I recently spent three nights at the Grand Hyatt Athens. As a Category 3 Hyatt property, it is certainly a points bargain. Further, the club lounge had above-average offerings during the day and using a suite upgrade award, this is a somewhat rare example in Europe where it is possible to book a single room for a family of four. On the flip side, the location isn’t the best (despite the awesome rooftop infinity pool views of the Acropolis), service was not great, and the place is pretending that the adjacent parking garage is a separate entity despite the Grand Hyatt Athens signage everywhere in and around the garage. I’d probably stay again thanks to a very reasonable award price point, but I wouldn’t actively seek out a return. I’m including a bit more detail than usual in this Bottom Line Review because a lot of the shortcomings were minor, but I think that they cumulatively paint the picture as to why this Grand Hyatt feels less “Grand”.
Our experience at the Grand Hyatt Athens
Our first impression was a bit marred when we arrived and the valet quoted 18 Euro per day for self-parking or 31 Euro per day for valet. It’s on me for not verifying in advance that Globalists get free parking on an award stay here (I do understand that it is only required to be complimentary when the hotel owns/operates the garage), but I was nonetheless turned off when they explained that the parking garage is operated by a separate entity. The garage is immediately adjacent, has a “Grand Hyatt Athens Parking” sign pointing cars in to it, a “Grand Hyatt Athens” carpet in front of the elevator entrance, and the rates sign includes the Grand Hyatt Athens logo. I believe that there was a room key reader on the machine at the entrance to honor the in & out privileges for guests. Claiming that the garage is a separate entity here while branding it entirely “Grand Hyatt” felt a lot like hotels claiming that their restaurants are run by a separate entity in order to deny elite members complimentary breakfast. I found it annoying because the parking benefit is one of the reasons I maintain Globalist status. Still, as I recognized above, it’s on me for not checking in advance and 18 Euro a night obviously wasn’t going to ruin my stay as much as it made me roll my eyes.
However, minor poor early impressions continued from there.
We arrived very early and we didn’t expect rooms to be ready, but we needed to store our luggage. The front desk agent looked towards the door and couldn’t see anybody to help with bags. Rather than proactively find someone (and rather than the hotel having a clear bellhop desk area), the desk agent directed us to go find someone working out front and they’d help us with the bags. It ended up taking us almost 10 minutes to find someone — and it turned out that the people who handle the bags are the valet folks. Apparently, they work for a separate entity while parking your car, but are employees of the hotel when it’s time to store your bags. Must be complex for the accounting team!
I don’t really care about being acknowledged for my loyalty at check-in, but it does help to confirm benefits. The check-in agent didn’t mention my Globalist status nor that the other two rooms checking in with me were on Guest of Honor stays (although I did mention that at some point later in the process). He did end up providing keys to the lounge for all three rooms to be able to use it while we waited and mentioned that we could freshen up in the spa while we waited for rooms, but didn’t mention anything about breakfast (as it turns out, breakfast is available both in the club lounge and in the restaurant and either is complimentary for Globalists / GOH stays, but that wasn’t mentioned at all). Again, not a big deal (I stopped by the desk later to ask about it), but a small miss.
Next up, we were told that we would get a call/text when rooms were ready. All of us had phone service. None of us ever received a call or text. We went to the lounge, went to the pool, went back to the lounge, and went out to eat dinner. We eventually returned to the hotel after 6pm, never having heard anything about rooms being ready (nor did our Hyatt apps show a room assigned). We obviously could have checked at the desk a bunch of times, but even at 2 or 3 in the afternoon, there was a small crowd of people in the lounge (and a much, much larger crowd of people in the lobby) talking about how their rooms still weren’t ready. Given the long lines in the lobby, it didn’t even seem worth waiting in line to check with someone until things quieted some in the evening. Still, our rooms must have become available before 6pm. I don’t understand why we never received any notification.
I mentioned that we used the pool when we arrived. The good news is that the hotel has at least 4 swimming pools. Two of those are on the rooftop. The rooftop view is awesome — the infinity pool has a great view of the Acropolis. We started there, but there are very, very few shaded seats and all of them were taken. Not everyone in our group was looking for full sun, so we next tried the spa pool, which the check-in agent had mentioned was also available on floor -1. The agent at the spa desk was very nice, but she informed us that children need to be at least 6 years old to use the spa pool, so our youngest couldn’t use that pool. She told us that there was also an outdoor pool on Floor 1. That pool is in an interior courtyard that has quite a bit of shade a bunch of the day, so that worked out great to get in some early pool time while some members of the group sat and relaxed.
