After stopping off in Houston for almost two weeks, Shae, Truffles and I made our way on to Austin for 11 nights.
We’d visited Austin in the first year of our road trip, but hadn’t spent too much time downtown. This time we were able to get an excellent deal at the Hyatt House Austin Downtown which meant we’d be able to spend more time wandering around and enjoying all the food the city has to offer (see 8 Great Places To Eat & Drink In & Around Austin, TX for more on that).
We liked the location and enjoyed the suite we were upgraded to, but it seemed like they hadn’t paid enough attention to all the finishing details when constructing the hotel, even though it seemingly opened five years ago. Overall though, it’s a very good hotel, especially if you manage to get a great deal like we did.
Here’s my complete review of our stay at the Hyatt House Austin Downtown.
Check-In
The guy checking us in was very friendly. I’d booked a king studio suite which wasn’t the very cheapest room type available when I booked, but it was the cheapest room type which had a kitchen. I was hopeful ahead of time that we’d get an upgrade, but didn’t want to risk not having a full kitchen in our room by booking a room type without one.
While checking in, I asked if it would be possible to get an upgrade to a one bedroom suite due to having Globalist status (Hyatt’s highest tier). He seemed a little unsure at first if that was going to be possible. I was therefore preparing myself to be disappointed, so I was very pleased when he said that we could be upgraded for the length of our stay. Once he’d finished processing the room upgrade, we headed up to room 705.
One of the reasons I mentioned earlier that it didn’t seem like they’d finished construction is because there was a roll of half-installed baseboard opposite our room which has likely been sitting there forever as no one worked on it at all during our stay.
One Bedroom Kitchen Suite
When entering our suite, the kitchen was on the left and the living room straight ahead, with the bedroom and bathroom through a door between the kitchen and living room.
Living Room
The living room was a little narrow, but we still had plenty of space for what we needed. There was a corner sleeper sofa along with an armchair and three ottomans, with the TV opposite them.
The TV’s spare HDMI outlets didn’t seem to work with our Fire TV Stick, so we had to unplug the hotel’s TV setup and use that HDMI outlet to watch our own TV selection instead.
Between the kitchen and living room was a tall table and chair. In addition to the power outlets on the wall next to the table, the table itself had power outlets (including a USB port) built into it which was a nice feature.
One thing which wasn’t a nice feature was the fact that they hadn’t put together the chair properly as it was missing a wheel. Thankfully Shae noticed this before sitting down, otherwise she’d have toppled backwards.
Back by the room’s entrance there was a mirror with hooks. This is presumably normally used for coats, but it was a helpful place to hang our face masks (we visited in January 2021, so during COVID), along with Truffles’s harness and leash.
Kitchen
There was a full kitchen in our suite with a full-sized fridge-freezer, microwave, dishwasher and stove top. There was some shoddy work in the kitchen too as the dishwasher wasn’t installed properly. It therefore fell over every time it was opened – we thankfully managed to avoid having anything fall out and break.
We could’ve called maintenance to have it fixed during our stay, but just left it as it was. We therefore let them know about the dishwasher and chair when checking out so that they could get them fixed before anyone used that room in the future.
The cupboards and drawers contained plates, glasses, silverware, cookware, etc., with place settings for four people. There was a good amount of cupboard space which meant we were able to unpack our traveling pantry rather than having to leave it in its box.
Bedroom
There was a regular door leading through to the bedroom which was an improvement on the double doors with a fairly sizeable gap at the Homewood Suites Houston-Westchase we’d stayed at prior to arriving in Austin.
As always with Hyatt’s beds, it was extremely comfortable. The room had an effective blackout blind which ensured it stayed dark at night, so we got a good night’s sleep every night.
Both sides of the bed had tables with lamps that had power outlets on them to make it easier to charge our phones overnight.
Opposite the bed was a wall-mounted TV.
In addition to the dresser drawers which were part of the bed’s side tables, there was a separate set of drawers with space on top which worked as a luggage shelf.
Opposite that was a closet with an iron, ironing board and a moveable luggage rack, along with bedding for the sleeper sofa.
Bathroom
There were two features I didn’t care for when it came to the bathroom in our suite. First of all, the sink and vanity was in the bedroom area rather than the bathroom itself. This meant having to use the sink in the dark at night or by the light of my phone. That meant brushing my teeth when I came to bed at night would sometimes wake up Shae.
