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Last week, my wife, son, and I vacationed in California at the Hyatt Carmel Highlands. The hotel is on Highway 1 just south of Carmel and just north of Big Sur. The Hyatt Carmel Highlands is a Hyatt category 6 hotel. As such, rooms are available for 25,000 points per night. And suites are available for 40,000 points per night. We opted, instead, to pay with Points + Cash: 12,500 points & $150 per night.
During the brief period in which Hyatt was matching almost everyone to Diamond status, my wife was able to match her Hilton Gold status to Hyatt Diamond (and she later matched her Hyatt Diamond to Hilton Diamond!). With her new found Hyatt Diamond status, she had 4 suite upgrade certificates that would expire at the end of February. So, we called to apply one of the upgrades. Interestingly, online, the Points + Cash rate was not available for one of the nights we wanted, but the phone agent was able to book it without trouble. And, the upgrade too was easily applied. We then had a confirmed booking in the Ocean View Townhouse Spa Suite which would otherwise sell for $689 per night:
I previously wrote that those without Diamond status can book the Points + Cash rate and then use 6,000 points per night to upgrade, for a total of $150 (+ taxes) and 18,500 points per night. It turns out, though, that Hyatt cannot combine points + cash with 6000 point upgrades. As far as I know, the only options for those without Diamond status are: 1) Book a suite for 40,000 points per night (3 night stay minimum); 2) Book a regular room and check to see if you are offered an option to buy up to a suite via the eStandby program (one commenter was offered the upgrade for only $39 per night); 3) Book the suite directly; or 4) Book a two night package through their timeshare sales department and negotiate an upgrade (I have no idea if this would work, but its worth a try). You can find their timeshare offer here.
The Hyatt Carmel Highlands suite is a two story townhouse with a living room (which has a comfortable pull-out sofa) and fireplace), kitchen, and bathroom on the main floor. The master bedroom & bath is downstairs.
Hyatt Carmel Highlands Review
Overall, we loved the vacation. The Hyatt Carmel Highlands and the surrounding area are incredibly beautiful. Thanks to having diamond status, breakfast in their California Market restaurant was free. If we didn’t have diamond status, though, we could have easily made more use of the suite’s full kitchen. We passed on the hotel’s extremely expensive dinner restaurant: Pacific Edge, but we did order room service a couple of times and it was very good. On Valentine’s Day we had reservations for the restaurant, but cancelled. We later learned that we missed out on dining with Robert Redford. Bummer.
Our townhouse suite was very comfortable, and the views from the suite balcony were amazing. Going north, the hotel is only about a mile from the incredible Point Lobos State Park. A few miles past there, you get to the beautiful towns of Carmel and Pacific Grove. And, just past Pacific Grove, you’ll find the famous Monterey Aquarium. Just to the south of the hotel is perhaps the most stunning parts of Highway 1 – in the area called Big Sur.
I’ll let photos do the rest of the speaking…
Living Room:
View from balcony (looking to the right):
Sunset view from balcony (looking to the left):
Kitchen:
Full bathroom on main floor:
Master bedroom (downstairs):
Master bathroom (downstairs):
Point Lobos State Park:
Pacific Grove:
Monterey Aquarium:
Bixby Bridge (on Highway 1, south of Carmel Highlands):
Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park (on Highway 1, south of Carmel Highlands):
Andrew Molera State Park (on Highway 1, south of Carmel Highlands):
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[…] Would I stay again? Yep! If I return I would probably mix a few nights here with a few nights at an oceanfront property such as the nearby Hyatt Carmel Highlands. […]
[…] it to somewhere warm. In the past, that “somewhere” has included California (e.g. Hyatt Carmel Highlands), and Hawaii, but more often than not we end up in southern Florida (Learning Scuba and feeding […]
[…] the end of our fantastic stay at the Hyatt Carmel Highlands, I stopped at the front desk to check out. We had booked 5 nights with points & cash, for […]
[…] seeing Greg the Frequent Miler’s report on this hotel I was sold. Without being able to take our son out of school, the calendar looked tight. Thankfully […]
After looking at those pictures. Last time I was there was 5 years ago. I can’t wait to go back again. Thanks for sharing and reminding me.
FM: What was the itinerary for your trip? (Where did you fly into, and how long did you spend in Carmel and anywhere else?) Trying to plan a trip to that area myself.
Flew into SFO. Arrived Sat night. Stayed first night at Marriott SFO Waterfront. Hertz car was supposed to be waiting for us at the hotel the next morning but was actually at a different Marriott so we had to Uber over there to pick up the car (Hertz was no help). Drove to Hyatt on Sunday. Friday returned to Marriott SFO Waterfront for one night since we had a 6:15 am flight the next morning. Was able to leave car there.
Sunday: most of day spend driving through horrible traffic. Arrived at glorious property and didn’t want to get back in car. Ordered room service, watched sunset, time in hot tub near pool, talked with neighbors on next balcony. Was a great evening actually
Activities during week there: lots of hiking; drove the $10 17 mile drive (and stopped often to climb rocks and walk about); Monterrey aquarium; drove scenic oceanside road from aquarium through Pacific Grove (just as nice as 17 mile drive in my opinion and free); and did the Carmel Food tour (great way to experience Carmel if you like wine)
Carmel Food Tour? You and your food tours teaching old dogs new tricks.
