After a couple of nights at Hilton Belgrade I stayed at Hyatt Regency Belgrade so I can easily compare the two properties.  The quick takeaway is that HR is an aging property while Hilton is new and shiny so the contrast in hardware is very significant, however as Globalist I received an upgrade to a suite whereas Hilton did not upgrade me to a suite as Diamond despite suites being available so for guests who care most about having extra space, HR is a good choice.  

Location

The location of HR is not as good as Hilton because you are on the other side of the river relative to the old town, but distance-wise the difference is not very significant.

Room

I booked the entry level room with 5k points at the last minute as soon as I arrived in the hotel lobby, and front desk could immediately see my reservation and told me that as Globalist I was upgraded to a suite.  It was a lightning-quick upgrade to say the least, which makes Hilton look stingy in comparison, in low season to boot.  

The suite at HR is clearly a generation older than the new and crisp room design at Hilton.  On the plus side the furniture at HR was in good condition so I suspect it was updated not so long ago, and the bathroom was probably renovated at some point in the last few years and they used quality materials that can withstand the test of time.  I liked having a stand-alone shower with decent water pressure although the shower was not as large as at Hilton.  The carpet was also quite clean and did not feel overly old.  The suite had excellent window frontage and was very bright during the day, better than our room at Hilton.  However during the evening it was the exact opposite: HR does not have very good lighting so the room was a bit gloomy, part of it is due to the room only having lights on each side of the bed and no ceiling lighting.  There were many other signs to indicate this is not a modern hotel such as the light switches, temperature controls, and the TVs which were oddly in front of a large stand taking up big chunks of the living room and bedroom which was somewhat of a waste.  The suite was in the corner of the building so very quiet and no traffic outside our room, however because of the shape of the building the corner of the bedroom had a sharp angle which makes that space difficult to use so all in all good square footage of the room but not very functional and not ideal design.  Finally, despite being labeled a standard suite, the living room was not completely separated from the bedroom because there were no doors between them, and the suite did not have the convenient half bathroom.  

Dining

Because it’s low season, breakfast was offered in the restaurant only (not in the lounge) whereas in the busier months Globalists can choose between the lounge or the restaurant.  The positive is that they had a nice a la carte menu and I liked the smoked salmon wrap.  However the buffet is inferior by several notches relative to Hilton, for example there was not even a single hot food dish at HR compared to perhaps 8-10 at Hilton.  HR had some veggies and smoked salmon but overall the buffet was entirely forgettable.  

The Regency Club Lounge offers happy hour 6-8pm and the area looked good particularly the open air reception area which is on both the 7th and 8th floors.  The lounge is very expansive compared to the beautiful but small lounge at Hilton which I suspect will get full too quickly in the summer, unlike HR which has plenty of seating space.  Similar to breakfast, the food choices at HR were inferior to Hilton but by a lesser margin, only 2 choices of hot dishes compared to 4 at Hilton.  HR also had wraps and special salads which were nice for example the Asian pomelo salad was particularly delicious.  There is no alcohol on display at HR therefore it’s not self-serve.  However service in the lounge was excellent and they proactively offered refills and we never ran out of their local red wine.  At Hilton there is essentially no service in the lounge and you have to do everything yourself so some guests will probably prefer the personal touch at HR.

We ordered room service on the first night; prices were high but not overly so, in fact better than Hilton.  The price premium of room service over local restaurants seemed standard relative to other parts of the world.  Our orders were both very good but portion sizes were quite small so we were disappointed and did not want to order again the next day.

Service

Besides service in the lounge being more polished at HR than at Hilton, for the rest I would comment that housekeeping is not a strength at HR.  They did not bother cleaning the bathroom counter as we could see hair and water spots which was us using the bathroom before going to breakfast.  

Wifi

Wifi worked ok with speeds of 5-6 Mbps but they need to do better to be on par with Hilton where I measured 25 Mbps.  

Overall

Overall HR was not the most impressive Hyatt hotel I have been and people with no status at either Hyatt and Hilton should probably pick Hilton for the newer hardware and better breakfast particularly given that both hotels are in a similar price range during week days (HR seems cheaper on weekends).  However if comparing the value of having Globalist status at Hyatt and Diamond status at Hilton, the gap was reduced considerably because you can get a suite at HR upon availability and you possibly won’t at Hilton.  Also if you book with points, based an approximate valuation of Hyatt points being worth 3-4 times more than Hilton, it’s clear that booking at Hyatt will be materially cheaper than at Hilton, and even more so if you need parking because it will be free at Hyatt but not at Hilton.  So in many ways I found Hilton to be a better property, but if booking with points HR came out much cheaper and with the suite upgrade, HR was arguably the better value of the two properties.