I'm almost afraid to ask - was it actually shopping or the short-term rental market?

it's all good!

While you were in Blok M, did you partake in lesehan?

(for those unfamiliar with the term, lesehan has come to refer to a buffer of various Javanese dishes. Originally, it was about sitting on a mat to eat at a low table.
IIRC, the lesehan spread is near Blok M Square in the evening; it's a neat way to mingle with locals.)

I've been following the posts about hotels with great interest because we've decided to be conservative and stay the night in Jakarta. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. They're really helpful.

What are the reputable taxi companies from the airport to the hotel? How do you pay them? Can we use a credit card? Or will we need to pay cash?

Everyone has had such excellent suggestions and we are very grateful. After a few days of consideration we are choosing between Four Seasons, Raffles, and the Intercontinental. It's only one night, and all things being relative, $350 for one night is fine. If it's a bit more, that's fine too. Where we live $200 gets you a decent hotel (ish) but nothing to write home about! This will be our last night after a lot of traveling, right before we do 18 hours or so of flying.

So which would people choose?

Swissotel is on our radar for sure. The proximity to the airport is a big deal for my SO. It's a soft point of contention between us over arriving anywhere - esp airports- too early vs too late. I always fold, but for real we have spent a lot of time waiting when we could have been doing something else! I am always wanting to do the :"something else," but OTOH we've never missed a plane, bus, train, or anything else!

So, how much closer, time-wise, is Swissotel to the airport, vs 4 Seasons or Raffles? Just generally, not asking for any kind of "for sure" advice.

Our flight out of CGK is late morning, so I am telling her that PIK hotels are close enough to get there by 8 AM, EASILY, if that's what she wants, but as I say, she really worries about it!

Thanks again for the considered opinions here. Very valuable indeed.

Blue Bird group ( includes Silver Bird - premium rate) is always considered the most reliable.
I always pay cash, so no knowledge as to whether cards are accepted.

Swisshotel is about 30-45 minutes closer to CGK.

Just curious, is the new Fairfield not closer to the airport than the Swissotel?

Using what form of transport? The others say they are like 25 minutes, which I don't necessarily believe, but assuming we take a taxi, we are thinking 40 minutes. Are those PIK hotels really an hour or more farther away?

It looks like it is at the airport. It's not out of the question, but hopefully there's some kind of balance between staying right at the airport vs seeing some part of Jakarta, however limited that may be.

Four Seasons and Raffles are in the city center, not PIK - hence the hour or more away than say the Swissotel or new Fairfield.

I think the setting sun brings out the enhancements to the market's daytime range. I was there mid-afternoon, and no attempts were made on my virtue :)

The unpredictability of Jakarta's traffic is the killer. Last week my Grab trip from North Jakarta to Cengkareng (the district hosting the airport, and which gave the airport its CGK code) took 1hour 40minutes to cover 17km. Normally I'd expect it to be 45 minutes or less.

The point is the Swissôtel PIK is in an enviable position regarding the airport. Not only is it a lot closer in terms of distance (around 10km vs 30km), the journey is less likely to be be seriously impacted by delays. From PIK it will be 15 minutes or so to the airport most of the day: it's why airlines use its hotels for crew stops. Raffles to the airport probably runs between something less than an hour to up to 90 minutes (or longer) at bad times.

Your good fortune is that leaving South Jakarta at 08:00-ish the bad traffic is inwards. It should take an hour, maybe even less. But if it rains .......

I stayed at the Raffles in mid-2019. Talk about a bunch of snobs (although at that time, I liked the women who were working at "The Writers Bar."
The room was dull, the food uninspired, and the art awful.
Nor is it a walkable area, not to mention it's that much further from CGK.

So what' would you recommend instead? Four Seasons? Intercontinental? Something else?

Whilst still on this topic, we have also been looking at an SQ flight that leaves CGK at 14:10 and arrive SIN at 17:05. We have a flight out of SIN at 19:50. SQ says they can check the bags all the way through.

The CGK-SIN flight is often delayed by 30 minutes but appears to arrive more-or-less on time most days.

Would it be safe to take this flight to connect with our 19:50 SQ flight out of SIN?

If we did this we could keep to our original plan of flying out of Sorong on to CGK and then to Singapore and beyond all on the same day. Originally we had a Garuda flight that allowed us to do that but they changed the CGK-SIN flight to too early to make it.