When we finally got into our rooms, they were mostly fine. The coffee table in our suite was dirty (we cleaned it with a towel and water as it had a bunch of stickiness and marks from glasses being placed on it) and the balcony was pretty dirty (a lot of bird droppings and just a thick layer of dirt that left my feet pretty blackened with dirt after spending about 6 minutes outside barefoot). But the rest of the room, including the beds, sofa, and bathroom were certainly fine. We were fortunate to have a balcony with a terrific view of the Acropolis and we really enjoyed it, spending a few evenings out there watching the sun set and the Parthenon light up.
However, it is worth mentioning that the hotel is essentially located on a highway. It’s in the city, but there is a multi-lane road in front of it that you exit to get onto the smaller adjacent road for the hotel. That meant that there was a lot of road noise on the balcony, though I didn’t notice it with the balcony doors closed. There isn’t really any “neighborhood” type feel to the surrounding area (there are not many shops and things, rather the entire opposite side of the street is adult entertainment venues for a couple of blocks), but the hotel is only a 15-30 minute walk from neighborhoods with shops and restaurants. We found walking to be as easy as it can be in 95-degree heat and the surrounding area certainly felt safe enough.
All that said, there are some clear positives to be noted:
- The club lounge has a great afternoon spread. It was unfortunately exactly the same every day, but it could easily make for a light lunch. I felt like the evening spread was a little light and less likely to serve as a substitute for dinner, but the afternoon stuff was surprisingly good.
- The lounge offers complimentary wine starting at 2pm and spirits starting at 6pm, which seems very generous.
- Breakfast in the restaurant was very good. There was a lot of variety and quality was pretty good. They even had a station to make your own Greek coffee, which I enjoyed!
- Views of the Acropolis were very good both from the balcony of our Grand Suite and from the rooftop pool
- The rooftop infinity pool is a highlight (as long as you don’t need shade)
- Four total swimming pools (infinity pool on the rooftop, a separate rooftop pool with one end glass so that people walking past can see into the pool, the spa pool, and the 1st floor pool)
I should also note that I said at the outset that we booked a room that could accommodate a family of four. It is typically difficult to get a single room for four people in Europe. However, at this property, the standard suite (Grand Suite King) accommodates 2 adults and 2 children. We therefore booked a standard room (1 King bed) for 2 adults and then applied a suite upgrade to confirm a Grand Suite King. At some point after applying that (within a week or so of check-in), I chatted with Hyatt through the World of Hyatt app chat support to ask them to add my 2 kids, ages 7 and 4, to the reservation. Whether booking with a suite upgrade or simply booking a suite with points, I believe you should be able to accommodate 2 adults and 2 kids (although I’m not immediately sure at what age kids are considered adults at this property).
At the award price point, I feel like I got what I paid for. At the branding level (Grand Hyatt), I feel like it fell a little short (this should probably be a Hyatt Regency). Still, I’d probably stay again, particularly on a trip where I needed multiple rooms since it was far more reasonable covering several rooms as 12K-15K points per night than it would be to cover multiple rooms through other award programs.
- Price: As this is a Category 3, we were charged 12K for one night (standard award price), 15K for the other two nights (peak award price). Applied a suite upgrade award to upgrade to a Grand Suite (and I believe we were further upgraded to a Grand Suite – Acropolis View).
- Value: Decent. Cash rates were $240+ for a standard room during our dates, yielding 1.6-2c per point against the standard room cash cost. It is worth noting that a single standard room wouldn’t have accommodated my family of four, so we booked a standard award (1 king bed room) for 2 adults and then used a suite upgrade award to upgrade to a Grand Suite (which does accommodate a family of four) and then added the kids to the reservation by chatting with Hyatt support in the World of Hyatt app so that the reservation reflected 2 adults and 2 children. The suite regularly costs around $300 a night more than a standard room, so that made the value feel stronger yet.
- Location: About 10 minutes from the Acropolis by car. A taxi runs around 5-7 Euro each way. The immediate vicinity of the hotel has very little atmosphere (most of the nearby buildings house adult entertainment venues), but you’re about a 15-30 minute walk from better places to stroll.
