777 global mile hound

Greetings
Thanks for the interesting question IMO if were in your shoes I would contact one of the following:
• The In House/on property Sales Department
or
• The Revenue Manager

Hope it goes well!
I for one would be interested to hearing how recpeptive fairly the property in question treats you/your business
Best Wishes for a New Year

Cheers

100% Green

Thanks. Do you think there is anyone in the US that I might be able to contact to negotiate? This is not in an English speaking country and I am attempting to avoid a significant amount of frustration.

uppereastff

I've read thru hundreds of posts here and come away with the impression that most of the seasoned veterans are members of several hotel programs. I used to travel intensely and was quiet for a while and am now resuming foreign travel. I'm a member of Hyatt, Marriott and SPG. My question is: in your experience, is it better to stick with one chain wherever you are, achieve diamond or plutonium status and get better treatment and upgrades, or do you tend to go by the individual property. i.e. in Paris stay at the Park Hyatt but in Venice at the SPG hotel and in Frankfurt the Marriott. I stick with one airline group because it seems to produce better service as you get elite, so I wonder why so many FTers choose multiple hotel chains. I have to go to Jakarta soon, and I love the Grand Hyatt there, but I then go to London and Madrid, and the Hyatts in london can't compare with the Marriotts there (as I recall) or the Palace in Madrid which is SPG. Whats been your experience?

Mary2e

For some people here, they travel quite a bit, so it's not that difficult to get status is multiple chains. In some cases, they have inexpensive properties where they can do mattress runs to top off a program for status.

Some chains have stay or point promotions that make it worthwhile to attain status for very little net cost.

I generally stick with Hyatt, as they are where we often go, and being diamond is a pretty big benefit for us.

It just depends upon your travel patterns.

777 global mile hound

A warm welcome to Flyertalk and the Gold Passport forum with 3 posts ^
I’m not so sure this is a Hyatt specific question however I am happy to help offer some general advice none the less.
It is always best to stick with one program if it makes financial and practical sense where locations and qualities of properties will overall suit/satisfy your needs. Having top tier status in a variety of programs isn’t for everyone. It requires a lot of work and financial investment.Its something that in the end only each individual customer can decide if its the right thing to do.
I myself have eliminated Hilton HHonors after 14 years for example based on negative program changes and a dilution of Diamond top tier value. Instead where they have a great property of choice I am happy to pay a premium and avoid the undesirable properties year round to retain status.I am then property loyal not program or brand loyal in the sense of being a frequent engaged member.

When you are in a program like Hyatt Gold Passport as a Diamond or Royal Ambassador for InterContinental at the top tier it can bring exceptional value when staying in the full service properties.
Certainly there are other good choices but much is subjective.
I consider Priority Club to have the weakest Platinum top tier benefits of any program. Having said that many Holiday Inn customers are perfectly happy.

I personally am not a fan of Marriott Rewards as the night requirements are too steep for the hard benefits offered in return for ones loyalty. I’m sure I could be beaten by some Marriott evangelists for saying that.However I am a big proponent of picking one program that works best for each individual. There are some that will choose a chain based on the amount of properties to choose from perhaps out of necessity. Others based on quality and value. Some all of the above.
It has taken me many years with a predictable travel pattern to maximize my benefit and return.
Some of the world’s biggest corporations have sought my advice on programs. As much as I have my personal recommendations sometimes a geographic region where these business travelers are traveling too has a poor presence forcing a customer to choose a weaker program.

My personal question for you is what do you personally find that Marriott can provide in London that the Hyatt Churchill or Andaz cannot?

sophiegirl

Mary2e and 777global mile hound have given you some excellent advice. My perspective is that anyone (traveling a lot for business) should really LIKE the hotel properties at which they stay. If you are going to spend 100+ nights in a year in a hotel, it is going to be a pretty miserable experience if you don't!

So although I agree that the night bar is pretty high for Marriott, it always worked well for me - there were so many of them that I liked, I could make the nights easily. Doing so also insured that I have achieved Lifetime Status with them....which will be quite useful when I retire!

I am fairly new to Hyatt (4+ years) but really like their full service properties and SS, as well as the Diamond benefits Hyatt offers. If I have to hotel hop or mattress run to keep Diamond I will do so - it is worth it to me for the resort and weekend benefits alone.

On the flip side...I took the advice of many FT'ers who love the SPG program, asked for a status match, got the credit card, etc etc - and hated it. The program was great...but the properties in the areas I travel were far below my expectations. And I found I didn't care about upgrades to suites if the furnishings etc were beat up and the service was horrible. Is that true everywhere? No - but the hotels were not a good fit for me so I stopped staying there.

