For those interested in luxury, I’m sorry to say that Hyatt just doesn’t measure up.

As one who has stayed at many PH (Sydney. Paris, Chicago, Aviara, Istanbul, Washington, Melbourne, Toronto) and visited several others (Vienna, Moscow, Mendoza, Milan, Siem Reap, Shanghai), stayed at a few RC (Kyoto, Boston, Ft. Lauderdale, Marina del Rey) and visited many others (Laguna Niguel, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Charlotte, Kapalua), and stayed at a ton of StR (San Francisco, NYC, Bahia Beach, Florence, Rome, Punta Mita, Bora Bora, Princeville, Mexico City, Atlanta, Houston, Washington, Lhasa, Dubai), I think I have a reasonably good perspective on the brands and pros/cons of each.

I think the rolling of the eyes at RC is unfortunate and misplaced. RC can be just as luxurious and offer just as high a service standard as PH and StR. I vastly prefer StR as just about everyone knows because of its butler service, but my recent stays at RC Kyoto and RC Boston amply demonstrate that RC can be just as good otherwise—including offering wonderful service. RC has more appropriate and locally inspired designs that offer far more sense of place than was true in the 2000s. RC even has a few high design properties (Hong Kong and Shanghai immediately come to mind) and even South Beach soon will finish its overhaul.

PH has a very clean design aesthetic, but it also can feel like Four Seasons and Ritz Carlton of old, replicating a similar contemporary and clean design ethos everywhere. It therefore can lack a sense of place, which may or may not be important to you. PH most recently has outsourced housekeeping and some other hotel services, and concomitantly can suffer by comparison with regard to service. I even experienced this issue at PH Sydney. PH also has some outdated properties in dire need of renovation (Toronto finally getting that, Aviara, Milan, and Melbourne in desperate need).

StR is the best of them all to my mind, but even StR has some weaker properties by virtue of needing renovation (Washington and Houston) or needing a service revamp (Washington and now the defunct Dubai). StR has both traditionally styled properties like NYC, Washington, Houston, Florence, Rome, Bora Bora, Atlanta, etc, as well as the modern and clean aesthetically designed contemporary properties akin to PH like San Francisco, Mexico City, Bal Harbour, Toronto, and many of those in China.

PH is generally very good, but I’ve seen a slide in service quality. Certainly, RC and StR are comparable. And there just aren’t even close to enough PH to keep me loyal to Hyatt.

And Marriott also has Luxury Collection and even a few Design Hotel properties to further increase it’s huge lead in the luxury segment, not even counting that I vastly prefer W over Andaz (or Edition).

As someone who was top tier in Hyatt for many years during which time I was top tier in Marriott/Starwood, I am going to take a contrary view. Park Hyatts are definitely my husband's happy place. We've had amazing stays all over the world and consider it a more reliable brand than others. Further, confirmable suite upgrades meant that we were able to ensure that we had a suite for stays important to us. It's nice to know six months in advance that we will have a suite and not rely on the upgrade gods. I don't chase status now and am fortunate to have lifetime platinum premier elite with Marriott. But if I were chasing status (will all the caveats that the lesser footprint of Hyatt has to work for you), I'd go with Hyatt.

Thanks for that! I should have been more clear in saying that Hyatt doesn’t measure up in terms of portfolio size/footprint. Park Hyatt hotels certainly are excellent luxury hotels. My bad, as you make excellent points.

I definitely think Park Hyatt can be outstanding, as evidenced by my many recent stays. I just don’t think there are enough of them, don’t think they always provide a sense of place (they sometimes feel like they could be anywhere), and don’t like the outsourcing of housekeeping and other service lapses.

But youre absolutely right that having the 4 confirmed suite upgrades is a wonderful boon—though you can’t use those at some of the best Hyatt properties:

https://help.hyatt.com/en/hyatt-term...att-terms.html

I have to agree with almost everything you say here and respectfully disagree with BHR (whom I know generally shares my hotel preferences)

When Hyatt comped me Diamond status and gifted me 8 DSUs we judiciously applied them and were very pleasantly surprised. Like SD1K it was extremely nice to be certain in advance that we had secured a Suite, without having to chance it. The Hyatt service really impressed us and 3 things especially made us happy: 1) Even though I was a newly minted Diamond, each hotel treated me like a long-standing loyal guest 2) At every check in a 4 pm check out was proactively offered to me without having to request it (something that only occasionally happens at SPG 3) Each of our hotels allowed us to have our comped breakfast as room service (something we love when we are traveling. Several hotels- Berlin comes to mind— delivered a lavish buffet-like spread.

A few hotels (Berlin & Papagayo) even upgraded us above the DSU Suite. All of the hotels gave us huge, beautiful Suites.

As loyal SPG fans we had never really tried out Hyatt before and were surprised at how favorably it compared with our beloved Starwood. In fact the few things we didn’t like about Hyatt- the fact that one couldn’t use DSUs on award stays, and the fact that award stays didn’t count toward status have been changed now. One other thing we liked (although we haven’t tried yet) is the easy way to use points for Suite upgrades. One of the worst changes from SPG to Marriott IMHO is the inability to use moderate points for guaranteed upgraded rooms.

We ended up using 7 of our 8 DSUs and 6 were outstanding experiences (Hyatt Indian Wells was a waste of DSU IMO )

Park Hyatt Tokyo
Andaz Papagayo
Andaz 5th
Andaz Amsterdam
Andaz Scottsdale
Grand Hyatt Berlin
Hyatt Indian Wells

With 18 years of amazing stays already and with Marriott’s huge footprint I have no regrets that I focused on SPG and attained LT PPE. But Hyatt is the only large chain we’ve tried that was comparable to the best of SPG.