- Room: We had a Grand Suite King with Acropolis View. Overall, the room was spacious, had French Doors that separated the bedroom from the living room, had balconies off of both the bedroom and living room, and both a full bathroom/shower and a half bath in the living room. That’s exactly what we want with a suite upgrade. There were a couple of small cleanliness issues upon arrival, but overall the room was very good.
- Parking: Not complimentary for Globalists on award stays. 18 Euro per night for self-parking or 31 per night for valet.
- Resort/Destination Fee: None, though there is a 15 Euro per room per night “Resilience Fee” that everyone must pay (this is a Greek tax on all types of tourist accommodation).
- Internet: Speedy and complimentary for the most part, though it didn’t work well enough on my balcony to do a team meeting out there on the hotel Wi-Fi. I had to hotspot from my phone there. But it worked fine in my room.
- Service: Minimal. Everyone was friendly enough, smiling and saying hello, though don’t expect above-and-beyond service for the most part.
- Turndown service: Offered nightly with a chocolate placed by the bed and plenty of bottled water provided.
- Spa: We didn’t end up visiting the spa because our younger son couldn’t use it.
- Hyatt Globalist Benefits:Â
- Room Upgrade:Â We booked a standard room and used a suite upgrade award to upgrade to a Grand Suite King. We were further upgraded to a Grand Suite King – Acropolis View. The other two rooms were standard 1 King rooms on Guest of Honor awards. Neither was upgraded.
- Free Breakfast:Â Offered for Globalists in either the club lounge or the restaurant. The Club Lounge breakfast wasn’t bad (it was still out when we initially arrived and were given access to the lounge), but the restaurant breakfast is much better. You definitely want to go to the 8th/9th floor if you have Globalist status.
- Club Lounge: Offers an excellent spread in the middle of the day (bread with hummus/olive tapenade, fruit, olives, etc), complimentary wine starting at 2pm, and other complimentary alcohol starting at 6pm. We frequently had issues with our keys not working properly at the lounge (at least one time for me, it lit up red initially, then I flipped my key the other way and it went green and unlocked, but many other times they just didn’t work). That was kind of a pain, but usually one member of our group was already inside and able to open the door.
- Late Checkout: Offer at check-in but not needed.
- Welcome Amenity:Â A small bottle of Ouzo along with some chocolates and jelly candies were on the table waiting for us in the room, which was a nice touch.
- Would I stay again? I probably would thanks to it presenting a good value on points, but I wouldn’t seek out an opportunity to return.
Pros
- The club lounge has a great afternoon spread. It was unfortunately exactly the same every day, but it could easily make for a light lunch. I felt like the evening spread was a little light and less likely to serve as a substitute for dinner, but the afternoon stuff was surprisingly good.
- The lounge offers complimentary wine starting at 2pm and spirits starting at 6pm, which seems very generous.
- Breakfast in the restaurant was very good. There was a lot of variety and quality was pretty good. They even had a station to make your own Greek coffee, which I enjoyed!
- Views of the Acropolis were very good both from the balcony of our Grand Suite and from the rooftop pool
- The rooftop infinity pool is a highlight (as long as you don’t need shade)
- Four total swimming pools (infinity pool on the rooftop, a separate rooftop pool with one end glass so that people walking past can see into the pool, the spa pool, and the 1st floor pool)
Cons
- Parking not free for Globalists on award stays
- No neighborhood ambiance
- Service is so-so, with no mention of status/benefits at check-in and no notification when the room was ready
- Lobby felt very disorganized, with it being difficult to find staff for baggage storage and retrieval
Image Gallery
All of the following are pictures from the restaurant breakfast:
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Why are you driving? You’re in Athens not Dallas! Take public transit! It won’t hurt you.
My first take too. Then mentioned taking a taxi to the acropolis……strange.
P2 and I stayed at the Grand Hyatt Athens in April for 8 nights. I agree on a lot of your review. We did not have a car, so I wasn’t aware of the parking situation. We used buses, the metro and walked a lot.
Comment continued…
I am Explorist, so we didn’t get a suite upgrade. We did get upgraded to a huge room with a sofa/living room area, balcony and a view of the Acropolis as well as the strip clubs across the street.
I wouldn’t call it convenient to the tourist areas, but it wasn’t onerous either. The hotel has a shuttle we used once. It doesn’t run often and usually didn’t work with our schedule.
