A Hyatt hotel in San Jose, California that seemed rather bare-bones despite advertising itself as a luxury boutique hotel but it is in a decent location. Globalists may want to consider another hotel if they want better benefits.

Booking

For this stay I ended up booking using cash since there were no award nights available and the cash price seemed reasonable. We ended up choosing the hotel in large part of my strategy to requalify for Hyatt’s Globalist status.

This hotel is a Category 4 with Hyatt, which means standard rooms go for between 12,000 and 18,000 points per night. You could also use a Category 1-4 free night award if you have one in your account. Ways of earning a Category 1-4 free night award include staying 30 nights with Hyatt annually and by staying at five separate brands within the Hyatt umbrella.

Earning Hyatt Points

If you’re looking to earn lots of Hyatt points quickly, you’ll want to stick with cards offered by Chase.

Full disclosure: the links below are standard refer-a-friend links where I may earn some Hyatt or Chase points for referring. There is no requirement to use the below referral links to apply but note your offer may differ when going directly to the card issuer.

Hyatt Credit Cards

Unlike other major hotel chains that offer a multitude of credit cards aimed at cardholders looking for premium travel and those looking for no annual fees, Hyatt only offers two credit cards: a personal credit card and a business credit card.

The current offer for the personal card will allow you to earn 20,000 points plus a $100 statement credit with $3,000 spend in the first three months, but I have to admit this is a very poor offer. Hyatt has had better offers in the past, so it may be worth holding out for a better offer if you don’t have an immediate need for the points at the moment.

The current offer for the business card is a bit stronger, earning 60,000 points with $5,000 spend in the first three months. They clearly are prioritizing business cards over personal cards right now with the disparity in the offers.

Chase Ultimate Rewards (UR)

Chase UR points transfer 1:1 to World of Hyatt points, so 1,000 points could be transferred into 1,000 Hyatt points. Chase UR is a flexible currency, so you have the option of transferring to other partners, such as Air France, British Airways, Singapore Airlines, United Airlines, or Marriott. This offer is for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card for 60k Chase UR points when you spend $4,000 in three months and represents a solid starter card in the world of travel rewards. If you have a small business, you could also consider one of Chase’s Ink business cards. Right now you could get up to 100k points at sign up, depending on the card you choose. These are elevated offers at the moment and are a fantastic way to rack up Chase UR points right away.

I do find myself frequently topping off my Hyatt points balance using Chase UR, so it is probably the better way to earn Hyatt points. The Hyatt card itself is better suited to those looking to earn Hyatt elite status.

Buy Points on Sale

It is possible to buy Hyatt points outright, but only consider it during a sale. The current sale through the November 28, 2022 adds a 25% bonus, costing you $19.20 for 1,000 points when buying at least 5,000 points. That’s the equivalent of paying about $288 USD for a room when it costs 15k points. They have had better deals lately, so it might be worth it to wait for a better deal before buying. I would say it’s probably not the best value to buy points strictly to stay at this hotel, but it potentially could make sense if you’re staying at an expensive time. Be sure to always check award availability before buying points.

Arrival and First Impressions

We drove to the hotel and I’ll admit we were a little confused on how parking works. There is only valet parking at the hotel and surprisingly enough, no one could be found working the valet. There were no open parking spots on our first pass through the hotel, but thankfully one opened up on our second pass. We parked there, but had to wait five minutes before we could flag down an employee.

I unfortunately don’t have a picture of the property’s exterior, but the one thing that stood out immediately was the choice of color. The exterior is a very pronounced pink color, making the property stand out significantly from all the other buildings in the area. So at the very least, it seemed easy to tell you’re at the right place.

At check-in, the agent seemed friendly enough and offered some wine to the adults. I won’t fault them for using cheap cups since it was cheap wine. 😉 No drinks were offered to the kids.

I have Globalist status with Hyatt, which is supposed to provide complimentary breakfast for two adults and two children. But I was surprised to hear that the hotel doesn’t offer any breakfast. The check in agent actually never mentioned anything about it during check in; I had to ask about it separately at the end after she gave me the keys. She gave recommendations of nearby restaurants but I’ll have to say I was disappointed by this answer. They have a restaurant open later in the day but not during breakfast. In exchange, the front desk offered a measly 500 Hyatt points, a far cry from the 2,500 Hyatt points hotels used to offer in the old Gold Passport program. And to top it off? The front desk never credited me with the 500 Hyatt points; it required me to reach out to my assigned concierge to handle the problem for me.

