Do It For The Points!: Hilton Gold

Saturday, June 22, 2013

End of the Year Trip: Tokyo Hilton, Where I Expected to Meet Don Draper

Introduction
Tale of Two Lounges - Dulles Airport
Onward to Tokyo - First Class United & ANA Dreamliner
Castle in the Clouds - Park Hyatt Tokyo
Day Trip to Kamakura
Tokyo Hilton
A Blast From the Past - American First Class
Tale of Two Lounges - Narita Airport
The Joan Rivers Hotel - W Chicago Lakeside
Wrap-Up of Trip

When I was planning for the trip, I wanted to limit my cash out of pocket. Therefore, I knew that I needed to use points to pay for some of the last three nights in Tokyo. The Hilton was two blocks away for the Hilton and I was sitting on about 75,000 points, so I was pretty sure I was going to stay here for the last three nights in Tokyo.

The majority of my 75,000 points came from applying for the American Express Hilton, a great card. At that time, the card had a 50,000 sign-up bonus, but more importantly, no annual fee - making it a great credit card to get and keep to strength my credit score.

At that time, rooms were going for 40,000 points a night. My goal was to pay for 1 night in cash and use points for 2 nights. To earn the last 5,000 points, I decided to transfer 4,500 points from my eRewards account. For the last 500, I paid cash, which is an option that Hilton allows you to do when booking award stays. Initially, I was going to pay $300 for the last night. I shuddered at the thought about paying that much, but could justify since it was the only night on the trip that would cost me money. However, as I wrote here, Hilton had a 50% sale for stays in December 2012 on participating hotels. Luckily, the Tokyo Hilton was participating and the cost of my night dropped to $154 USD, SCORE! Three nights for $165 USD + 80,000 points.

Back to the trip report....

The Tokyo Hilton is located two blocks away from the Hyatt. I decided to take a cab, because of the size and number of my bags I had. The cost $12 for 2-3 blocks.

The hotel lobby is massive. The check-in desk is deep back in a corner.

Check-in was not smooth. My goal was to get a room on the club level. Prior to my trip, I called the customer service number to request a room on the club level. The representative told me that as a Gold my request would be granted. When I arrived at 5:30 pm, the check-in representative told me my non-smoking room on the fifth floor was ready. I asked for an upgrade to club level and was told there was nothing available. A little pushing and 20 minutes later, I was on my way to a smoking room on the club level.

The room had a distinct 50s feel. The wood paneling, weird carpeting, and red chair made me feel like I was going to see Don Draper at the bar.

The bathroom was typical hotel size. No Park Hyatt, but good enough:

What I didn't under stand was this glass partion in the shower. It served very little purpose, because it only covered some of the tub. Also, one part of the partion swung out a little, but nothing to a massive degree in one direction or another.

The other strange thing about the bathroom was the mirror. It never completely fogged over:

How does this happen? It was super helpful for shaving directly after showering.

My room had decent views:

The reason why I pushed for Club access was for a place to go and relax and get food.

I was provided this letter at check-in about the club:

As you can see, the club offers food/snacks throughout the day. What I did't expect was the quality of the food. My first night, I went down for Cocktails and appetizers:

Look at this breakfast spread:

And afternoon tea:

Having access to the lounge was helpful. I saved a ton of money on not having to eat out for breakfast. Given as a Gold member of Hilton, I would have been given free breakfast at the restaurant downstairs. But the access to the lounge was more than just breakfast, it was access to a place to relax and have a drink or snack.

The hotel has a gym and pool. One must sign in to use either as I learned the hard way:

The hotel's closest metro stop is M7 - Nishi-Shinjuku.

The hotel actually has its own exit into the tunnel leads toward the subway ie no having to walk outside. From the hotel, the exit to the subway is near the Hiltopia Shopping Arcade.