We used a club access certificate and ate breakfast in the lounge. It looked like your pics from the restaurant. It was a very generous breakfast buffet. We also took an afternoon tea break there most days. As an tea drinker, I loved the loose tea and infuser pots.
You didn’t miss much with not going to the spa pool. We love a hot tub after walking for hours, but it was just barely warm.
We may have just been lucky to have much better service than you report. As we were there for Easter, we got a plate of traditional Greek Easter items (dyed eggs, bread, etc) in our room. The staff was great with advising us on how to watch & participate in Holy Week & Easter celebrations. It was fun to watch the fireworks and hear the bells ring at midnight for Easter from the roof bar with a lot of other hotel guests.
If you turn left when you walk outside facing the street there is a cluster of restaurants about five minutes down the street that will provide some dining options.
I’ve stayed at the InterContinental a block away. The neighborhood is a bit meh, and crossing that highway to get to the shops/restaurants area can be interesting, considering Greek drivers’ respect for pedestrians. But it tends to be quiet, no tourist throngs, no endless beggars, street sellers or scammers asking you to sign a petition. For a stay with kids it’s not bad, and the tram station to get you elsewhere in Athens is a few blocks away.
You don’t cross that highway as it’s actually illegal and extremely dangerous. You go through underground passage ways, which there are plenty.
I see. I don’t think I encountered any on the way from IC, would’ve made the trip more pleasant. They did have a pedestrian crossing with a red light maybe a 10 minute walk from hotel.
I have stayed there and the hotel is great. No Globalist so no lounge and not breakfast and a regular room. We were 2 so really didn’t need this benefit. We came to see Athens! We visit cities, not hotels. Even if I were with family, I see no reason to spend so much on breakfast at a hotel unless it is free.Most food is extremely unhealthy. Get fruit! This is mostly what I eat when I get the breakfast for free.
We did have an issue with the hotel. They closed the most beautiful pool at the top for an English Soccer team that played in Athens. We had no access during our stay, only the other pool on the roof which is nothing to compare but better than the IC. No compensation, nothing. I took it with Hyatt. That pool is the reason to stay there.
As for parking, beyond me why would anyone pay when there is so much free parking on the streets aroundthe hotel. We had no ploblem at any time of the day.
Lobby is great, not sure what was the issue, they took our bags when we checked out and got it back for our flight.
The hotel is very close to the IC and the Hyatt is such a better experience, nothing to compare.
We used certs and felt it was a great redemption. Product was solid. Aside from the IC I don’t have any other experience. It will be interesting to stay at the Conrad when it opens. It is the old Hilton and I stayed there as a child with my parents almost half a century ago.
As for location, it is a bit our of the way but not too bad. Walk or get a bus, buses are dirt cheap. You can use the underground as well but the stop is a bit up the street. Hotel is on a busy street so just know where the tunnel below to the other side.
I will stay at the GH again.
Your lackluster stay at this hotel illustrates two things I find about redeeming for hotels:
Well said. For Nick, it’s probably worth it, since he is a globalist and get free breakfast so he may come out ahead, but for others 12000 points/night roughly equals $180/night. I just checked and the Intercontinental goes for $150 and has a better location. Not to mention family hotels…..
This is the sad reality of point stays nowadays, you really have to go out of your way to get value.
I have stayed in both and the IC is a dump in comparison. Price is not everything. The pools at the Hyatt are sepctacular. The IC has a very not appealing pool and the hotel is far far less than the Hyatt. They are very close to each other on the same street.
The analysis needs to go beyond just price. It needs to consider subjective factors such as whether the location is convenient or inconvenient (which Nick briefly noted). Hyatt often doesn’t have a property within convenient proximity of where I want to be. And, so, Hyatt’s cents-per-point comes with a compromise . . . one that I’m not willing to accept. But, others are. If it’s due to one’s budget, I get it. If not . . . people will remember the experience but not the redemption rate. I think many of us forget that. I think many of us choose to forget that.
Well, agree and disagree.
For a true apples-to-apples comparison of CPP you really need a hotel as close to identical to the chain hotel as possible (location, breakfast, etc). Ideally, it’s right next door.
When really deciding where to stay then, yes, you need to consider the other factors as well.
Any pics of the Lounge breakfast?
