Originally Posted by
SanDiego1K
As someone who was top tier in Hyatt for many years during which time I was top tier in Marriott/Starwood, I am going to take a contrary view. Park Hyatts are definitely my husband's happy place. We've had amazing stays all over the world and consider it a more reliable brand than others. Further, confirmable suite upgrades meant that we were able to ensure that we had a suite for stays important to us. It's nice to know six months in advance that we will have a suite and not rely on the upgrade gods. I don't chase status now and am fortunate to have lifetime platinum premier elite with Marriott. But if I were chasing status (will all the caveats that the lesser footprint of Hyatt has to work for you), I'd go with Hyatt.
I have to agree with almost everything you say here and respectfully disagree with BHR (whom I know generally shares my hotel preferences)
When Hyatt comped me Diamond status and gifted me 8 DSUs we judiciously applied them and were very pleasantly surprised. Like SD1K it was extremely nice to be certain in advance that we had secured a Suite, without having to chance it. The Hyatt service really impressed us and 3 things especially made us happy: 1) Even though I was a newly minted Diamond, each hotel treated me like a long-standing loyal guest 2) At every check in a 4 pm check out was proactively offered to me without having to request it (something that only occasionally happens at SPG 3) Each of our hotels allowed us to have our comped breakfast as room service (something we love when we are traveling. Several hotels- Berlin comes to mind— delivered a lavish buffet-like spread.
A few hotels (Berlin & Papagayo) even upgraded us above the DSU Suite. All of the hotels gave us huge, beautiful Suites.
As loyal SPG fans we had never really tried out Hyatt before and were surprised at how favorably it compared with our beloved Starwood. In fact the few things we didn’t like about Hyatt- the fact that one couldn’t use DSUs on award stays, and the fact that award stays didn’t count toward status have been changed now. One other thing we liked (although we haven’t tried yet) is the easy way to use points for Suite upgrades. One of the worst changes from SPG to Marriott IMHO is the inability to use moderate points for guaranteed upgraded rooms.
We ended up using 7 of our 8 DSUs and 6 were outstanding experiences (Hyatt Indian Wells was a waste of DSU IMO )
Park Hyatt Tokyo
Andaz Papagayo
Andaz 5th
Andaz Amsterdam
Andaz Scottsdale
Grand Hyatt Berlin
Hyatt Indian Wells
With 18 years of amazing stays already and with Marriott’s huge footprint I have no regrets that I focused on SPG and attained LT PPE. But Hyatt is the only large chain we’ve tried that was comparable to the best of SPG.