azeckel

Palace hands down. Westin St Francis is nice for sure, but the palace is a wholly better property. You can walk from one to the other in < 5 mins. Palace has much better upgrade opportunities and the breakfast plat amenity is awesome. They also do a good job recognizing ambassador guests whereas in a dozen or more stays at st Francis I never had a suite and never got any sort of amenity delivered to my room. Can't say about the W - may be staying there next week though based on the advice above ...

365RoadWarrior

I've tried them all,most of them 3 or more times. The. Palace would be my first choice, unless the fitness center is a top consideration.

azeckel

True. The Palace fitness center is a joke. It seems smaller than most of the rooms. The St Francis has a relatively large fitness center ... probably 12-13 treadmills, 1/2 a dozen elipticals, plus a handful of bikes and a small weights area.

rooivalk

Truly thankful to all! Very helpful. I will stick with the Palace then.

Btw, the fitness center is not even a consideration... azeckel, if you end up staying at the W, let us know how that goes!

azeckel

I've mentioned earlier in this thread that my preferred property in SF for both business and vacation is the Palace. This week in the city there was: Oracle World (40k person convention), America's Cup sailing, Giants/Dodgers baseball, and high season for tourism. Needless to say, the entire city (hotels included) were packed. Thank goodness for spg's no-blackout policy to provide rooms for points whenever a standard room is available. Therefore, I was able to choose between the W and the Westin St. Francis at 16k points/night when rooms were going for $750.

I've stayed at the St Francis many times, so I chose the W. Here is how I would compare the two:

Room: I call this one a wash. Maybe during times of lower than 99% occupancy the W will have a better chance of upgrade. I've only ever had floor level/view upgrades at the st Francis - never a suite. I did put in for suite upgrades for this trip (at both properties), but they did not go through. The room at the W is nice enough, and you get all the quirkiness of the W brand. It's really difficult to differentiate from the St Francis, however, other than the nuances of every W vs every Westin. The views from both hotels are similar. We had a 30th floor view of the bay bridge and the bay at the W. The St Francis has a few rooms with golden gate views, but generally both look out at tall buildings.

Location: I will give a slight edge on location to the W. The two properties are only about 5 blocks apart. However, it is an important 5 blocks. The St Francis sits on the edge of where you would likely want to be heading. The tenderloin district down Geary isn't a great place to go for a stroll. The W is that much closer to the embarcadero making it reasonably walkable (decent enough difference between a 15 min walk and a 20 min walk - especially round trip) and therefore more interesting places to eat are within walking distance. I also hate the crush of tourists around Powell street at the St Francis. The restaurants near there are terribly touristy and not very good. Although, this week with Oracle World, there was an equally unpleasant crush of business men around the W. I guess it's about which is the lesser of two evils?

Platinum breakfast amenity: edge here goes to the St Francis. They have two options available. You can choose any three items from the cafe in the lobby (full coffee bar, pastries, parfait, fruit, mcmuffin, etc.) or get $15 off per person at the ($30?) restaurant buffet. I've never chosen the buffet, but love the grab-n-go aspect of the first option. At the W you have to sit down in the lobby restaurant (Trace). You can choose a continental breakfast (granola, yogurt, and coffee/juice) or take $15 off per person from the regular menu. Note that if you choose a menu item, coffee is $5.50 and juice is $6.00. Ouch.

Ambassador welcome gift: I'm generally not big on these, but figured someone might care. I've never received anything at the St Francis. The W brought up a small bag of cookies and a Smart Water.

Elevators: The glass elevators at the St Francis are much cooler than the boring inside ones at the W - but they do pay someone to change the mats to say "good morning", "good afternoon" or "good evening".

Gym: St Francis has a far nicer / larger facility. The W gym is a joke and almost as small as The Palace gym.

Overall, I'd still prefer to stay at the Palace. But on location alone the W may be a better place to stay than the St Francis. Even so, I will probably go back to staying at the St Francis when the Palace is unavailable because the total experience is slightly better and you don't have to push through throngs of people at a neon lit-up bar to get to the elevator.

capitolm94

I stayed in the area ~75 nights this year at the various SPG properties and here was my experience:

-St. Regis: my favorite. Got amazing upgrades as platinum, including a 2 room 1.5 bath suite. Service is great. Downside is the breakfast: oatmeal and coffee is ~$25 and not that good. Solution: get breakfast at The Grove across the street, its awesome

-W: stayed here most of the time. Service in the restaurant for breakfast was great, rooms were nice and were getting updated (new sheets, window seat covers etc) continuously. Upgrades were less good though, the best I ever had was a cool corner (never a sweet)

-Palace: awesome lobby, amazing platinum breakfast, but old & tired rooms. May be great if you got a suite, but I never did. I like the charm though.

-St. Francis: Good if you are in the new building, terrible in the old. Not worth the gamble to me.

-Westin Market street: OK, but very boring. Feels like you are at the airport westin, anywheretown USA.

Hope that helps!

dkauf

Wanted to bump this thread to see if anyone has any recent experiences that could help me decide among the various SPG properties in San Fran. Planning a 3 night getaway with the Mrs doing mostly touristy stuff, dining, shopping, etc.

Did a quick search for tenative dates this summer and am trying to decide between the following:

Westin Market - 12k per night
Palace - 12k
St. Regis - 25k

I am SPG gold so my odds at landing an upgrade will factor in addition to overall general recommendations.

Thanks

azeckel

The Palace. Location is essentially the same for all 3 and I don't value the St Regis at twice the cost. There are obviously those that do, however. The Westin is ... well, it's a Westin. It's nice. Nothing special IMO.

mahasamatman

I concur. And on a weekend night, you can often score a really good rate.

BrassMonkehy

I was at the Westin St. Francis a couple of weeks ago. Great hard product. Above average service. Cable car stop 10 steps away. Tourist central on union square. I personally like the touristy thing for weekends.

dkauf

Thanks all. Just booked 3 nights at Palace for 36,000 points in July.

TYSGene

I like the Le Meridien. Great location a couple of blocks away from the Embarcadero. I have gotten upgraded to a nice suite with a beautiful view of the Bay Bridge. Very European feel to the hotel.

jibi

The only caution I would mention is that if you have too many drinks, the shower can be a little tricky. I lost my balance and reached out to catch myself... only it was on the curtain-only side and I ended up bruising 4 ribs on the side of the tub as I fell through the shower curtain on my way to the floor...

dkauf

Anyone have any recent experiences to share?

365RoadWarrior

...at a particular hotel/city/location?