The room also had the worst bathroom door we’ve had during any hotel stay in the last 3+ years of living in hotels. For some reason they’ve installed a sliding door rather than a normal one and it’s incredibly loud. Not in a creaking-needs-to-be-oiled kind of way but in a how-can-a-door-possibly-make-this-much-noise kind of way. That meant if one of us needed to use the bathroom while the other one was asleep, the sleeping person got woken up every single time due to how loud it was. We also sometimes heard other people’s bathroom doors sliding along – that’s how loud they were.
The door also closed automatically, slamming loudly if you didn’t manually close it yourself. It was possible to keep the door wide open, but you had to hold it in place for a couple of seconds in order for it to stay in place. If you didn’t do that, it’d slide back and slam closed loudly.
The bathroom itself had a fairly large walk-in shower. The water pressure was good, but not as amazing as the shower at the Homewood Suites Houston-Westchase we’d just come from.
Overall, we did like our one bedroom suite. It felt new, was stylish and comfortable and had plenty of space for us and all our stuff (we travel full-time, so we have more stuff in our hotel room than your average person).
As mentioned already though, there were a number of areas for improvement. The bathroom door was the worst feature; as for the dishwasher not being installed properly and the chair’s wheel being missing, those are likely anomalies specifically related to our room rather than those being problems you’d find in every suite.
Breakfast
Over the past year, it’s been interesting seeing how different hotels have dealt with breakfasts in COVID times. The best breakfasts we’ve had have been at the Embassy Suites Hampton Convention Center, VA and Residence Inn Roanoke Airport, VA as they’ve both been able to find a way to provide a hot breakfast in a COVID-safe way.
The Hyatt House Austin Downtown on the other hand had one of the most disappointing breakfast selections we’ve encountered in the past year. It consisted of granola bars, yogurt, fruit and fruit juice – that’s it.
On the positive side, at least you could select what you wanted rather than hotels which offer to-go breakfast bags where you get what you’re given. However, having a sparse selection like this almost a year into the pandemic suggests it’s a cost-cutting measure rather than them not being able to offer something better.
Another positive aspect to breakfast there is that it was offered from 7-10am each day. Seeing as we had a kitchen in our suite and the poor selection on offer, we generally made our own breakfast each day, but as a late riser I appreciated the fact that they left it available until 10am.
It seemed like there was coffee available in the lobby or breakfast area 24 hours a day.
Amenities
The Hyatt House Austin Downtown has a range of amenities for guests. There’s a guest laundry area with several washing machines and dryers – each load costs $2.
There’s an outdoor swimming pool, although its size seems more designed for relaxing in rather than actually doing any swimming.
Next to the swimming pool is a nice outdoor seating area with a gas fire pit and grill.
In the lobby there’s a business center with a couple of computers, along with a long desk with charging outlets all along it which would be a good workspace in normal times.
There was a pretty good fitness room which was open 24 hours a day.
Although there were signs up encouraging mask-wearing and physical distancing in the fitness room, there weren’t any entry requirements, capacity limits, etc.
The hotel is within walking distance of loads of great restaurants. If you can’t be bothered to leave the hotel though, there’s a pantry area next to the front desk where you can buy stuff to eat and drink.
Pet Policy
The Hyatt House Austin Downtown is a pet-friendly hotel. They charge $75 for stays of 1-6 nights and $175 for stays of 7+ nights. We got lucky because we’d expected to pay a $175 pet fee as we stayed for 11 nights and had Truffles with us, but when checking out they didn’t charge the fee.
They have a weight limit of 50 lbs for one dog or a combined weight limit of 75 lbs for two dogs.
One downside of city hotels is that it can often be hard to find grassy areas for your dog to do their business. One of the nice things about where the Hyatt House is located in downtown Austin is that there are several grassy areas within a few blocks, including a section right outside the hotel on the other side of the road.
COVID-19
There’s not too much to mention about how the hotel dealt with COVID. Daily housekeeping wasn’t offered unless specifically requested, but that’s the same at every hotel we’ve lived in during the pandemic.
They’d closed their bar and restaurant and reduced their breakfast offering so that it wasn’t a standard buffet like it would be in normal times. The fitness room was open without any kind of restrictions.
As for mask-wearing, the staff generally did a good job with this. There were a number of guests who didn’t wear one when walking through the hotel, although I usually noticed that when they were getting in and out of the elevators – I’m not sure whether the front desk ever asked them to put on a mask when walking through the hotel.
Service
The limited amount of service that we received was good. We declined housekeeping throughout our stay, so it was pretty much only when checking in and out that we had interactions with the staff.
Wi-Fi
The Wi-Fi speed was reliable and seemed fast enough. A slight irritation is that we had to log back in every 48 hours or so rather than being able to specify at the start of our stay that we’d be there for 11 nights.