The second floor of the hotel had many sit-down restaurants. They were all a little out of my price range:

Overall, the stay was good. After staying with the Park Hyatt, my expectations of what a hotel should be were pretty high. If I just stayed at the Hilton, I would have thought the stay was amazing. My only complaint was check-out. It was a cluster fuck. They demanded everyone out at noon, but then did not have the staff to check-out people. The line, as seen below, was 30 to 40 people deep.

The hotel had a 1950s feel, which is cool. However, the hotel was trying to stray away from it and become modern. The 1950s, Mad Men, is hip now. I would play up that old school hotel, you would be surprised how many people would probably dig it.

In the end, I never met Don Draper at the hotel bar, but had a good stay. I would come back.

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Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Average Hotel Room That Deserves 5 Stars

On our trip to Colorado Springs, Chris and I decided to stay at the Doubletree and not at the conference hotel, Cheyenne Mountain Resort. Looking back, we probably should have stayed at the hotel and saved us late night car rides back to the hotel

The Doubletree is located right off the exit for 25, which one takes from the airport and sandwiched between many big box stores. It’s a fairly large hotel.

The weekend, we were in Colorado Springs, happened to be the beginning of the Wounded Warrior games. It is a great event and one can learn more here.

The Doubletree happened to be one of the hotels that hosted families of the athletes participating in the games. Therefore, the hotel was crowded and had tons of activity in its lobby with various representatives of Veteran’s organizations having booths.

The hotel has two shuttles that pick-up and drop off to the airport.

Due to the large number of people coming in for the games, both shuttles were in use. Chris and I got a rental car for the weekend, but its nice to know that option was available, because the airport is about a 15 minute drive from the hotel. From what I saw, both drivers brought bottle water and the famous cookies for people to snack on in the vans. I don’t know if this is a normal occurrence or special for this weekend.

We check-in slightly after 2pm on a Friday. The check-in process took longer than expected because they were so crowded and many rooms were not cleaned. As we waited, the line behind us started to grow to almost 10 people waiting to check-in. Out of nowhere, three additional staff members came to check people in. To help the process, one employee went to those waiting in line to get their names and get the keys to their rooms ready before they reach the check-in line. This proactive service was something I saw all weekend with the staff at the Doubletree. We came back to the lobby 15 minutes after we check-in to leave for the conference and the line was gone…so their system must have worked.

Our room was on the 5th floor and had two double beds:

As you cans see the hotel room was average: a good sized TV, large desk, two comfy beds, and plenty of easy to reach electrical outlets. The room served its purpose, a place to sleep, shower, and dress. What more could one ask? The refrigerator and microwave were nice touches, but we did not use either.

Another major plus was the glass door. The hotel is located right next to a major road, but we never heard the noise. At night, I heard nothing except the sound of Chris snoring. The immediate view was less than desirable.

But step out on the balcony and look left and all I can say is WOW!

Yes, this view amazed me. I am a city boy, so we don’t get these views from a hotel balcony. Both Chris and I were awed just looking up to the sky and seeing the stars. It’s the little things that amaze us.

As Gold members in Hilton's loyalty program, we got two bottles of water and daily breakfast buffet in the hotel restaurant:

The buffet consist of hot and cold items:

The food was average and not very good. However, they had a wide choice of food which was appreciated.

Right off the lobby was a business center with a Mac computer, 2 PCs, a printer and fax machine:

Keri from Heels First Travel, who stayed at the hotel, mentioned that their was a pool, but it was closed for renovations.

Why might you ask that I gave this average hotel 5 stars? The answer can not be shown in pictures: it was the service. The staff at the Doubletree was amazing. Absolutely, amazing. The hotel was extremely full which normally would throw staffs off their game. However, many of the guests staying this weekend had special needs. From those checking guests in and those working the restaurant, the staff went above an upon the call of duty to help everyone. For example, one morning, I saw a staff person help a blind gentlemen food from the buffet. Another time, we saw a staff member give a dog bone to a service dog.

On top of that, every single staff person I interacted with greeted me with a hello and smile. The hotel had a warm feeling throughout. Even thought, it was an average product, the staff made it feel like a 5 Star Hotel.