My wife and I recently spent three nights at the Royal Palms Resort and Spa in Scottsdale, Arizona. We would have happily stayed much longer. We booked a premium suite for $183 plus 9,000 Hyatt points per night. That was an awesome deal compared to paying either around $1,000 per night or 50,000 points per night for the same suite. For details, see the section “Booking the deal” later in this post.
Royal Palms Resort and Spa Bottom Line Review
We loved this resort. Resort grounds were gorgeous, food was very good, employees were friendly, self-parking was super easy, and Globalist elite benefits were excellent.
- Points Price & Value: This is a category 6 hotel which means that standard rooms would cost 25K points per night standard, 21K off-peak, and 29K peak. There weren’t any standard rooms available, though, so we booked the standard room rate plus paid 9K points per night to upgrade to a premium suite. Details are in a separate section below.
- Resort Fee: $39.40 per night. This fee is waived if you book an award stay or if you have Hyatt Globalist status.
- Parking: $23 per night. This fee is waived for Hyatt Globalists on award stays. I actually forgot that this benefit is limited to award stays and asked them to waive the fee at check-out due to my status. They did.
- Turndown service: Yep. Each evening when we returned from dinner we found that our room’s curtains had been closed and extra water bottles had been left in the room. They usually also left chocolate mints or candies, but they seem to have forgotten to do so on one of our three nights.
- Housekeeping: Daily service.
- Internet: Excellent.
- Dining
- Breakfast: Very good. We enjoyed eating at the restaurant’s outdoor courtyard every morning. Strategically placed heaters made this very comfortable. Our breakfasts were completely free thanks to my Hyatt Globalist status. Even the tips we paid were waived. One morning the waiter brought us a special treat, on the house: warm chocolate filled beignets. Delicious!
- Dinner: One evening we ate dinner at the resort’s highly regarded restaurant, T Cooks. It was good, but I didn’t think it lived up to the hype. Since we ate there on a Monday evening, there’s a good chance that the head chef wasn’t on duty at the time. That’s just my guess.
- Spa: Yep, but we didn’t try it.
- Fitness Room: The resort has a two story fitness center with plenty of equipment to work out with.
- Other: Free bike rentals are available upon request. We didn’t do this, but it would be easy to bike to downtown Scottsdale along the canal.
- Hyatt Globalist Elite Benefits:
- Upgrade: We booked directly into one of the resort’s best suites and so I was not surprised or disappointed that we weren’t upgraded. After checking out the higher level options (found here), though, I would love to get upgraded to the Presidential Villa, Montavista Courtyard Villa, or Arcadia Villa in the future.
- Club Lounge: None.
- Free Breakfast: High quality with menu service at T Cook’s Restaurant. All charges, including gratuity, were waived.
- 4PM Late Checkout: We didn’t need it and so we didn’t request it.
- Welcome amenity: Some hotels offer elite guests a special welcome gift. In our case, they brought a very welcome bottle of wine with cheese and toast to our room.
- Waived Resort Fees: This happened automatically.
- Free Parking: Technically parking is free for Hyatt Globalists only on award stays. We were on a paid stay with a points upgrade (there’s a difference!). I forgot that this benefit is limited to award stays and asked them to waive the fee at check-out due to my status. They did.
- Would I stay again? Definitely!
- Would I travel to the area just to stay here again? I wouldn’t necessarily travel to Phoenix just to stay here, but I would definitely pick Royal Palms to return to next time I’m in the Phoenix area.
Booking the deal
When I went to book the Royal Palm’s resort, I was disappointed to find that no standard rooms were available. My plan was to book a standard room and use one of my suite upgrade awards to upgrade to a suite. Fortunately, I found a fantastic alternative.
The images above aren’t exactly what I saw when I booked this hotel (I forgot to take screenshots), but they’re close. Basically, I could either pay extremely high cash rates (over $700 per night) for a suite or very high point rates (40K per night for a standard suite or 50K for a premium suite). Or I could pay very high Points Plus Cash rates. Or, I could upgrade…
Look at the column above that says “Upgrade Premium Suite from $238 + 9,000 Points”. That’s the sweet spot here! In my case, the cash component was even lower, but it’s still a great deal at $238. Hyatt lets you pay a standard rate for a standard or deluxe room and upgrade to either a standard suite for 6K points per night or to a premium suite for 9K points per night. With a difference of only 3K points per night, it was a no-brainer for me to go for the premium suite.
When I chose the Upgrade Premium Suite Option, I was given my choice of a few suite types. I toggled over to the cash rates to see which was most expensive and then toggled back and picked that one: Camelback View Corner Suite with Terrace.
For more about booking Hyatt suites, see: How best to book Hyatt luxury suites.
Photos and captions follow
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My goodness, how impressive
You’re showing inventive ideas
You’re spot on with T Cook’s dinner…it is still surviving on its glory days of the 90s. Beautiful resort and ambiance, really tranquil, but T Cook’s desperately needs a refresh.
My wife and I stayed there in January as well. Actually we were there the day after Xmas and stayed 2 weeks.
We absolutely loved it and will go back this year. Most of the areas to hike were closed but I did hike up to the homes in the background there.
The breakfast was amazing!! Highly recommend. The pool bar as well.