The pics of breakfast looked like the lounge.
all the cons is why I don’t go to europoor countries anymore. The locals make so little money that they try to scam you for everything, like the parking, and add on hidden fees. The more towards east Europe you go, the more that they don’t go out of their way to help you. I was staying at a 5 star hotel, and they also said I will get a text when the room was ready. I go back in 30 minutes without receiving a text and magically it was ready. I bet you it was ready the whole time, they just wanted me to wait 30 minutes until it was closer to check in time. I bet if I waited for the text, I would be there for hours
No country anywhere exceeds the United States for scammy extra charges.
lol you obviously have not been much elsewhere.
in europe you get charged for $10 for a 1 liter bottle of water at restaurants, and you have to pay to pee
I can confidently state that I’ve been “more elsewhere” than you. If you’re paying $10 for a bottle of water you’re eating well above the level I do, and when you pay the customer 3 to 4 euros you actually get — a bottle of water. And peeing remains free of charge — unless you want to do it in a maintained facility for which there’s a small charge.
Great review, very thorough. We might have crossed paths, I got back from Greece on June 4…I had the GH Athens booked initially using FNCs but after reading reviews and noting the poor location of the hotel I opted to stay somewhere more central. We stayed one night at the Grand Bretagne (swanky!) at the beginning of our trip using an 85k Bonvoy FNC, and two nights at the end of the trip in an apart-hotel called the Athenians Modern using cash. Both of these properties were in Syntagma square and made walking around the best parts of Athens very, very easy. And there are hundreds of restaurants within a couple of hundred yards, the airport bus was right there, and the Syntagma metro station was seconds away. So while I completely understand the draw of a nice lounge and free breakfast (which we got at the Bretagne but not at the Athenian) I feel like the location of the GH and its busy-ness are too important to overlook for travelers wanting to really experience Athens. After reading your review I am glad we didn’t stay there. And both of our hotels had tremendous views of the Acropolis – the rooftop restaurant at the Bretagne was amazing and our balcony at the other place also provided a stunning view.
Currently in Athens and would agree. Price point for hotels in better locations drove us to an independent property with about 12-13 rooms. There are quirks (like climbing a lot of stairs), but we are pretty happy. We have a suite that could sleep 4 for well under $175/night. But it wasn’t just Hyatt — IHG, Wyndham, and Accor were all not very competitive (we didn’t look into Marriott and Hilton much) on price, location, and reviews.
However, we head to Istanbul next and that was completely different re: value from chain brands (Accor in particular has a lot of great looking properties at very reasonable prices).
I’d be interested in your experience in Istanbul, if you could share it. (I currently have Grand Hyatt Istanbul booked for an upcoming stay). thanks!
I’ll probably post a trip report in the FM Insiders group once we are done (around the 23rd), as I have a lot to share about some less talked about product and programs. We head to Istanbul in a few days (chose the IC over the GH, though I think they are right next to each other in Taksim).
Also interested in your GH Istanbul review, we are heading over there end of June (with 2 kids), booked a suite and hopefully they can accomodate us.
I also chose somewhere close to Syntagma rather than GH Athens – merely for the location.
The almighty cents per point for the win.
This is basically a $150 per night hotel but since it is a chain hotel, Hyatt charges +$300. Look at that, amazing CPP!! /s
Hyatt, Hilton, and Marriott charging $500+ for $200 rooms has me questioning the whole game.
What would you recommend instead?
Book direct, non-chain hotels. Save your points for airfare; where there clearly is no alternative.
If you have a surplus of points, cash them out at 1 CPP and book directly with non-chain hotels.
There’s literally half a dozen hotels nearby this location that are just as good as the Hyatt and have higher reviews. They all charge around $100 per night. Even at the off-peak rate of 12k Hyatt points, Nick would’ve been better off cashing out those 12k points assuming he transferred from Chase.
Agreed. I made an earlier comment noting that we stayed at the Athenians Modern apartment hotel in Syntagma square and for less than the price of a regular room at the GH (barring the use of points or certs, naturally) we had a large one bedroom apartment with an Acropolis view balcony and a location that can hardly be beat for seeing Athens.
Apartment hotels generally don’t offer any breakfast through, right? We generally have no interest in going grocery shopping and doing our own meal prep and cleanup while traveling abroad. We’ll do a vacation rental on rare occasion, but mostly for domestic US travel. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy checking out a foreign grocery store now and then, but we generally don’t prefer to spend time on that when spending a few nights in a foreign city.
Hot and cold breakfast should be readily available in almost every neighborhood in a tourist city like Athens (granted, I’m not familiar with the area around the GH).