Thankfully this usually happened when first logging on, so it meant we didn’t have any interruption to whatever we were working on.
Check-In & Check-Out Times
The check-in time at the Hyatt House Austin Downtown is 3pm and check-out is at 12pm.
Location
The hotel is only a couple of blocks from the Texas Capitol. That concerned us a little as we were staying there in January 2021 when President Biden was due to be inaugurated. After what happened at the Capitol in D.C. on January 6, we were a little concerned that being right next to the Texas Capitol building could be problematic if anything kicked off there. Thankfully there weren’t any issues, so our concern ended up being misplaced.
The hotel is also within walking distance of stores, restaurants and the rest of downtown Austin. If you don’t feel like walking anywhere, there are electric scooters and bikes all around, including some which were always available right outside the hotel.
Parking
The Hyatt House Austin Downtown has an underground parking lot attached to the hotel. Hyatt was running a promotion during our stay which offered free parking on all stays. They normally only offer valet parking for $40 per night, but valet service was suspended during our stay due to COVID.
There are metered parking spaces opposite the hotel if you want to save money, but there was an even cheaper option. The hotel’s parking lot didn’t require anything to get in – when driving up to the entrance the gate lifted, then you didn’t need anything to get out again meaning free parking was seemingly available for anyone, even people who weren’t guests at the hotel. They might have set it up that way as a result of suspending valet service, so I’m not sure how long that’ll continue.
Cost
We got a fantastic deal on our stay thanks to Hyatt’s Best Rate Guarantee (BRG). Their BRG policy offers to match the rate you find on another website provided it has the exact same details (same room type, same dates, same cancellation policy, etc.). In addition to matching the rate, they offer 5,000 bonus points or an additional 20% off – you get to choose which will be more rewarding.
Hyatt was charging $137.85 per night including tax when booking directly, but only $91.40 per night including tax when booking via Hotels.com. I therefore booked the stay with Hyatt, then submitted a BRG claim and asked for the additional 20% off rather than 5,000 bonus points. Our stay therefore ended up only costing $73.29 per night including tax.
Paying $73.29 per night including tax for a stay in downtown Austin was therefore an amazingly low cost stay, especially seeing as the room we booked (even before the upgrade) had a full kitchen.
The price ended up even cheaper though. Shae and I each had a Hyatt Chase Offer on our cards giving 10% back on up to $250 of spend. We split the cost of the stay on those two cards, although only $219.87 was charged to Shae’s card as that covered three nights, with the rest being charged to my card. That means we earned a total of $47 back as statement credits, reducing the cost of our stay to an average of $69.02 per night with tax.
Points Earned
We earned 11,239 points from the stay itself. We’ll also earn 3,005 bonus points by putting the spend on our Hyatt credit cards for a total of 14,243.89 points – almost enough for three free nights at a category 1 property as those only cost 5,000 points per night.
This stay also meant I earned more benefits. Hyatt was offering double elite nights which meant I earned 22 nights based on the 11 nights we actually stayed. That meant I went from 41 nights for the year to 63 nights. Hyatt offers Milestone Rewards every 10 nights, so I earned four more suite upgrade awards and a free night certificate valid at any category 1-7 Hyatt property worldwide.
Final Thoughts
I pointed out a few flaws in our stay earlier in the review, like the ridiculously loud bathroom door, a dishwasher which wasn’t installed properly, a poor breakfast selection, etc.
Despite all that, Shae and I enjoyed our stay. It was in a good location for walking around the city, we received an upgrade to a one bedroom suite and our suite was a good size and was clean and comfortable. The price we paid was an absolute steal too.
If and when we return to Austin in the future, I’d certainly be happy to stay here again depending on how much they were charging at the time.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives the Hyatt House Austin Downtown three paws out of four – pawsome! It was great that we had a one bedroom suite as it meant she didn’t get disturbed by noise in the hallway at night. It was also helpful that there was grass right outside the hotel, with more grassy areas nearby.
The reason they didn’t get four paws is because the pet fee for our stay would’ve been high at $175. Then again, we didn’t end up being charged that, so I should have a word with Truffles to maybe get her to rethink her rating and increase it to four paws.
Our Rating
Room = 4.4 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.3 / 5
Food = 3 / 5
Location = 4.6 / 5
Service = 4.4 / 5
Dealing With COVID-19 (A new – hopefully temporary – category for our hotel reviews) = 4.2 / 5
Overall Value = 4.7 / 5
Total = 4.23/5
Address
Hyatt House, 901 Neches St, Austin, TX 78701
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