The Room

First of all, I need to apologize for the lack of pictures. Since we drove up from Southern California that same day, the kids were a bit exhausted so I didn’t have a chance to fully capture everything.

We were assigned room 314 — hurray for pi! The room felt cozy, but it was nice that the base room had two beds in it. The beds felt fine enough but that’s all that was really going on in the room. There was a small desk, which is good that the hotel still offers it (it saddens me that recent trends have been to remove the desk from the room), but the room felt like it lacked character. Ultimately it felt fine, albeit a bit sterile for a hotel advertising itself as “luxury boutique”.

The room was stocked with two bottles of Evian water, which is nicer than what the median hotel provides.

The bathroom had to be the nicest aspect of the room. It felt clean and modern and had a shower that could be turned on without risking getting sprayed with cold water as the pipes warm up. There was a lack of counter space aside the sink, but they made up for it with an extra ledge by the mirror. The real downside to the bathroom was the choice of toiletries. I hadn’t heard of Nest before, but I must admit the fragrance seemed fairly strong. If strong fragrances bother you, and especially if you have allergies, you might want to bring your own soap from home.

The window overlooked a busy intersection. That was a bit unfortunate as there was a lot of light pollution creeping into the room if you don’t keep the shades fully drawn. When waking up in the morning, I enjoy having the sunlight creep into the room to naturally wake me up and it seems to also work well for the kids. Sadly, being so close to a busy intersection, that wasn’t possible here. The hotel seemed to know the street noise can get loud and provided ear pugs. I just used a white noise app on my phone and we were good for the night.

Also awaiting us in the room was a bottle of wine. Similar to the wine at check in, they’re certainly not trying to wow customers with the quality but it was a nice touch regardless of the price. Many hotels these days have done away with welcome amenities so it is nice to see a hotel do it.

The Location

Like many hotels, finding a place near where you need to be is a strong driver of where to stay. This happened to be the closest Hyatt hotel to where we needed to be. That said, we didn’t get a chance to walk around outside but it did seem walkable to many places.

Odds and Ends

At check in, the hotel gave a card for guests to use to ask questions. The hotel provided Evian water in the room, but normally hotels charge extra for better brands. I sent in a simple question asking if the water in the room is complimentary. I got a default message and that was it. No one ever replied to me. The front desk made sure to emphasize the use of the card, so I’m perplexed why no one at least gave a simple answer.

So I decided to use the hotel phone to ask the same question, but the phone appeared to be dead. I could have gone down to the front desk in person to ask but at this point I felt like I was spending too much time for a simple question so we just drank the water and were never charged for it.

The gym here was on the smaller side and had no views of the outside. They buried the gym on the bottom floor, below street level. It covered all the basics and didn’t get crowded despite its size. And of course there is water here, if there was any doubt in the room.

And despite the hotel saying there was no breakfast provided, they had a box of donuts and coffee available by the front desk in the morning. Perhaps those waking up too late would never know it’s here but the kids certainly appreciated the sweet morning treats.

Recommendation: Maybe

I’m a bit on the fence with this hotel. I wouldn’t consider this hotel for an extended stay given the lack of amenities and service. But we ended up staying here only one night, so some of those issues didn’t stand out as much. I can see this hotel working if you need to be in the city all day, and perhaps go out at night, and just need a place to crash. And it certainly doesn’t feel worth it for Globalist members to go there given the cheap alternative offered in place of breakfast, though getting donuts was a pleasant surprise–I just don’t know if providing donuts is a normal procedure or if it was just a one-off. This hotel feels roughly comparable to the nearby Hyatt Place, which isn’t necessarily bad by itself, but just don’t come in with high expectations and you’ll be OK. It remains a decent (though not stellar) use of a Category 1-4 certificate.

In the end, I felt like I got my money’s worth and would return if I need to be in this area, but hopefully next time I can get a room further away from the intersection.