yosithezet

Trying to redeem at this hotel. Cat 5 should be 35K points. When I search for Sydney properties it shows this property as available at 35K points. But once I click through it is showing me 43K points with some categories as higher. Even once Peak Season kicks in, that will price properties as 40K. What is the deal with the 43K?

Flying for Fun

It would appear that the base 35K room is not available for your dates. The 43K rate is for a room that is in a higher category over the base and why the tab says "from" x points per stay. Essentially you are paying 8K additional points per night for an upgraded room.

James

RafKa

As mentioned upthread, this hotel plays games with base room availability, by withholding inventory until very close to the date. Seems to be a problem with a lot of properties across chains in Sydney. When I was looking at booking a stay, even the 4P was "sold out" and only had award availability for specialty rooms. Two weeks prior to my stay, availability opened up so I was able to book my 7-night Cat 5 TP. Was well worth it as the club lounge is phenomenal.

margarita girl

I had no issues making a points reservation (for 5 nights) 3 months out. The reason I made a points reservation is the room rates are close to A$400/night on prepaid rates and over A$400/night on flex rates!

Intl359Widget

Happy

Based on own experience on last Nov stay, I am inclined to agree with you. The availability was held back until about 3 weeks before planned stay date. However 4Ps was wide open at that time so I booked 4Ps as back up but kept checking SOTP often. Lo and behold it became available on all prev not available dates a few weeks before arrival.
Pier One is the same but I have found Marriott seems not engaging in this game as it has been quite available thru the time I have been checking.

Happy

Sydney hotel prices are outrageous. Even 4Ps rates are at A$300 and up a night on prepaid.

JetAway

Does anyone have this hotel's direct email address?

UserMark

If we have 2 adults and a child (8 yo) and have lounge access by being plat, they're not going to try to charge access for the child access, right?

SHLTP

They didn't with us w 11 year old but hmmm I guess

margarita girl

I just added it to the wiki.

flyerbjorn

Probably not, but note that there's an age restriction (18 years) for the evening drinks.

The solution is great: You get free drinks in the bar downstairs and they send down a platter of food.

RafKa

I've stayed last month with a 3 y.o. The lounge accepts children until 6pm (happy hour starts at 5pm). We'd go to lounge at 5pm to indulge in the seafood spread, and would subsequently grab a voucher for the Conservatory bar, covering the remainder of happy hour where Serena and Monica kept us stuffed with endless amounts of snacks, to the extent we'd usually pack a takeaway plate in order to avoid waste.

Upgrades here are a bit difficult, especially for longer stays but other than that, the elite treatment here is unbelievably good!

margarita girl

I completed a 4 night stay here a few days ago, probably my 4th or 5th time at this hotel. The only other hotel I've stayed at in Sydney was the Marriott Circular Quay a couple of years ago after becoming a newly minted MAR Plat member. I was given a horribly tiny room with a view of Sydney bridge (if I leaned against the window and looked off to the right). So I decided to stick with the Sheraton.

I used SNAs to confirm a suite upgrade with a view of Hyde Park. Upgrade cleared at 5 days out. I love that this property is easily accessible using the airport train (St James station is across the street). Given that it's a 20 min ride, it's much faster than a taxi/Uber. At check-in, I was offered 1000 welcome amenity points or buffet breakfast in the restaurant. Since there were 2 of us there for 4 nights, that was a no brainer. Breakfast was fabulous with a noodle station, and of course, made to order eggs.

I was disappointed/surprised that we didn't get an in room welcome amenity, but we discovered late on the second day that my roommate had accidentally turned on the "Do not disturb" sign when housekeeping slipped a note under our door. Since it was Easter Sunday, I dropped a quick note via Chat apologizing for this error and saying that housekeeping and the Easter Bunny were welcome to stop by anytime. The reply back was "the Easter Bunny is on its way". When we returned from our outing, there were 2 bottles of red wine in the room, one on the desk and one on the sideboard, which leads me to believe that there might have been duplicate bunnies at work.

The evening service in the lounge is from 17:00-19:30 and includes free wine, beer and spirits (even though you're not allowed to serve yourself). As many have mentioned, the lounge offerings at this hotel are excellent, even if you don't eat seafood. There were 3 hot dishes every night plus a variety of veggies, dips, salads, cheese, sushi and a scrumptious array of desserts. The only issue was serious overcrowding, particularly on Easter weekend. Not sure if this is due to too many Elites or selling lounge access, but the hotel needs to somehow reduce the number of people with access to the lounge.

Two days before check-out, I went to the Front Desk to give them my gift cards that I wanted to use to pay for the room. They didn't know how to apply them so took photocopies and said they would get back to me. At the end of my 3rd day, I got a note under my door that said "I believe these are the first Marriott cards to be used at this property and we are working with our Finance team on how these are redeemed". They still hadn't figured it out by the time I left, so I paid with my credit card along with the 1.5% surcharge. Not impressed!

Overall this is a solid property with great staff and I will continue to stay here when I go to Sydney (which will happen again next month).

3544quebec

That's the problem with rabbits - they breed like....well....rabbits