Originally Posted by
Aventine
1. The only free upgrade would be a high floor (possibly). You should definitely book what you can live with on weekends. They're probably at 95% occupancy on those days.
2. Not free and not worth paying for. There's Poongwonjang ggomak (풍원장꼬막정찬) right around the corner and the same franchise with miyeokguk at the end of the boardwalk. There's also 이래옥 that serves beef ggomtang al fresco. Any truly authentic Busan food requires a bus or cab to Seomyeon.
3. It's a fair price compared to what Hyatt wants in KRW but using points on the weekend is always great value too. Up to you.
4. Happy Hour at Living Room bar is 20% off from 6-7pm. Awesome sunset views and discounted drinks (very few exemptions). If you can swing it, book the Executive Marina suite straight up. Not sure the price difference on AMEX from a base room but that is the suite you want to be in.
Hey Aventine: Thanks again for all this advice. We ended up booking for 3 nights total, all on points. The first two nights were in a King city-view. Upon check-in, we asked whether they had any Ocean view, and they said they could upgrade me due to Explorist to Ocean view with twin beds (we got #1204)... which was actually OK for me and the wife... But then, for the third night, we had booked the Executive Marina suite. Yeah, you were right, wow what a room. Like day and night compared to the standard room. We got #1905 and the wraparound floor-to-ceiling windows in the bedroom were great. The WC in this suite was also far more logically designed than the WC in the standard room.
We did go to 풍원장꼬막정찬 and that was a great deal at only 20k KRW per person. We chose to pay for breakfast buffet our 2nd morning. Not especially economical, but we were willing to give it a spin just once. :-)