You need to look at your travel patterns now, and future. You need to decide what benefits are important to you, and in what hotel(s) you feel the most comfortable. Once you do so, you will find the chain that fits you best. You don't need top tier everywhere - except for those true road warriors that are doing hundreds of nights in hotels, it isn't feasible. Find a #1 and #2 chain and go for those.

Cheetah_SA

I have just completed my first stay - at PH Maldives - after signing up for Gold Passport. My bill was almost $4000 and I see my account has been credited with a princely 851 points.

I realise that some items (like the air transfer) may not qualify but there was a fair chunk of f&b on the bill that I thought would attract points. Am I deluded or has something gone wrong that I should follow up on?

Stewie Mac

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-gb) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Something has gone wrong (see various threads about points calculated incorrectly)

Quickest way (ime) to resolve is to PM 'Gold Passport Concierge' here on FT with details of the stay and they will sort it out for you

Hyatt - IT flaky, CS excellent!

Cheetah_SA

Thanks Stewie Mac! ^

davef139

Im looking at booking a room at andaz 5th for a night maybe 2, and using points for the last night, I have a bunch of suite upgrades. What are the odds I would get moved to a new room at end of paid stay do you think?

todorovic

It all depends on the occupancy and number of people actually paying for the suites. Almost all of the Hyatts will try to work with you and not move you for the last night, especially if you had several paid nights and you are adding only one or two award nights. My experience with these kinds of requests is very positive - only once was I not able to stay in the suite for an extra night and as a result I opted to forgo the suite altogether (having to move with the family for the last night wasn't worth it).

You should check the review thread for this hotel to possibly gain more insight into the odds of this working for you.

onefatsurfer

I guess this should go in here.. My fiancee is a platinum GP member. We just attempted booking the hotels for our honeymoon. We're staying 5 nights in Hyatt Regency Waikiki, 5 nights in Grand Hyatt Kauai, and 5 nights in Hyatt Regency Maui.

We used points to book a suite at Grand Hyatt Kauai, they gave us the Garden Suite. I have a few questions regarding that booking and the other hotels.

On the gold passport website, it says:
We booked an Ocean View room, and the CS rep is saying we have to pay an extra $70/night for the "Deluxe Ocean King" in order to upgrade to the Regency Club room. The wording seems confusing to me, in that we booked an "ocean view" room, and the site says we must pay for the prevailing deluxe rack rate (such as partial ocean view, ocean view.....) Is this right, or is it a matter of calling a few different CS reps until they process the upgrade?


We're having a similar situation with our booking on Maui. We want to use points to upgrade to one of the suites, and they won't let us. There, we booked a "Partial Ocean King". They don't have any rates that are called "Deluxe" so the wording "Partial Ocean" matches the requirement listed on Hyatt's website. Yet, they won't let us upgrade. We have to pay for the full reservation in either cash or points.


Finally, is there any way of getting our reservation changed to one of the oceanfront suites on Kauai, or are points reservations given the lowest room available in that point range and that's that? We'd really like to have something oceanfront.

I searched for awhile, but didn't find anything, so I'm asking here. Thanks for all your help, ladies and gents.

-OFS

peteropny

1. I believe that what you have been told about the upgrade at the GH Kauai is correct - upgrades using points are restricted to upgrade with you paying the underlying rate for a high category room (I believe that the property has discretion over what category that is).

2. For the HR Maui, I don't think what you were told is correct - I don't believe that they are exempt from suite upgrades. Either call back or Private Message our Gold Passport Concierge here on Flyertalk for assistance with this one.

3. Garden Suite at the GH Kauai, I believe simply means that its located on a lower level (the whole property is only about 5 stories anyways) with access to the grass right from the patio. If you want a higher level suite, you can always ask for it. Hopefully someone with more experience with this property will be along to help you answer more thoroughly. Also, there is a lengthy REVIEW thread on this property that is linked to in the "Property Index & Reviews" sticky within this forum.

onefatsurfer

Thanks for your reply. After about an hour on the phone with Hyatt, we got upgraded to the ocean suite in Maui, and decided to just keep our ocean view room in waikiki for now. Depending on the budget, maybe we'll upgrade, but I can't imagine it will really matter to us.. We were pretty much upgrading to splurge for our honeymoon; we definitely don't need a better room than a standard one..

I'll check out the Kauai thread and see the reviews on the various suites and ask for them to swap us if we want something better.. Hopefully, they will. The fiancee and I are so pumped for this trip now

FriendlySkies

+1

Used a suite upgrade in October at the HR Maui.