pinniped

We just moved a planned Feb stay back to end of April. There are a few restaurants we really enjoy in SB and it wouldn't be the same to just do takeout and eat at the hotel for every meal.

Even if April is outdoor dining only, figure we should have decent enough weather. Everything else we like to do out there is outdoors anyway...

Still a good hotel to use the credit card free night cert. Using our Marriott credit card free night at the nearby Ritz thanks to the hotel having an unusually cheap award level on Sunday nights.

kpott

Stayed here this weekend as globalist. Got upgraded to a 2 queen with ocean view patio from King ADA. Globalist breakfast was a little confusing. One person said 24 per person for 2 adults and 2 children. and another said only 12 per child. We had 2 adults 2 children. In the end they covered 24 per person. Breakfast was slammed each morning with long line waiting to order at new coffeeshop style take out Cafe Lido. For some reason breakfast didn’t open til 8 which is late for families with kids. Great location and would come back again.

Matt4200

So I’m a bit confused hoping for some help.

I’ve always been able to book “Two Queen Beds” as an Award Stay whether on Points or using a Certificate. I have several stays booked throughout the rest of the year and in to 2022 in this room type.

But now when I search 2 Adults, 1 Child it’s saying this room type is not bookable as an Award Stay, even though it’s obviously a standard room.







The bottom screenshot is of a reservation booked at Mar Monte for June as an Award stay. The top one is showing the room type is available under the Member Rate, but no Award Availability.

Thoughts?

AllThePants

Yeah - I think the hotel is playing some games with award availability of that particular room type. I happened to be lucky enough to snag the 2QQ award room for a weekend in July -- but that was just dumb luck that I happened to be online when they made that room available.

Prior to that I had booked the 1 king room for "2 adults" with the intention of just showing up with a child in tow -- since she just crawls into bed with us anyway, and all those rooms (the 1Q, 1K, and 2QQ award rooms) are the same size square footage-wise. So it has less to do with fire code and more to do with the hotel trying to discourage that many people in a room, or award bookings in general. But lucked upon the 2QQ so now can do this trip on the up and up.

Given they're trying to charge a rack rate of $599 a night (really?!) -- and that they're a hotel slated to move up from Cat 4 to Cat 5 soon -- I can see the hotel management trying to do things to discourage low-value (for them) award or Cat4 certificate bookings until after the switchover later this month.

Matt4200

I can see that, but if they’re going to play games why not just make the “speciality” (King with View etc.) rooms available, not standard rooms like 1 King, 2 Queens. My guess is Hyatt requires a certain amount of Award Availability per hotel.

Yeah, I completely feel you on that. Our little one usually sleeps with us too so a King Bed fits us fine, but 2 Queens is preferred.

The one thing I find really laughable though is the one I booked at Mar Monte just today. How this is allowed makes no sense at all.

coleslaw

I've noticed some properties set the ADA version of a "non standard" room type as being available for standard awards while the non-ADA version of the room is not available as a standard award (since the room type isn't a "standard" one). I was thinking it's something to do with having a minimum number of accessible/ADA rooms available for award reservations, or something along those lines?

Matt4200

But what I was laughing about in this screenshot is that it’s 1 Queen bed for 4 people rather than it being an ADA room.

As far as standard room award availability my understanding of Hyatt’s policies is that if a Standard Room is available to be booked under a cash rate (Excluding Globalist Guaranteed Availability) then it also has to be available as an Award Booking as well.

coleslaw

Edited my post to clarify - I was referring to situations where the room type isn't a standard room, but the ADA version of the non-standard room type is sometimes made available for standard awards. Most recently noticed this at the Alila in Encinitas.

Matt4200

Yeah, that situation is likely due to needing X number of ADA rooms available.

Matt4200

I tried just searching with 1 Guest and still no Award Availability on the date searched even though it shows 2 Standard Rooms bookable.





Based on searching around their dates and everything it feels like they have it set up that if the cash rate is over $300-$400 even if Standard Rooms are available they mark them as unavailable. This was only done in the last few days because I know I’ve booked a few stays for later this year where the cash rate was over $400 a night.

I have a feeling after they are switched to a Category 5 later this month there won’t be any more issues with Award Availability.

stvr

Love that optimism.

Matt4200

Well they obviously made a big enough deal about it with Hyatt to be one of the 4 properties worldwide moving up this year. I’d hope that’s the case.

pinniped

I like this hotel and already have a booking for it in April, but it does *not* feel like either a Cat 5 or $400 property to me.

Unless they've done a mind-blowing amount of renovation since I was there a couple years back...

AllThePants

For my July weekend searches I noticed it didn't show award nights unless you booked a 3-day minimum. I think the property is technically allowed to game that within the Hyatt system -- Andaz Maui pulls this crap all the time. I have a ton of piled up Cat4 certificates. Driving distance from SoCal, it's really only this or the properties in San Diego as useful options for the Cat4 redemption right now, so I'm burning these certs on a 3-day weekend there. I figure I might as well try it before they hike the category and take this hotel out of certificate eligibility -- in which case I don't foresee myself willing to burn 20K points a night at the place.

I have a hard time believing that this property is worth $599 a night (the rack rate for July 4th weekend). The rooms seem tiny -- and I'm guessing a lot of July 4th fireworks / festivals will be cancelled by Covid this year again. But it seems the property is playing a game of chicken with potential guests.

It does seem like they've done a lot of renovation recently -- though "mind-blowing" is doubtful. I do think the property probably gets reimbursed at some nominal rate for the certificate/points redemptions and see them trying to deter Cat4 redemptions to hold out for whatever reimbursement rate they get for a Cat5.

Matt4200

I was able to book a 2 day stay in July on points.

I think the key issue is a Standard Room being available. So properties with Minimum Stay requirements like Andaz Maui will not show a Standard Room as bookable even with Cash, whereas Mar Monte does show them bookable with Cash just not points.

I messaged Hyatt’s Twitter Concierge and they had no issue booking us into the Two Queens on points even though it only showed available on paid stays. So I’m not sure if it’s a system issue because they did it fairly easily, but didn’t mention why they could but I couldn’t.