On a somewhat unrelated note (I did not know where else to post this), I recently (early February) went to the Hyatt Zilara Rose Hall using my wife’s and my free nights from the credit card sign up. We used three nights, and booked a standard room over the phone with the gold passport service. When we arrived, we were told that we were upgraded to a swim up suite for free! They told us we were upgraded simply because I was a platinum member (automatic with the credit card)! The only explanation I could think of was that we were there at a slow time of the year. We loved it, and it was definitely a good use of the free nights for us!
Great!
I should know the answer to this, but if you book with cash + points, do you then earn points for your stay (where booking with points would not earn any points for the stay)? Thank you
Yes, you earn points for the cash portion and you earn elite night/stay credits
[…] Yesterday’s post about the Hyatt Carmel Highlands was initially full of errors. In the original version of the post, I had transformed Turkey […]
Here is my Loyalty Traveler post of the two condors I saw on 12-12-12 feeding on a sea lion carcass. http://loyaltytraveler.boardingarea.com/2012/12/12/wild-california-condors-of-big-sur/
As far as mis-identification of birds goes, when I was at TBEX Toronto in 2013, I went on a canoe paddle tour and the guide pointed out a swan, stating it was a rare Trumpeter Swan. I took about a hundred photos and later that same day saw another similar looking swan (same one?) and took dozens more photos.
After posting my photos and stating how remarkably fortunate I was to see two rare trumpeter swans in one day, I did research and realized the color markings were wrong. I had photographed a common species Mute Swan.
Great photos Ric! I especially like this line in your post: “I hear tourists around Big Sur often mistake them for condors.”
That location is in my top 5 in the world for sheer beauty. Plus the speak English and it’s not island food! Thanks for the write up.
Wow, I was wrong about the suite upgrades! Just called Hyatt Gold Passport and spoke with an agent and then a supervisor who both confirmed that you cannot apply 6,000 point upgrades to a points+cash stay. I will update the post ASAP.
Like others, I need to find out if suite upgrades are possible for non-elites. I’m thinking about pickinng up the Hyatt CC and as such would have 2 free nights. However, we’d need a suite (travelling with a 19 month old is not fun otherwise). Like others, I need to find out what the rules are for suite upgrade (in my case I would have 2 free nights + points/cash for additional nights possibly). I’ll probably have to call and ask, although I’m not always confident I’d get accurate information. Hoping someone else can chime in with any experience with this..
Unfortunately, you cannot apply a suite upgrade to a free night booked entirely with points or with free night vouchers. Your best bet (if you go the Hyatt credit card route) is to book one night with points & cash and upgrade that with points (assuming it can be done — I believe so) and then book the next two nights with your certificate. Then, hope that the hotel is generous enough to keep you in the suite for the whole stay.
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Another option is to get Ultimate Rewards points (by signing up for the Sapphire Preferred or Ink Plus card, for example), then transfer points to Hyatt, then book points + cash, then upgrade with 6,000 points per night.
Sounds like hyatt free nights aren’t very valuable for non-elites who will only stay at suites?
If I go with YMMV option#1 and book 1-2 nights on cash+ points w/ 6k suite upgrade and then use the two free night certs on the back end and they opt to boot us mid-stay my wife wouldn’t be too pleased! Thoughts on calling the hotel and asking directly? It’s one of those things where I’m not sure if its wise to call but at the same time I’m not interested in YMMV being told to pay up or leave the suite mid-stay.
I have plenty of points, enough to cover the entire 3-4 night stay in fact. My main goal was capitalizing on the Hyatt CC before the ship sails and the Carmel location has been on my radar for a while now.
Well, I was wrong. You can’t apply suite upgrades to Points + Cash stays. Sorry!
Noooo!! Holding out hope the supervisor was the one who trained the agent and both are wrong? 🙁
We were in room 504 in early Feb. Great property and location!
A couple notes:
1) The sofa is a pullout, great for parking the kiddos upstairs. Not so great when you have to trot up and down to find lost blankies, etc.
2) The jacuzzi tub in our room had weird controls. The handles weren’t labelled for hot/cold, nor for direction of on/off, nor did they have stops at end of travel. So we kept having to futz with them to figure them out, it is idiotic ergonomics. Also the jacuzzi tub has some push-button controls for the jets with icons, and no placard, so you have to experiment to figure it out. We had the problem repeatedly that we couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. We’d hit something that would seem to turn it off, then 20 minutes later it’d come back on and the 2nd time same button would shut it off. We got in habit of not draining water for some while just to make sure jets wouldn’t come back on while empty of water.
3) There is a Safeway a few miles north on the right.
Lovely property, will probably burn more DSU here!
Great additions. Thanks
Nice review! I’m scheduled to visit this hotel next week and booked an ocean view king with my free Chase Hyatt Visa nights. It looks like a spectacular place. One question though-my sense is that the hotel is technically above or east of Hwy 1 even though you cannot see Hwy 1 between you and the ocean in any of your or the hotel’s pictures. If this is the case, did you ever hear any road noise coming off Hwy 1?
My thanks again for the excellent presentation!
Highway 1 is down through the trees. Not really a problem. At night very few cars on that road anyway. We left the small windows open at night to keep the room cool, and nothing woke us up. YMMV.
Yes, the road is between the hotel and the ocean, but I never noticed any road noise. However, we could usually hear crashing waves. I love that sound.