Kyoto is our major cultural sight-seeing destination for first trip to Japan.....and I'm trying to do as many of our nights in Japan on Hyatt or Marriott points as possible..... but, of course, no availability for the nice Hyatt in Kyoto.

Hyatt has plenty of free nights at their Osaka hotel, but that's a dull location, as I've learned from FT (although it looks good for first and last night for our flights at KIX).

As an alternative, how about the Marriott-Associa Hotel at Nagoya station? Free nights available there, which would go a long way towards paying for a JR Rail pass....... if I'm reading schedule correctly, just a 35-40 minute train trip from Nagoya into Kyoto.

We're in the Kyoto area March 28-31 and April 7-11....maybe staying in Nagoya area would get us to a Dragons baseball game at the Nagoya dome!

Thanks for any advice.....(I hoped the complicated part of the trip planning was over when we finally scored flights for RTW on SkyMiles!)