Based on the room you were in, we were right above you in a corner unit.
Its funny, your deal was amazing but we got our room for $155 per night and 5000 points. All fees waved as well.
I Highly recommend it.
I think what is really cool here is that it is only 3.8 miles to Scottsdale Stadium. Even better is that this spring it should be empty as the MLB owners are not going to pay the entry level employees so everyone should see some really GREAT DEALS at this property as it’s going to be empty?!
no chocolates one night of your stay, wow, that is horrible! now back to the real world where homeless people living in the street are everywhere
Loved my stay there last March. Classy feeling place. Pool area is a bit small – doesn’t matter in chilly January but it was a bit hard to wander up and get a good chair in March. Breakfasts were great and good service throughout the resort. Booked a Hyatt Prive package since wasn’t Globalist at the time and wanted breakfasts plus qualifying nights but would definitely try Greg’s approach next time.
Hi Greg-Can you clarify if you paid $$ for the standard room rate ($742 members
Rate) PLUS $183 and 9,000 points? Thx!
No, I paid only $183 + 9K. $183 was apparently the standard room rate, but no standard rooms were available. The $742 member rate was for a suite.
Beaitiful property, location, & suite at a good price – you’re the best trip finder, Greg!
Am I right that the real “deal” when it comes to the Upgrade Premium Suite is when there is a big gap between standard/base room rates (or deluxe room rates at resorts) and suites? My experience looking at a handful of aspirational hyatt resort properties is that the base/standard room rate is high, with suite prices a relatively small increase (IE $1,000/$1,300/$1,600). For someone trying to use points to save cash, these scenarios I described aren’t really useful for the Upgrade Premium Suite option, as you’re paying a huge standard/base room rate, then getting very little value above that for your points. You might say “If suites aren’t much more expensive than standard rooms, just pay for the suite,” but the problem is that suites aren’t much more expensive in cash rates, but are MUCH more expensive (50%, 100%) in points rates, and I would never pay the cash rate for a base room (that’s why I collect points). Thanks!
PS – I wish you had posted a screenshot of the standard/base cash rate in addition to the suite cash rates.
Standard rooms weren’t available for cash or for points so I couldn’t post that
That makes sense, thanks! That makes that an even better deal then if no standard rooms were available. To my above point (this deal works when standard rooms are cheap, suites are really really expensive), I’d be curious if you’d ever do a post covering what types of property (region/brand/city/beach/resort/price-point/award category/etc) and/or what specific properties tend to have this delta between standard and suite rates. I see now that this logic also appears in your linked ‘How best to book Hyatt luxury suites’ article, but I didn’t see any advice there about what types of properties or specific properties (or times of the year, etc.) exhibit this opportunity.Thanks for all you do, love the content!
Yes, you’re right. Whether or not a suite upgrade is a good value depends largely on several factors such as room rates, suite rates, and even hotel category. For the latter, consider a category 1 Hyatt where standard point rates are 5K for a room, 8k for a standard suite, and 10k for a premium suite. In that case, it would be crazy to pay the cash room rate plus 9K points to upgrade to a premium suite since you can get the premium suite for only 10k points per night without any cash component.
I loved this place too during our pandemic Christmas a year ago. Their avocado toast set the bar for me and nobody has done better so far.
Oh man, now I have to go back. I didn’t try the avocado toast.
Phoenix area native, though I moved away after my first 38 years. While I get the winter escape idea, I don’t see the appeal of Tucson or Phoenix and why anyone wants to vacation there, let alone live there.
Reminds me of when I was flying from Minnesota back home to Wash DC with my young son. A woman asked my son if we were going to DC for vacation and he said “No, we are going home, why would anyone go to DC for a vacation?!?!” Sometimes you don’t see the appeal when it’s “home.”
I understand that logic too. To be fair I love Arizona. Flagstaff, Prescott, lots of other high country areas like Payson, obviously the Grand Canyon, Horseshoe Bend, Window Rock, Monument Valley. I just don’t get the draw of Phoenix or Tucson. Only Vegas is less appealing to me in the southwest, and I’ve been there plenty.
Wow, great find! How did you get to be Hyatt Globalist level, (I am currently a hilton person though with downgrades, might not be for long)
A lot of folks around here did the easy path Globalist last year where the requirements were halved and you could get double nights by stacking a couple of promotions at the beginning of 2021. I believe Nick and Greg went this route and they wrote about it around this time last year.
Earn 60 “Elite Nights” in one year. Those can be paid or points stays, or miles earned from credit card spending (2 nights per $5K spend on the personal card or 5 nights per $10K spend on the business card). Also, you get 5 nights for “free” just for having the credit card. There may also be challenges available to earn status more quickly if you have status with Hilton.
Great review and the photos were perfect. The exterior lighting in the evening is very special. I really appreciate when a place invests in great lighting at night. Places can be built with the most beautiful exteriors and decor, but without the proper accent lighting at night, it’s not the same place.
I just took your advice and booked it in February for 9,000 points plus $238 per night.
As a globalist I didn’t expect to be charged $39.90 per night resort fee.
I called the globalist hotline to be told resort fees are only waived if I paid for the room with 100% points, not cash plus 9k.
They were mistaken. You won’t be charged