joe_miami

You think many of the other Globalists in this thread are lying?

m0hamed

Aventine

If it's that studio suite then I'll just take a high floor normal room because there's no way $50/night is getting any of their better ones.

Pickles

Well, another go-round at this property. This time got upgraded to a very nice 1-bedroom suite on a high floor, the one with the Central Park "view." I put it in quotes because it's basically a sliver of view in an opening between the Essex House (once upon a time the PHNY) and the tall building one building over. The breakfast mode has changed for the better. I was offered a $100 credit for anything on the menu, including 18% gratuity. I was alone, but I assume that $100 would be for two guests. $100 for one makes for a plenty fancy breakfast.

txhyattlvr

Sounds like the same sort of treatment we've gotten there this year. We've gotten great rooms (including a fabulous 1 bedroom suite), and we charged more than $100/day to the room for breakfast and it was written off no questions asked. As for views, there aren't very many great ones to be had. Even the "top floor" gym has an obstructed view of the park... Love this property.

Kacee

Nonsense. The Essex House was never a Park Hyatt.

The Stanhope was briefly converted to a Park Hyatt. That didn't last long.

Pickles

Ah yes. The Essex House was a Westin and now a JW Marriott.

gengar

No - but the discounted amount is indicative of what the property is willing to sell out elites for on stated benefits, and thus the property's general attitude towards elites.

txhyattlvr

Would you like some cheese to go along with your Entitlement? Hyatt currently treats elites far better than any other major chain program, and we should enjoy it while it lasts because it probably won't.

My buddy at Starwood (he's been Platinum there for eons) now "enjoys" a 10% upgrade rate and all kinds of nutty breakfast rules, whereas my upgrade rate at Hyatt is above 80%. I regularly run up a tab at breakfast that amounts to a very large chunk of my room rate... especially at higher end places like Park Hyatt's and NYC properties - with no fuss (or stupid vouchers/coupons/etc) to deal with. When there's a service snafu, Hyatt folks (on average) deal with it far better than any other major chain I've experienced. General service levels remain consistently high - and this Globalist is made to feel like an actual VIP at many properties. Oh and let's not forget TSU's, Guest of Honor, and the potential big $$$ value of those perks...

I don't work for Hyatt, and I've been elite with many programs over the years, and I've seen things evolve. It used to be Gold Status at United/Continental got you free first class upgrades 70-80% of the time on domestic flights of any length on ANY fare (I once paid $249 for a round trip coast to coast with upgrades both ways around 2010!) Those days are long over because the airlines realized they could lower the price of first class and get people to buy it (duh) more often. Now you have to be a top top tier elite at United (1K or Global Services) to have a CHANCE for an upgrade. The same thing will eventually happen (and probably is happening at Starwood/Marriott and Hilton) with hotels - they will simply sell more suites at lower prices, and we will remember the good old days when we all got them for free...

Bottom line - Hyatt (including, in my experience, the PHNY), currently has the BEST attitude/benefits as it relates to elite status, and we should praise this every chance we get in hopes that Hyatt corporate will see economic benefit in continuing to do what they do, long after all the major competitors have moved on...

m0hamed

txhyattlvr

Good points. I think there are a fair number of people (on here and elsewhere) who probably put 55 nights in at the Hyatt House/Hyatt Place, spend $5,000 or less with Hyatt in a year, churn (Chase) credit cards like crazy to get points (and look for ways to skirt the intended rules like cancel old Hyatt card, wait xx days, apply again as new to get extra points, etc.) AND they top it off by rolling into the Park Hyatt (on points, of course) with an expectation that they are entitled to VIP treatment, suite upgrades, and on and on... then they scream entitlement and whine like crazy if they don't get it. This sort of behavior (buying $99 cross country round trip tickets to rack up miles) is part of why the airlines basically dumped their previously generous programs, imposed spending minimums, and everything else...

MarkOK

Just to be clear -- I love Hyatt hotels all around but:
1. My complementary suite upgrade rate on a per night basis is about 5% -- and only two hotels are responsible for that (GH DFW and HR Tulsa) where both have provided upgrades a twice. At these hotels, my stays are usually for 1-2 nights. Everywhere else, I stay somewhere between 3-14 days, with an average of about 7 nights, and always on at least 1 of those days, the hotel is booked up. So thankfully, TSUs are there to rescue me when I need them, and other times the cash booking rate for a suite is cheap enough I just book the suite. I have little personal expectation of being upgraded on account of seeming to always stay at hotels for long enough that some night along the way is booked out. However, when I stayed at Park Hyatt NYC, the 'best' they could do for me was one of their jr. suites on the 10th? floor facing the main street which was just a little bigger than a base room while availability for a range of suites were available for cash booking (or I guess, desk bribing?). There are 98 pages of this thread and it is a recurring theme that THIS property is stingy on upgrades (while many properties are indeed great), no matter that availability is showing up on the app.
2. Park Hyatt NYC is the only hotel where I have been overcharged on the minibar. They charged me 24$ for two items I didn't eat, I told them about it at checkout that those items were wrong but I did have a different item we did eat not on there. They ended up charging me 4 days later the item I told them about and never refunded me the stuff I told them at check out wasn't taken from the minibar. Have I followed up? No, but I shouldn't have to either. At no other property has any errant charge not been immediately removed.
3. The Park Hyatt NYC official breakfast policy was (assuming the 100$ thing is new) one of the stingiest out there (with regards to menu pricing) and many people report being charged the extra. I didn't try to cross the line when I was there.
4. The Park Hyatt NYC is one of the properties that seems to deny Globalists late checkout privileges on a consistent basis.

Still, I loved the Park Hyatt NYC and will probably stay again -- maybe they are improving on Globalist treatment?, but just because a few of you somehow come out with great upgrades and otherwise unscathed doesn't negate the numerous other accounts of this property where the treatment for globalists has come out much less than Hyatt's average.

gengar

What a totally inane response. Loyalty programs can be the best and yet individual policies and especially individual policies of individual properties can reasonably be criticized. I've been critical of SPG properties when they've done the same thing, e.g., the Westin Copley Place. Again, the issue with discounted upgrades (and especially steeply discounted upgrades) is that it can indicate the attitude of the property towards elite benefits and thus elites, and not only in terms of revenue generation goals but also costs - which also means things like service recovery. So a property (esp. luxury) that is steeply discounting rooms rather than grant an elite benefit will raise some questions in my head about 1) how much they value elites, 2) how much they might try to nickel+dime me in other ways, and 3) how interested they will be in service recovery when things go wrong. Perhaps MarkOK's point 2 in his post just above is a perfect example of this.

Bottom line is that rational analysis of anything takes a nuanced approach. Things can be great and we can still criticize individual aspects; it shouldn't be and doesn't have to be black and white. And certainly not involve personal attacks.

Booking suites is generally what I do, hence my nearly 250k base points this year. Again, this has nothing to do with the point of my post.

joe_miami

Based on my last stay at PHNY, the answer to this question is: Not very. I was overcharged by ~$1,000, and while it was promptly refunded when I contacted the hotel, I never received an apology, let alone any sort of token compensation.

footastic