Review: Grand Hyatt Denver

Back in September I wrote about our many culinary adventures in breakfast and beer while in Denver and I realized I never wrote about our stay at the Grand Hyatt Denver. For our stay we paid for one night for $150 and cashed in 12,000 Chase UR points for the next night.

The hotel is located in the middle of downtown Denver and is a perfect place if you want to walk all over downtown like we did. It's just a few blocks from the 16th Street Pedestrian Mall which is a great spot to go for shopping and food. It also features a free bus route to take you up and down the pedestrian mall if you don't feel like walking. This location is also perfect to walk over to the LoDo district which has lots of great restaurants and unique shopping as well as the Rockies baseball stadium.

Kelsey flew in early in the day so she checked us in and the hotel was great about leaving a key for me at the front desk for when I arrived. We were given a free upgrade to a "corner king" room which was just a bit larger than the regular king room.

The best part about this room is that we were at the end of the hallway. I like being farther away from the elevators as it is usually much quieter than the middle of the hallway where people can often be heard coming and going at all hours of the day. The hotel was very quiet and modern, but nothing spectacular.

The room had an entryway that led into the main bedroom which featured a large king bed, a flat-screen tv, dresser/desk combo and a large window overlooking parts of downtown Denver. The living area was laid out a bit strange though since the tv was sitting on the dresser and was only really able to be viewed from certain angles from bed and the desk. On the right side of the room was the bathroom with marble tiled bath/shower combo, again nice, but nothing special.

Entrance 

Bed/TV

Dresser/Desk 

Bathroom and Closet

Overall the hotel was nice for what we needed, which was as a base to explore the city from. But everything else was just average. The staff was nice, but not nice for any longer than they had to be. Every time I went to the desk I had to wait at least a few minutes before being helped. When we were getting ready to leave we enquired about check out and were told it wasn't available, despite having status with Hyatt. They simply wouldn't budget and the lady who checked us out was more interested in gossiping to her co-worker than helping us find the best way to the airport. So those interactions made a nice hotel turn into just an average hotel.

"View" of downtown Denver 

Hotel Flexibility by Chris

As a result of getting both of the American Airlines credit cards using the well-publicized 2 browser trick, Kelsey and I have four companion certificates between the two of us.

While this is a great benefit, the bad thing is that the certificates expire on November 30th! But the good part is that it means we have lots of travel coming up. We are in the back-end of our first trip on a companion pass to visit my parents in Seattle. In four weeks we are headed to Chicago to visit a few of Kelsey's friends, and her parents and relatives are driving up to meet us as well.

Kelsey's parents used points to book a hotel at the Grand Hyatt Magnificent Mile and I figured that at 15,000 points for a reward night it would be a good value for us as well. So I went through and transferred the points from Chase via my Chase Sapphire Card. The points transferred instantly and so I went through the booking process only to find that the Hyatt was fully booked and no reward nights were available. The only rate available was $450 for one night!!! Wayyyyyy beyond our budget so we will end up bunking up with her parents for a night.

The real problem is....what to do with those 15,000 points I have sitting in my Hyatt account.

I brilliantly (it happens very rarely :p) remembered that we were paying $300 for two nights at a Double Tree in Denver and could cancel it without any penalty. So I called up Hyatt to check for availability in Denver and found that I could get a free night at the Grand Hyatt Denver and just pay $150 for the second night!

The lesson I learned from this story is to not panic if the plans don't go exactly as you want them to. One perfectly laid plan can adapt to help you in another trip.

Hope you are all having a wonderful Labor Day!