Sarfa33

I'm not familiar with that property specifically, but usually Hyatt does not automatically give Club access just for being in a suite -- it is a separate thing that must either be earned (through status) or purchased (separately or as part of your Club room rate). Unfortunately...

This recent review on TripAdvisor mentions that the cost for club access is $50/day.

-S

Tim McCain

I was looking into this for a trip to Kauai and I was wondering if the 2 free nights work at the Grand Hyatt there. My wife and I will be staying 5 nights so I'm thinking we'll each get a card and either rack up enough points to make it the 5th night or just buy that last night straight up. (yeah, I know, they could have us moving rooms quite often with that but hopefully they'd work with us on that).

777 global mile hound

A warm welcome to Flyertalk!^
Can't see why not.
Participating property to my understanding.
Of course with any redemption subject to availability so to be sure to check your dates before booking non refundable tickets of any kind
I've heard wonderful feedback about this property and considering it myself for an upcoming stay

Tim McCain

Thanks!

We're currently debating between using our Starwood points for either the St Regis, the Westin or going this route and trying the Hyatt. I was really leaning towards the Westin but the wife thought the St Regis and then I read some reviews on TA and it looks like the Hyatt is really highly rated and it's on the drier side of the island. Any thoughts on those options? We just hit up the 50k AA rewards so we'll be going FC direct from DFW to HNL and then a puddle jumper to LIH.

777 global mile hound

Sounds like a great trip congrats~!
Those preferences are very subjective based on ones individual preference
Trip Advisor can be unreliable or reliable. One must read between the lines and be able to access the reviewers credibility based on experience,
where the guest resides lives more typically country/city or if a hotel employee fake positive posts and other possible unreliable content.
This much I can share Hyatt has an excellent business culture in Hawaii overall in my many years experience^
Starwood's Hawaii properties as nice as cane be can depending on the property have had for years a very hard overly aggressive upsell nickel and dime culture more so than other brands.Certainly all do to some degree to be fair.
I also find SPG can focus on grand public areas and provide surprisingly bland rooms. You can be wowed in the lobby but not always in the accommodation as much

I have also found historically that in Honolulu both Hilton and Hyatt have gone out of there way to make me a happy guest at least in the Honolulu area. I had the worst experience in 20 years at the Westin in Honolulu who treated me very poorly as a top tier member and my guests. While it may or may not be isolated I will never return to a Westin property within Hawaii ever again based on their business culture.
I'll simply say most issues are easily recoverable others not!
The other real silver lining with Hyatt something I so admire about their program and once again fair business culture is there are no resort fees
in Hawaii if using a free night award ^@:-):-:
When I stayed with the Sheraton on SPG Points I was billed an outrageous collection of resort fees nuisance charges using my points and the property was nothing to write home about!

As you point out this appears to be a very special Hyatt well above even the normal Hyatt standards so I think you will be in reasonably good hands should you choose this property. If the lack of resort fees don't win you over my guess the experience most likely will!
If you do go we will absolutely welcome a trip report!
Cheers

Tim McCain

Actually this will be the 2nd time we went to Hawaii. Last time AA was running their 100k mile specials so my wife got 2 of those and I got a 75k one so we went to Hawaii first class for that one as well. We did a 3 island, 10 day trip staying at the Hilton in Honolulu (not too bad, nice location but a bit busy, I'm Hilton Gold and I did get an upgrade for the first leg but not the second). We then went to the Big Island and stayed at the Wiakoloa Village. That place is insane - it's like Disney World with it's own tram. Part of the hotel was closed for renovation so we didn't end up staying in that part. The walls were a bit thin in the hotel but the views were nice and they had a lot of nice seating options. We paid for a fancy cabana one day which was a mistake - everyone just goes out there and sits wherever they want anyway so we just paid a bunch of money to have someone put some towels up for us. Our last leg was the Westin Kaanapalli Villas in Maui - that resort was excellent. The rooms were new, the pool was gorgeous, and everyone was very nice.

We'd been debating between somewhere in the Caribbean and going to Kauai but AA is really limiting in their award flights to the Caribbean with virtually all of them requiring 2 layovers and the crappy times so it didn't make a lot of sense to us to do that.

Hopefully Citi doesn't crack down on my churn too much since I just closed like 3 cards with them (I've got like 5) - it is nice to be able to go just about anywhere first class every other year or so!

I just got the Hyatt card and my wife is doing to same so I think we're going to go that route and save our 120k+ starwood points for something else down the line (maybe turn them into AA miles if need be).

Thanks for the thoughts and suggestions!

TGGDEL

I have a quick question about award nights being released. I'm looking at the PH Siem Reap. I've seen award space open up and disappear again. Now I'm ready to book and it's gone. Though many rooms are still bookable for cash. I thought that meant the rooms should be bookable with points?
Any experience of the cycle of award rooms opening up again?

gv111

I am looking to book a stay in Hyatt Regency at Newport (RI) in following preference -

1. Nights of Aug 28, 29, 30, 31
2. Nights of Aug 28, 29, 30, 31 and Sept 1

I was able to get the nights of Aug 28, 29 through priceline and Aug 31 and Sept 1 through GP points (they were not allowing me to book Aug 31 only). Now I am struggling to get the night of Aug 30. It is not available using points and the best cash rate at Hyatt website is ~$500. I tried many corporate codes, but the best rate is close to $500. GP stay is not available and Hyatt Stay certificate also don't seem to work. I really don't want to pay $500+ for one night but I need the night of 30th Aug. So here are the options I can think of -

1. Call and beg hotel to switch the GP reservation of Aug 31 and Sept 1 to Aug 30 and 31. I have been told that the hotel can override even if there is no GP availability. Alternatively I can ask the hotel for some special rate for Aug 30.
2. Go to priceline and try to get Aug 30 (risky)
3. keep checking GP availability and hope it opens up
4. just pay the best rate

I am hoping u guys can suggest a way out. Perhaps u know a special rate code for this hotel. Any thoughts, suggestions are appreciated. Thanks.

todorovic

Wirelessly posted (iPhone 5: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 6_1_4 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/536.26 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/6.0 Mobile/10B350 Safari/8536.25)

If there is a base (lowest category) room available for cash then you should be able to book it for points too. Try booking one night at a time. This way you can figure if there is a specific night that is an issue. if there is then you can at least book all the other nights you need and either pay for the one you can't get or just wait to see if they open up the availability.

TGGDEL

Awesome! Thanks - looks like the points nights are back - now only 2 of the 3 nights I need are available for the suite. The agent said she can't book it for 3 nights, even though I said I was fine with staying in a lower class room on the last night, with hopes something would open up or at the hotel, they'd simply let us stay in the suite.
Would I be better off contacting the hotel directly?

gv111

Any thoughts and insights will be appreciated.

Also does anybody have an experience on using Hyatt GC - does GC redemption qualify for GP points? Thanks so much.

hailstorm

It seems the Diamond Trial is no longer once in a lifetime? Is there any link to something official explaining this change?

Mary2e

I don't believe the diamond TRIAL was ever once in a lifetime Diamond MATCH was.

peteropny

Stay Certs do not earn GP points or stay credit.

I think 4 is the only realistic option or check out and stay elsewhere for that night before checking back in.

whistler814

Apologies if this has been asked and answered before. I searched but couldn't find anything.

Are bookings via third party websites eligible for upgrade using points, provided that the rate is the same as the Hyatt Daily Rate?

I'm thinking of using UR points to book via the UR travel portal (3 nights ~60k points, + 6k points for upgrade = 66k points). This would save about 3k points off of booking the suite directly using points.

Thank you.