South Mexico trip
Aug 20, 2019, 3:25 pm
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2018
Posts: 354
South Mexico trip
S. Mexico for 15 days... had a good experience at the Hilton Reforma, but not good at Hampton Inn Centro Historico. So for Reforma, we actually got upgraded to the Executive Floor, surprisingly. Pretty nice room, with the great benefit of the executive lounge (free breakfast buffet and dinner!). Overall a great experience, and a good central location. Motivates me to get diamond to have a better chance at future upgrades.
Hampton inn on the other hand, we had a bedbug in our bed on the first night there! I requested to change rooms, which wasn't a problem, but we were all uneasy for the rest of the stay (3 days total). No bueno.
Reforma was 40K/ night... kinda steep, but worth it with the upgrade I'd say. I think the Hampton inn was like 35K... not going there again.
We also went on a 4 day road trip in S. Mexico with stays at hotels booked through hotels.com (discounted GCs). the two best hotels were Hotel La Aldea del Halach Huinic in Palenque, and the Hotel De La Peña Inn in Tehuantepec. Both hotels were very clean with spacious rooms and good meals for breakfast.
After Palenque, we drove to a beautiful set of waterfalls called Cascadas de Agua Azul. One of the nicest waterfalls I've seen, with beautiful aPzure colors. The kids in the mountains in this area (mountains of Chiapas) had an interesting habit of pulling handmade ropes of some kind of plant fiber across the road so you "couldn't" pass, and when you stop at the rope they'd ask for money. At one of the "stops", one of the girls pointed instead at a candy we had in the front seat. I just laughed and gave it to her.
The other hotels were forgettable. :-)
Overall it was an amazing trip. Seeing family and the ancient ruins (La Venta, Palenque, Teotihuacan) were the two highlights i think. The lowlands were plenty hot of course, but Mexico City itself was kind of cold. ~7000 ft elevation. It rained pretty much every afternoon, pretty hard at times.
I made a couple of GCM purchases in Mexico, and the VGCs were waiting patiently for me when i got back.
Oh yeah, flew family and myself (wife and 3 kids) on an AA award there and back. Departure was HNL-LAX on AS, overnight in LA (courtyard LAX), and LAX-MEX on AA. The LAX-MEX leg got delayed like 7 hours with a bunch of the apparently usual AA shenanigans (every 30 mins or so they kept delaying departure time by another 30 mins, until we ended up at the 7 hour delay). KAL lounge (LAX) through priority pass was a lifesaver, amazing food.
This delay really messed up the trip, because when we got to Mexico City, the car rental reservation had been canceled due to our tardiness. This was despite the fact that while at LAX after i first heard about the delay, i called the car rental company to tell them what was going on (budget). So after talking to the manager, he decided to "honor" our reservation, but give us a sedan instead of the full size SUV we had reserved. To top it off, they jacked up the rental price from $250 for 2 weeks to $950. To top it off, our 2 boys, who have autism, started having meltdowns at the car rental office. Yeah, no bueno. Instead just got an uber to the hotel. Uber is really cheap and dependable there by the way.
The next day after arrival, tried to rent a car with Hertz, and same old song, they tried to jack up the price by 3x. No thank you. Luckily my cousin in Mexico city is a taxi driver, and he offered to drive us around on the road trip for a reasonable rate, which we accepted of course.
Oh and AA gave me 6k miles around this time as a courtesy for the delay.
On the way back it was MEX-PHX, overnight at PHX (springhill suites tempe). Then PHX-HNL next day. 2 things. First thing was at the springhill suites tempe, our tv didn't work (needed it for the kids). Called the front desk for help, sent the courtesy shuttle driver to help. He was nice enough, but couldn't get the tv to work. He said we should ask for some points to ameliorate the inconvenience. Next morning I did just that, and the manager proceeded to badmouth the worker from yesterday. At the end of their rant, the manager asked if we wanted some snacks from their snack rack as a way to say they're sorry instead. I politely declined and asked for the points instead. They then offered 5K, and I accepted.
So 2nd thing, our flight on AA from PHX-HNL was delayed 7 hours (again!). The airline once again offered some silly snacks to refresh everyone. No pp lounges around, but there was a Centurion (temporary... real one under construction). Small, but That was also a lifesaver. Real friendly staff and good food. I offered a tip of like 400 pesos to the staff that was serving us, since we didn't have any dollars on us just getting back into the US. The staff member was real happy and said perfect there's a money exchange place next door. A guy sitting next to us laughed and said "what a joke that's like $0.25". I responded with a no it's like closer to $20. Then he got up and said "oh excuse the hell outta me". Anyways we flew soon after that.
When we got back the Marriott points were already posted as well as another courtesy, 7K AA miles this time, for the delay.