A few years ago we had 5 nights in the Park Hyatt Vendome followed by a couple of nights in an AirBnB when our (adult) kids joined the trip. The breakfast in the Park Hyatt is very, very good. But the most memorable breakfast from that trip was during the AirBnB stay when we dropped in to a boulangerie and sank about 15 euros into an array of baked goods (and a coffee) for all four of us, then ate it in a nearby park.
True, no breakfast at the apartment hotels we stayed at in Greece. But lately I have come to realize that a banana and a croissant or a Greek yogurt (or two) and a cookie (or two) is plenty for breakfast – no need for much prep or clean up or lengthy grocery store runs (although I admit I LOVE checking out foreign grocery stores). And pretty much every place has a coffee machine, the single most important tool in the room. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy an elaborate breakfast spread (and we had just that at the Grande Bretagne as well as at the Patmos Aktis Luxury Collection hotel on the island of Patmos) and I always love a good lounge – but I still think the location of the GH is a huge downside. I will give you the need for a pool though with little kids – that’s for sure. We were traveling with our now 19 year old son so splashing around a hotel pool really isn’t a thing for us anymore. But if it was the GH would have gotten more of a serious consideration from us.
I think what you’re missing on those half dozen hotels nearby is that we’d have perhaps been buying breakfast for 8 people and lunch for 8 people, whereas instead we had breakfast at the restaurant and dipped into the lounge for lunch and then ate dinner at local restaurants (and since my younger son is nearly a fruitarian, a breakfast buffet rather than sit-down meal and lounge access are a really big deal for us as we know we can get some nutritious stuff that he’ll eat). And since we have kids, a swimming pool matters more to us than it might to you. I imagine that the $100 per night places would have cost me more in terms of food expenses, I may well have needed 4 rooms instead of 3, and they probably wouldn’t have had a swimming pool. I absolutely understand that those things won’t matter for everyone (we did plenty of cheap hostels and then cheap local hotels in the years before miles and points), but they do matter for me. If you take the 126,000 points I used for three rooms on this stay and cashed them out for $1,260, I doubt that would have bought us the 3-4 rooms for 3 nights + breakfast + lunch + swimming pool. Maybe it would, truth be told I didn’t search hard for that since I do value all of that stuff and knew I had it pretty easily with Hyatt, along with earning toward next year’s status. I do get the criticism from folks who aren’t interested in all of that stuff — and I certainly understand why you might choose differently. Makes sense.
I did look at some of those Marriott options, but given the need for 3 rooms for 3 nights, an 85K property was out of range for this trip.
Globalist perks are nice, but most are not sadly…. otherwise this redemption would not be worth it considering how much the breakfast cost.
Nick I appreciate the response but I have to cordially disagree.
The beauty of the points and miles game is that it is very subjective and there really isn’t a right or wrong way of doing things. I have not done much research on the area or the dates you visited but man, $1,260 gets you a lot of hotel in Athens for 3 nights. We’re talking like Penthouse-level of apartments, not just hotel rooms. I get it that there is a convenience factor to this stuff since you are traveling with 2 smaller kids. My wife and I are expecting a baby later this year so maybe when we restart traveling next year, my opinion might change. Buuuuut…$1,260 can get you a lot of independent hotels, even in Paris!
We recently stayed at the Hotel du Louvre (Hyatt) in Paris and since I did not have Hyatt status they wanted $35 per person per day for breakfast. That’s just silly man. We walked to a Franprix (French grocery chain) less than half a block away from the hotel and bought a few snacks. Ended up getting 6 1-liter bottles of water for less than €2!! There are a lot of coffee shops and restaurants nearby and we literally had the same (if not better) breakfast options than the one in the hotel for €10 per person. Don’t get me wrong, it is very convenient to have breakfast downstairs in the hotel, but the coffee shop just across the street is just as nice. I feel like a lot of these status “benefits” (i.e. free breakfast, room upgrades, free parking, lounge access) is way overvalued and taking them at face value, comes out as disingenuous.
My criticism was not intended to be directly at you or your redemption. At the end of the day, it is your points and you use them as you see fit and if it works for your family, great!! My criticism was mostly geared towards the current state of loyalty programs; especially chain Hotels. I am not buying this whole concept of “outsize value” anymore.
Keep up the good work!
