Beijing
 

Grand Hyatt or St. Regis? How far are they from each other?

St. R is about 1 mile East of GH. The GH is closer to center city (Tianenmen Sq and Forbidden City and all that stuff) and right on Wangfujiang (Sp?), a street with lots of cool stuff. St. R is close to the Embassies and the Silk Market (a cool place to go to shop for souveniers, knockoffs, etc). I stopped staying at GH a couple years ago because I didn't seem to be getting Diamond benefits there, but others recently seem to have more success. One difference though is that I always book the cheapest room and hope for an upgrade, others seem to book a more expensive room and have better luck than I. The way it seems to work is that they seem to upgrade 1 room category or something like that. Plus GH has gotton awfully expensive in the last couple years. St. R is nice and as an SPG Plat I got upgraded to Suites there (last time a nice 1-bedroom Suite with 2 bathrooms.......~1000SqFt probably, I think it was called a Statesmens Suite..........and this was on the cheapest rate on spg.com, in fact I think it was their prepaid rate). I personally would stick with St. R from now on with the exception of if it was during FFN season, then I'd probably stay at GH. Both are nice and both have great pools and gyms. I'd also take into account price probably. Sometimes St. R is waaay overpriced, sometimes its dirt cheap. Similar with GH, although the rates don't vary as much there IMHO. And finally, both hotels are on the main street & subway line that goes straight across Beijing from East to West, so things are fairly accessible from either hotel..............

Thanks...this is a perfect, insightful, perspective.

I will do 3 days at the SR and 1 day at the GH. I am alone, so this hotel hopping is fine for me.

I have been downgraded to GP Plat, but still have SPG Plat...I may pay the corporate rate for the Club differential for the 1 night at the GH.

I would do that if I were you. As a Hyatt Plat, my guess is you will get NOTHING at all above and beyond what you book. The lounge is fairly decent at GH so it would probably be worth paying for it if you have a decent corp rate...............

Oh yeah, one more tip if you decide to book the Club room. Book with Offer Code GP683 during your GH stay. That code gets you an extra 2K GP pts per stay if you book a Cluib room at certain Asian Hyatts through March 31. It's probably even combineable with the G1 code that is currently being offered there on weekends.......