Hampton inn on the other hand, we had a bedbug in our bed on the first night there! I requested to change rooms, which wasn't a problem, but we were all uneasy for the rest of the stay (3 days total). No bueno.
Reforma was 40K/ night... kinda steep, but worth it with the upgrade I'd say. I think the Hampton inn was like 35K... not going there again.
We also went on a 4 day road trip in S. Mexico with stays at hotels booked through hotels.com (discounted GCs). the two best hotels were Hotel La Aldea del Halach Huinic in Palenque, and the Hotel De La Peña Inn in Tehuantepec. Both hotels were very clean with spacious rooms and good meals for breakfast.
After Palenque, we drove to a beautiful set of waterfalls called Cascadas de Agua Azul. One of the nicest waterfalls I've seen, with beautiful aPzure colors. The kids in the mountains in this area (mountains of Chiapas) had an interesting habit of pulling handmade ropes of some kind of plant fiber across the road so you "couldn't" pass, and when you stop at the rope they'd ask for money. At one of the "stops", one of the girls pointed instead at a candy we had in the front seat. I just laughed and gave it to her.
The other hotels were forgettable. :-)
Overall it was an amazing trip. Seeing family and the ancient ruins (La Venta, Palenque, Teotihuacan) were the two highlights i think. The lowlands were plenty hot of course, but Mexico City itself was kind of cold. ~7000 ft elevation. It rained pretty much every afternoon, pretty hard at times.
I made a couple of GCM purchases in Mexico, and the VGCs were waiting patiently for me when i got back.
Oh yeah, flew family and myself (wife and 3 kids) on an AA award there and back. Departure was HNL-LAX on AS, overnight in LA (courtyard LAX), and LAX-MEX on AA. The LAX-MEX leg got delayed like 7 hours with a bunch of the apparently usual AA shenanigans (every 30 mins or so they kept delaying departure time by another 30 mins, until we ended up at the 7 hour delay). KAL lounge (LAX) through priority pass was a lifesaver, amazing food.
This delay really messed up the trip, because when we got to Mexico City, the car rental reservation had been canceled due to our tardiness. This was despite the fact that while at LAX after i first heard about the delay, i called the car rental company to tell them what was going on (budget). So after talking to the manager, he decided to "honor" our reservation, but give us a sedan instead of the full size SUV we had reserved. To top it off, they jacked up the rental price from $250 for 2 weeks to $950. To top it off, our 2 boys, who have autism, started having meltdowns at the car rental office. Yeah, no bueno. Instead just got an uber to the hotel. Uber is really cheap and dependable there by the way.
The next day after arrival, tried to rent a car with Hertz, and same old song, they tried to jack up the price by 3x. No thank you. Luckily my cousin in Mexico city is a taxi driver, and he offered to drive us around on the road trip for a reasonable rate, which we accepted of course.
Oh and AA gave me 6k miles around this time as a courtesy for the delay.
On the way back it was MEX-PHX, overnight at PHX (springhill suites tempe). Then PHX-HNL next day. 2 things. First thing was at the springhill suites tempe, our tv didn't work (needed it for the kids). Called the front desk for help, sent the courtesy shuttle driver to help. He was nice enough, but couldn't get the tv to work. He said we should ask for some points to ameliorate the inconvenience. Next morning I did just that, and the manager proceeded to badmouth the worker from yesterday. At the end of their rant, the manager asked if we wanted some snacks from their snack rack as a way to say they're sorry instead. I politely declined and asked for the points instead. They then offered 5K, and I accepted.
So 2nd thing, our flight on AA from PHX-HNL was delayed 7 hours (again!). The airline once again offered some silly snacks to refresh everyone. No pp lounges around, but there was a Centurion (temporary... real one under construction). Small, but That was also a lifesaver. Real friendly staff and good food. I offered a tip of like 400 pesos to the staff that was serving us, since we didn't have any dollars on us just getting back into the US. The staff member was real happy and said perfect there's a money exchange place next door. A guy sitting next to us laughed and said "what a joke that's like $0.25". I responded with a no it's like closer to $20. Then he got up and said "oh excuse the hell outta me". Anyways we flew soon after that.
When we got back the Marriott points were already posted as well as another courtesy, 7K AA miles this time, for the delay.
Aug 23, 2019, 2:08 am
#2
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Denmark
Programs: TK Elite
Posts: 11,848
Hampton Inn & Suites Mexico City - Centro Historico was 10.000 points/nt 3 years ago… It was a steal and we loved the building and the location. The breakfast was a bit underwhelming though
Aug 23, 2019, 2:50 am
#3
Original Poster
Join Date: Jul 2018
Posts: 354
The bedbug thing turned me off though, can't go back there.