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

Full disclosure: in this section are refer-a-friend links where I may earn some 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.

Chase has a couple of cards that earn Ultimate Rewards points that can transfer to Hyatt at a 1:1 rate:

• The Chase Sapphire Preferred card (refer-a-friend link) that offers 75,000 points for spending $5,000 in the first three months.
• There is currently a limited-time offer (refer-a-friend link) on the Chase Ink Business Preferred that gives an excellent 100,000 points for spending $8,000 in the first three months.

The Hyatt personal credit card (not an affiliate link) offers a 30,000 point bonus when spending $3,000 in three months. On top of that, you get 2X earnings during the first six months until you reach $15,000 in spend. At most, this is a 45,000 card for spending $15,000–and most certainly not the 60,000 bonus it claims disingenuously claims. But, on the bright side, if that $15,000 spend happens within the same calendar year, you’ll also get six elite night credits and a Category 1-4 free night certificate.

The small business version of the Hyatt credit card (refer-a-friend link) offers a limited-time 80,000 point bonus when spending $10,000 in three months. The main appeal here is the easier path towards earning elite status (5 elite night credit for every $10,000 in spend per calendar year), but it also gives up to $100 back on Hyatt purchases.

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.