Thats unfortunate that they are probably not going to allow points usage for booking room for the foreseeable future. I was hoping to book two nights in Feb next year. Kind of off topic but how "bad" is the hyatt regency in kyoto, or should book extra nights in conrad osaka and take train to do anything in kyoto.

You can book with points; you just can't do it online yet. See the prior few posts for examples of people booking with points.

I booked 2 nights last night (5/30) around 11:30 PM EST with points on the website

That's what I get for not checking again. Thanks for the update.

Was going to book with points, but seeing how the price is ~$700 I think I will just pay cash. Now to decide between this and the Four Seasons.

Does the ~$700 rate also include the 15% service charge and 10% occupancy tax. If not, then the total price would be almost $900.

Even at $700, I would consider 30k points to be a decent use, even when factoring in the loss of Privé/Virtuoso benefit of breakfast (material as I'm not a Globalist) and US$100 incidental credit

The 10% is consumption (sales) tax. There is also a Kyoto accommodations (occupancy) tax of 500 yen/night/person for a room rate of 20,000-49,999 yen/night/person or 1000 yen/night/person for a room rate of 50,000 yen or higher.

The reason why there are so few luxury hotels in Kyoto is that prime locations are almost impossible to acquire, and building permits are even more difficult. Kyoto has very strict height locations.

It is true that up until about 10 years ago, foreign tourists were not very common in Kyoto, as was true for every part of Japan other than Tokyo. 10 years ago we would stay at HR Kyoto for under 20,000 yen, sometimes as low as 12,000 yen, including T&S.

It is also true that volume wise, the low-end market has grown, and continues to grow, much faster pace than the high-end market; tourists from China outnumber those from all Western countries combined by a factor of more than 10:1. The city gov has come to realize that the high-end market is more profitable and less intrusive and has been taking steps to try to attract, and accommodate, more higher spending visitors, but it is slow process that was only begun a couple of years ago. Unfortunately the 70 rooms at Park Hyatt Kyoto are not going to make much of a dent in pent up demand.

It is most certainly not true that the largest numbers of tourists are still school groups; that has not been the case for at least 7-8 years.

Thank you for bringing this thread back on topic.

May I suggest that future posts please remain related to the Park Hyatt Kyoto...

If only posts relevant to an unopened hotel that has no pictures online were here, the thread would be one page

I've noticed numerous dates where the base room is available on revenue but not on points. I hope this this an aberration due to not having everything loaded yet and not some sort of "policy". For example, 07 Dec 2018 and 25 April 2019.

My booking was April (Sakura season) and I wanted 4 days but the first (Sun-Mon) was not available but the other 3 were (cash 185k yen a night .... crazy).

Fair enough... Where did the rest of the thread go? Into the ether? How about moving it to the Luxury Hotel forum or to the Japan forum? It's an interesting discussion, and at the edges but still civil...