is in two weeks so I'll report back with Andaz 5th Ave vs Hyatt 48 Lex, particularly how they treat Diamonds on an award stay.
Edit: Just called the Diamond line and confirmed that for min. 3 nights you can get the Andaz Suite at the Andaz 5th Ave for 33k points per night. Now trying to decide if the Andaz Suite is worth it (99k points) versus 1 night at Hyatt 48 Lex Terrace Suite (15kpts) and 2 nights in the Andaz King (44kpts)... leaning toward saving the 55k points.