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Greg has written about his recent stay at Alila Ventana Big Sur and on this weekend’s podcast he talked about how difficult it is to find standard room award availability at this property. In fact, he said that it might be worth it to hunt out suite availability now before the resort moves up to Category 8 next month. Then Tim sent us an email to alert us to the fact that he found a lot of standard room award availability between December 21-March 22, 2023.
As one example of many between December 21 and March 22nd, I’m seeing standard rooms available the week after Christmas. This is December 26-30, 2022:
Do note that 25K is the off-peak price but when you see a search result like the one above you need to scroll up to the fine print that says “Points Calendar” to see how many points it is for each individual night when available:
In that case, you would need 115K points for December 26-30 (25K + 30K + 30K + 30K). Remember that the points calendar tool shows prices, not availability (in the case above, the night of December 30th is not available; if it were available it would cost 35,000 points, but it isn’t). If you search and see the 1 King Bed available, you are good to go once you have the points.
Tim noted how Ventana Big Sur is even available for President’s Day weekend 2023. If you had a trip to Alila Ventana Big Sur in mind, now is the time to book. The peak price of 35K today beats the peak price of 45K starting on March 22nd, 2022 and the chances of finding a holiday weekend available at this property are usually really really low.
Keep in mind that Hyatt Globalists may be able to make a Points Advance Reservation. If you do that, I think you will need to have the points within a week or two of arrival or else your reservation gets converted to a paid stay. You’ll need to call the Globalist line or contact your concierge to do this (or perhaps it is possible via chat or the Twitter concierge).
This is a great opportunity to book one of the best Hyatt properties in the world (and the best in the US by the estimation of many). To read more about Ventana Big Sur, see this post — but I recommend booking first and reading later.
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What is the Regency/Grand Club option? I did not find anything on their website in their room types description.
There isn’t a club at Ventana
Success DP – booked a 3 night stay for Christmas weekend later this year. All standard reward. Somehow 2 of 3 nights are discounted at 25K per night!
I booked two rooms in Dec for my family. When I called hyatt to add their names on the reservation, they informed me that I had to be there for the check in otherwise they would be charged the daily cash rate. How do I get around this?
Hyatt should be able to do what you want. Call again and make it clear that you want to gift the award stay for the second room to your family members. If you have Globalist status, ask to make the second room a guest of honor stay.
Dang wish I had seen this post sooner. I found three nights in February but when I click through the book they disappeared. I guess someone beat me to the punch. Call the globalist line and they couldn’t find any availability from Oct out.
Yeah, unfortunately, this availability basically dried up within an hour or maybe two. Sorry you missed it!
If you don’t want to miss anything, you can consider signing up for our instant email alerts (where you’ll get an email each time we post something. Email does tend to lag behind anywhere from 25-45 minutes (the email list distribution just takes a bit). The other option is to follow us on Twitter and enable notifications or follow us on Facebook and hope that the algorithm shows you our posts there.
Just sharing those options in case you are unaware. Sorry you missed it!
Keep getting the message that the hotel is not accepting points for any of the dates I’ve checked in Dec – Mar.
Just wanted to say thanks. The post prompted me to re-check our dates for this summer and found it was open for the whole week we have for vacation in July. It was not available when I’ve been checking and we have been considering going elsewhere. I would not have checked again without the post.
What the heck does this cancellation policy mean?
“14 Days Prior Or One Night Fee One Night Deposit At Booking”
Only if they allowed kids!
I missed it! I really enjoyed staying here for 2 nights. It was so incredibly short and I’ve been stockpiling points for another stay
Any data points on using the globalist benefit to make these bookings without the points? I’ve received conflicting answers on the phone vs the Twitter team. Twitter team advised that as long as I make the booking before March 22 the rate is locked in on points based on the category 7 current rates- even if I don’t yet have the points; but a rep. on the phone told me that that is only valid if you’ve already paid for it on points, not using the globalist benefit! Thanks for any input you may have.
Rob, I’ve reached out to the concierge team several times and they reconfirm that you can use the points advance to lock-in pricing (which seems right, because the room isn’t rebooked when points are deposited). I’ve just taken screenshots of the concierge telling me that, and if there’s an issue, my assumption is that Hyatt would offer to make up the difference as a goodwill gesture given that;s what we’ve been told.
I can’t find any
Unfortunately nothing this summer except odd day high priced suites
It seems some dates have a 3-day minimum. I just booked 8/1-8/4 for 30k/night (still available) but was unable to book a 2 day stay in the same period.
Any advice on whether it’s worth booking a regular suite at 43,000 or premium at 50,000 (I already have a regular room at 35,000)? Is it worth the additional points?
Hubby and I stayed in the Big Sur Spa Suite right before Thanksgiving 2020 after they had already switched to all-inclusive. It was 60k/ night at the time and it was very much worth it! We were able to get room service, have it with wine we brought from home and chill out in the hub tub night. Since the infinity edge hot tub by the main pool and also the Japanese baths were closed at the time, this was really worth it!
We stayed in a fire place room without the hot tub on a cash rate a few years before (prior to Alila joining Hyatt and making points bookings possible) and again, having the hot tub made it such a nicer stay. If you have the points to splurge on I’d say go for it.
I just booked a standard room over for a three day weekend in early December (hopefully still good weather). Thank you!
Do 8/1-8/4 instead if you don’t mind staying during the week.
Thanks @satellite. I’m willing to gamble on CA weather!
Regarding the Suite Upgrade…what types of rooms are people getting upgraded to? What counts as a Hyatt “standard Suite” at Alila?