13 Reasons Why I Love Hyatt Place Hotels (And 3 Ways They Can Improve)

“It feels like we’re home”.

That’s what I remarked to Shae when we arrived in our room after checking in at the Hyatt Place Kansas City/Lenexa City Center last week.

The reason why it felt so familiar is because we spent 60 nights in 9 different Hyatt Place properties in 2018, so 1/6 of the year. It had been a couple of months since we last stayed in one though, so it felt good to be back.

While it’s not a luxury hotel brand, Hyatt Place has become one of my favorite hotel brands over the last year for many different reasons. Spending so much time in them means that I’ve come to recognize a few areas needing improvement too. So here’s my list of 13 reasons why I love Hyatt Place hotels, along with 3 ways they can improve.

Just in case you’re wondering, this isn’t a sponsored post or anything like that (here’s why we don’t write sponsored posts). I just wanted to share all the reasons I think it’s a great hotel brand.

1) Value When Using Points

One of the main reasons we stayed so many nights in Hyatt Places last year is because they can be great value when using points.

We have around 2.5 million hotel points (across several loyalty schemes, not just World of Hyatt), but I still like to maximize how we use them. As a result, most of our Hyatt Place stays have been at category 1 properties.

Category 1 hotels only cost 5,000 points in the World of Hyatt loyalty scheme which is excellent value. It’s not always easy earning World of Hyatt points themselves, but they’re a transfer partner of Chase Ultimate Rewards. We’ve been able to rack up quite a lot of Ultimate Rewards points, so that’s given us the ability to book more Hyatt Place stays using points than we’d have been able to otherwise.

There are more than 110 category 1 Hyatt Places in the US spread across 28 different states. That therefore gives us a lot of options for getting free nights for 5,000 points a time.

2) Consistency

It felt so familiar walking into our hotel room last week because Hyatt Place properties have consistency. When you walk into your room at a Hyatt Place, you immediately know that’s the brand you’re staying at. Well, you do when you’ve stayed at enough of them.

If you hate cookie-cutter hotels, that’s obviously not going to be a positive feature. Given that Shae and I now live in hotels and Airbnbs though, I find it comforting knowing what to expect and that we’ll have a quality experience.

3) Corner Sofa

One of the features that delivers a consistent stay is the corner sofa you’ll find in the rooms at virtually every Hyatt Place.

There are several things to like about the sofa. It’s comfortable to sit in for long periods of time (I like to work from the sofa rather than at a desk), it’s spacious and it doubles up as a sofa bed if you have additional guests staying with you.

4) Wet/Dry Bar

Living in hotels means we prepare a lot of our meals in our hotel room. Almost every room we’ve ever stayed in at a Hyatt Place has had either a wet or dry bar. This area provides a perfect space to do food prep and set up my Instant Pot and anything else I need from my portable kitchen.

Having a wet bar can be useful as it means we can do the washing up there rather than in the bathroom sink. The downside is that it reduces the available countertop space.

5) Mini-Fridge

Most hotels we stay at have a mini-fridge, although it’s not always a given. At nicer hotels, the fridge might contain mini-bar items, not leaving much space for our own stuff.

The wet or dry bar area in Hyatt Place bedrooms always has a good-sized mini-fridge beneath it. Making meals in our hotel room means we often have leftovers or food we need to stay fresh, so it’s nice knowing that there’ll always be a fridge available.

6) Spacious

Shae and I have never been people who need a 3,000 sq ft house. The 2 bedroom house we used to own was ~900 sq ft and the apartment we lived in before setting off on this road trip was closer to 800 sq ft.

We were therefore used to living in a somewhat confined space by many people’s standards, but it’s still nice not to have a cramped hotel room. While most Hyatt Place rooms we’ve stayed in have been ~360 sq ft (so less than half the space we used to have), they’ve felt more spacious than many other hotel rooms.

I think part of that comes from the room being split into zones, with a desk/dry bar area, a living room area, a narrow wall partition between the living area and bedroom, the bathroom, etc., along with a reasonable amount of floor space. That latter point is helpful as it gives our dog Truffles space to run back and forth chasing after her ball. And if you know Truffles, you know that she needs ball-chasing in her life.

7) Bed

I’m quite fortunate as I sleep well on pretty much any bed (except the one at the Residence Inn Oklahoma City South). That’s been useful seeing as we slept on something like 65 different beds during 2018.

Nevertheless, the beds at Hyatt Place properties are extremely comfortable, as are their pillows. The sheets stay fairly cool (which I like) and I rarely have to turn my pillow over in the middle of the night to its cool side.

8) Blackout Curtains/Blinds

A much larger factor in me getting a decent night’s sleep is having the room be dark. It seems like newer Hyatt Places use blinds while their older properties use curtains, but something consistent regardless of the method of window covering is that they always keep the room extremely dark.