I am not sure if you can get a “lot of independent hotels” for 3 nights for 3 rooms per night at $1260 after tax. That’s like paying $140 per night, after tax and fees during peak tourist season. And those you can find, won’t be comparable to GH, even when not accounting for other benefits that Nick received such as lounge, pools, breakfast, suite upgrades, etc. this whole point that “you can find a room for $100 then why spend $200” is so meaningless…. Turn around and you will find a solo traveler, staying in cheap $40 per night shared hostel room, laughing at you for spending $100 per night when you could get by by spending only $40 per night….. my point being…. Value is a very individual concept….
I agree that most of the hotel amenities are overpriced and most ppl should not pay real $$ for those, but some ppl still do because they value something else in their lives more than the $$ they are spending or points they are spending… you may not value those same things in your life and that should be okay… you don’t have to criticize them for valuing those things…
Don’t be sure that folks wouldn’t pay to stay at a hotel for the breakfast alone. There is a non-chain (I wouldn’t call it ‘independent’, just its own animal, as it does have sister properties in the surrounding country side) hotel in Thessaloniki which has a famous breakfast. People pay the price for it, even if they are not staying at the hotel. Breakfast is included in the rate (cheapest now $280 city view, $550+ sea view, lower in the winter) walk-ins pay $30 and up *per person* – more like $50+ now. Weighing the choices, we always opt to stay at the hotel because the breakfast is easily the best part of it and if you think it this way the room price could be a bonus. Think: 2 people x 50 = almost a third of the average room price. The hotel, btw, is Macedonia Palace.
Would agree that your circumstances (as well as many readers of the blog) would dictate that the value of benefits would outweigh some of the inconveniences compared to other options. I think some of the criticisms here are unfair.
I completely agree with you Nick. We have three small kids (3,3 and 8 yo) and I know from experience the value of having a breakfast buffet “downstairs” (or upstairs in some cases) where you don’t need to get full on ready to go eat. Lounge or buffet allows us to “try” different things and not incur additional expenses if my kids were not in mood for their fav food that day (happens almost every time). During our trip to Washington DC earlier this year, we stayed at GH DC ona GOH award and 3 out of 5 days, we needed to go back to our room in the middle of our breakfast because one of the kids had “to go”. I was glad we were in the hotel with a lounge, steps away from our room, and not in a restaurant with filthy public washrooms. We could tell the longe attendant that we will be back in 10’mins and they did not move our food nor give away our table. I can go on and on…. But to your point, hotels with breakfast buffets work for us at this stage when our kids are small…obviously this wasn’t a priority before kids and won’t probably be a priority when they all are 10+, but for the next few years, it is one of the more critical aspects of our trip planning. And for that reason, I don’t care how “cheap” non chain hotels are or how conveniently they are located.
To be fair, Nick doesn’t mention the cents-per-point value he got at any point in the article.
That said, I agree with the other folks who responded to your comment. American chain hotels are overpriced and, if you do want to figure out the “value” of your redemption you should compare to similar or superior accomodations booked with cash. It sounds like better options were available for less than the cost of a standard room at this hotel.
Excellent review!!
I would have had the same sentiments!!
I had a better experience last year at the end of October and first few days of November before a cruise. The female manager came out to greet us at check in, and our room (suite sans view the first night) was ready immediately. Changed to balcony [“Parthenon view” and Gentlemen’s Club view] the next 2 nights (all nights on points). Tourist “resilience fee” was much lower beginning Nov 1. Manager placed a call to our room the first Sunday in November to alert us that ALL archeological sites were free that day — we really benefitted from that tip! For some reason, there was barely any line for the Acropolis that morning. I thought that both the breakfast and the views from the 9th floor restaurant were terrific. I did have Globalist status (not bothering with it this year because I am much less impressed with Hyatt generally than folks who write this blog). As for location, the hotel operated a complimentary shuttle (first come basis) to a convenient drop-off point. Since we liked to stay out past the scheduled return pick up, we found out about the public bus service (super cheap) from the tourist office. When returning to the hotel via bus, you need to find the steps to go down in order to cross under the busy street. Of course, at that time of year, we weren’t interested in using the pool — used the time to visit Athens — riding metro if we needed it.
Nice! How was the weather in early November?
Well it did not rain, and the weather was comfortable. I recall sitting on the outside upper terrace of the newish Acropolis museum drinking a Greek ice coffee. Best to check official weather reports, though. The weather permitted climbing up to the Acropolis — I cannot imagine how folks manage in the summer!