One of Our Favorites: The Thompson Central Park NYC

An excellent luxury hotel in New York City with friendly service and great benefits. The hotel is located near Central Park and close enough to other tourist attractions without feeling like you’re in the crowds.

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Booking

The Thompson Central Park is a category 6 hotel in the World of Hyatt program. That means free nights cost between 21,000 and 29,000 Hyatt points per night. For our two nights here, we used 50,000 points. While it was a lot of points, it seemed far better than the cash price, which was over $600/night for the nights we were here. New York City is an expensive city and hotel prices are no exception. It’s difficult to find reasonable points prices here and given we were looking for something nearby Central Park, this seemed like our best option.

While I could have considered other hotel chains, I was looking for a 4PM late checkout (since our flight out of NYC would be departing at 8PM), having breakfast covered for us would be a plus, and we wanted to try something new this time. So using my Hyatt Globalist status seemed perfect.

Earning World of 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 arrived at JFK airport around 4PM and decided to take the subway over to the hotel. The Thompson is conveniently located at a stop where a transfer isn’t necessary–you just take the E line the 7th Ave stop and then it’s a short walk to the hotel. Being able to avoid transfers when carrying luggage is a big help.

Upon getting into the hotel, we were quickly helped by the front desk, who proactively offered a 4PM late checkout. I noticed on the Hyatt app that I hadn’t been automatically upgraded from the base room I booked, so I politely asked if any upgrades were available. The agent gladly said that yes there were upgrades, but since the room I booked had two beds and the suite only had one bed with a pull-out sofa, they didn’t automatically process it for me. I accepted the upgrade and he asked if I needed anyone to come to the room to prepare the pull-out sofa. I declined the kind gesture, since we can all sleep comfortably on a king bed.

The Room

We were assigned room 2316 and noticed the hallway was a bit dark but only around our room. We didn’t realize it at first but it appeared that a light fixture was missing outside our door. Not sure what happened there.

We entered the room and were impressed by the layout. It definitely helps getting a suite when traveling with kids for the extra space to spread out. New York City tends to have small rooms that also feel very cramped and so the extra space here was welcomed. The only thing missing was that the suite was more of a loft rather than a true suite with a separate bedroom. The TV in the center of the room could pivot, enabling watching from both the bed and the couch (but of course not both at the same time), while the other side of the TV was a mirror. When we went to sleep, we had the TV side facing us as the kids would get distracted by the mirror when trying to fall asleep.

We didn’t try it out, but the sofa opens up into a bed. You would just have to move the circular coffee table to make room and thankfully there would have been enough room to easily move that table aside.

The bedroom also had AC units under each window. At first I thought it was a low-quality feature of the room, but it turned out we needed to dry off some clothes during our stay and resting the clothes on top of the AC units proved beneficial for this trip so I guess I can’t complain here.

The bathroom felt clean with a modern design. There weren’t any critical issues with the bathroom, thankfully. They provided giant-sized toiletries by Bowmakers, and we found them quite good. I far prefer this over the tacky-looking wall-mounted variety of toiletries. And kudos to them for attention to detail—while we were only provided three towels on arrival, they instead provided four when housekeeping made up the room for the second night of our stay.

*Housekeeping proactively gave us four towels*

The room overlooked office buildings frequently populated with people so I didn’t take a picture of it. However, the view from the hallway while waiting for an elevator was nice and faced the direction of Central Park.

Breakfast

At check-in, the front desk noted that as part of my Globalist status that breakfast would be covered at Parker’s and it would cover one entree, one hot drink, and one cold drink for each of us. The generous breakfast benefit is a big reason why I seek out Hyatt properties.

Parker’s has a bit of an outdoors feel to it, surrounded by plants and shrubs. I think they did a good job with the ambience. Service was quick, efficient, and friendly. One of the staff members even put on an impromptu magic show for the kids, further highlighting the quality of the service here.

I don’t have a good picture of the menu given the multiple light sources here, but we ended up trying many things. I particularly enjoyed Healthier Elvis and the bananas were perfectly brûléed and gave a good crisp to go with the rest of the breakfast. On the second day, I went with the Turkey Chorizo Scramble. I found it to be a bit on the dense side and wasn’t overly salty as dishes with chorizo always seem to be. Alex attempted the All American breakfast the first day but he didn’t prefer the hash browns and so opted for Char’s favorite breakfast: a bowl of fresh fruit.

Overall, this felt like a perfect start to the day and kept us satisfied until lunch.

*Breakfast menu (I apologize for the shadows)*

*Drink menu* *(again, apologies for the shadows)*

Odds and Ends

The only thing I feel that’s necessary to call out here was the dinner on property. We were hoping to go to the burger restaurant, but there always seemed to be long lines. The restaurant also feels awkwardly placed down a random hallway next to a giant area covered by red curtains. I’m not sure if the curtains are a permanent fixture but it feels like a weird setup and distracts from the rest of the vibe in the hotel. It’s one of those things that feels like you have to be “in the know” to know it exists but by the size of the wait, it’s certainly not a big secret. Since the kids were starving, we didn’t get a chance to eat here.

*The burger restaurant hidden in a hallway*

Recommendation: Yes

I feel the hotel covers the three big components of a good stay: the room was comfortable, the service was friendly and professional, and the hotel is located in a great spot away enough from the mobs of tourists but close enough to where we wanted to be. If you’re in the area, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend this hotel.

Author

Chris Wada

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food.wada.travel

experiencing the world via gastronomy with our children