9) Quietness

Another factor that assists in us getting a good night’s sleep is that most Hyatt Places we’ve stayed at have been very quiet.

I’m not sure if they have thicker walls/ceilings than other hotels or just quieter clientele, but we’re rarely disturbed by guests in adjacent rooms or above us. That’s not always the case at other hotels, especially when it comes to people stomping around above us.

Loud guests above us wouldn’t be particularly bothersome if it was just Shae and I. The issue is Truffles. When we’re staying in hotels and there’s stomping above us, she seems to think someone’s trying to break in from above and so starts barking. That’s obnoxious for us and I’m sure it is for guests in the rooms next to ours. The good thing is that rarely happens when staying at a Hyatt Place as it’s so quiet.

Speaking of Truffles, the 10th reason I love the Hyatt Place brand is because most of them are…

10) Pet-Friendly

Traveling full-time with our dog means we have to stay at pet-friendly hotels. Not all Hyatt Places accept dogs, but the vast majority of them do.

They tend to have a fairly consistent pet fee as well. In most cases, it’s $75 for 1-6 nights and $150 for 7+ nights. While not cheap, it’s not extortionate either. Due to the way their pets fees are structured, I tend to book our Hyatt Place stays for six nights. That limits our pet fee to the lowest tier while simultaneously reducing the average cost per night to $12.50.

11) Blanket

OK, so this might sound like a weird thing to include, but I LOVE the blanket that’s always rolled up in the living room when we arrive in our room.

If we settle somewhere after our 5 year, 50 state road trip is done, I want a blanket like this for our living room. It’s large enough for two people to easily share it. It’s thin enough to not get too hot under it, while being thick enough to not be too cold. The blanket is also fairly soft and is simply a fantastic addition to the room. Seriously – this is something I miss whenever we stay at any other hotel brand.

12) Breakfast

As free breakfast buffets go, Hyatt Place offers a good one in my opinion. They have several hot options that change each day, so you don’t get bored eating the same thing. They also offer a good selection of freshly cut fruit which I’m an absolute sucker for.

13) Service

Almost without fail, the service we’ve received at Hyatt Places has been excellent. The front desk staff are invariably friendly and welcoming, as are the housekeeping staff.

Something they do very well is wishing you a good day as you leave for the day and greeting you when you return. It’s a small thing, but it makes staying at a Hyatt Place a much more welcoming and pleasant experience.

3 Ways The Hyatt Place Brand Can Improve

In case you couldn’t already tell, I love Hyatt Places. That doesn’t mean they’re perfect though, so here are three suggestions I have for how they could improve.

1) Improve Benefits For Globalist Members

We stayed so many nights at Hyatt properties last year, I earned their top-tier Globalist status. This is a fantastic status to have as it offers room upgrades (including suites), lounge access, etc. It also comes with four guaranteed suite upgrade awards every year, so we’ve already redeemed two of those for the Hyatt Regency Bali later this year for our 15th anniversary.

The problem is that Globalist status doesn’t really get you anything at Hyatt Place properties which is annoying as that’s where we spend the majority of our Hyatt nights. Hyatt Places don’t have rooms you can upgrade too as room types are fairly standard, they don’t have a club lounge, breakfast is free anyway, so my status just goes to waste.

I’d therefore love for World of Hyatt to introduce some kind of additional benefit for Globalist members when they stay at a Hyatt Place or Hyatt House hotel (the latter brand suffers from the same problems too). I’m not entirely sure what kind of benefit that would be, but maybe a couple of free drinks at the bar each day or bonus points for every day of your stay. That would go some way towards having the status feel rewarding when staying at a Hyatt Place.

2) Make Breakfast Go Later

As much as I enjoy a Hyatt Place breakfast, I wish it was available until later in the morning. At many of the hotels we’ve stayed at it finishes at 9am, so I’d love for 9:30am to be the standard finish time. I’m a night owl (I’m typing this sentence at 1:30am), so it’d be nice not to have to be up so early in order to take advantage of the breakfast buffet.

3) Have Microwaves In Rooms

I prefer Hyatt Places to brands like Holiday Inn Express and Hampton Inn, but one thing those latter two brands frequently offer is a microwave in your bedroom.

Hyatt Places on the other hand never have that. That’s not to say you don’t have access to a microwave as there’s always one available in the breakfast area, but it would make our stays much more convenient if they had them in every room. One slight downside would be that it’d reduce the available space in the dry/wet bar area, but I’d rather have a microwave there than go without.

Question

That’s my list of reasons I love the Hyatt Place brand, along with ways they could improve, but what about you? Is there something you love about Hyatt Places that I haven’t listed? Or is there something you’d like to see them change? Let me know in the comments below.