Having stayed six nights in an off-grid cabin in Terlingua, we headed northwest to stay a few days in El Paso.
El Paso is a city on the far west side of Texas and borders Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. We booked a four night stay at the Hyatt Place El Paso Airport as it was good value on points – more on that in the ‘Cost’ section below.
Although the hotel didn’t have a huge number of amenities, they more than made up for it with fantastic service. Here’s a complete review of our stay at the Hyatt Place El Paso Airport in Texas.
Check-In
We arrived at about 4pm and got checked in quickly by Yessenia as there was no line. She was extremely friendly and welcoming and gave us a good tip of something to do in El Paso (more about that later).
After a couple of minutes we had our keys to room 212 and headed upstairs with all our stuff.
Bedroom
When entering the room, the corner sofa and ottoman were on the right hand side of the room. The ottoman was lower than the sofa which I appreciated; it’s been higher at several Hyatt Places we’ve stayed at which I don’t find as comfortable.
The side table was a little narrower than normal, but that turned out to be a good thing. That’s because it meant there was a wider space between the table and room divider which gave us extra space to store items.
On the opposite side of the room was the wet bar, mini-fridge, desk and office chair. Most Hyatt Places we stay at only have a dry bar, so it was nice to have a sink there too.
To the right of the desk was the room’s TV.
The TV channel selection was OK, but not amazing. Shae and I have gotten into Food Network this year and the Hyatt Place El Paso Airport sadly didn’t have that (a hardship, I know 😉 ). A few of the listed channels weren’t great either – most of the ESPN channels were fuzzy, while TNT had no signal.
Our room had a king bed which was as comfortable as it always is at Hyatt Places. There were six outlets below the bedside shelves which is far more than most hotels have.
The blackout curtains were good, so we slept well each night. We left the curtains pulled most of our stay seeing as there wasn’t much of a view from our room.
The room also had a closet that contained a blanket, iron, ironing board and luggage rack.
Bathroom
To the right of the closet was the room’s sink and vanity, with a dresser below the counter.
Next to the sink were the standard Barney Kenet M.D. toiletries you get at all Hyatt Place properties.
To the right of the sink was the bathroom itself which had the toilet and a walk-in shower. The shower’s water pressure wasn’t great, but was still far better than our shower at the Hyatt Place Corpus Christi.
The bathroom was fairly small. So small in fact that you almost had to stand in the shower in order to close the bathroom door.
Breakfast
Breakfast is included with your stay at the Hyatt Place El Paso Airport so long as you’re a member of the World of Hyatt loyalty scheme and book directly with them (i.e. not via a site like Expedia, Hotels.com, etc.).
It was served until 9:30am on weekdays and 10am at weekends. With regards to hot options, they offered potatoes and scrambled eggs every day, with the other couple of options changing each day. The morning I took the photos they had chocolate churros and shoulder bacon, while on other mornings there was chipotle beef barbacoa hash, sausage, pancakes and others.
The other breakfast options tended to remain the same each day, although they sometimes offered different types of freshly cut fruit.
Amenities
Seeing as this Hyatt Place is near El Paso airport, they offer a free shuttle to and from the airport, as well as within a three mile radius.
The hotel has a business center, but it looks like I neglected to take a photo of that. They also have a fitness room that’s available 24 hours a day.
The hotel also had an outdoor pool. We stayed at the beginning of December, so I didn’t check to see whether or not it was open.
Pet-Friendliness
The Hyatt Place El Paso Airport is a pet-friendly property which accepts dogs weighing 50lbs or less, with a maximum of two dogs that have a maximum combined weight of 75lbs.
The pet fee is $75 for 1-6 nights and $175 for 7+ nights. We got lucky though as they didn’t charge us a pet fee despite them knowing we had Truffles with us.
There were only a couple of small grassy areas around the hotel for dogs to do their business. I took our dog Truffles for a walk around the neighborhood and there was very little grass within a two or three block radius, presumably because El Paso doesn’t get much rain throughout the year.
Service
Service at the hotel was fantastic. All of the front desk staff were friendly and helpful, the housekeeping staff were great and even the maintenance guy always greeted us whenever we saw him around the hotel.
Yessenia in particular was lovely and gave Truffles lots of attention. When checking in, she told us that we should check out Winterfest in downtown El Paso, so we headed there on our final night to check it out.
It was a great tip as the Christmas lights were beautiful and it makes me wish we’d spent more time downtown.
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi at the hotel was free and seemed to have a good connection and speed.
Location
The Hyatt Place El Paso Airport is only a couple of miles from the airport, so it only takes a few minutes to travel between the two. It’s also just off I-10, so it’s about a 10-15 minute drive to get into downtown El Paso. There’s also a large shopping mall on the other side of I-10 that the hotel’s free shuttle could take you to if you need to do any shopping after flying in.
There are a couple of restaurants within walking distance. We can highly recommend Tacos Chinampa, a Mexican restaurant with delicious food. They have a dozen different salsas, most of which were very spicy but also extremely flavorful.
Shae got enchiladas with green chile sauce…
…while I went for tacos al pastor.
All of our food tasted great and the portions were much larger than we’d expected, so it was good value too.
Parking
If you have your own car or a rental, there’s free parking and plenty of it around the hotel.
Cost
I mentioned earlier that we booked our stay using World of Hyatt points. That’s because the Hyatt Place El Paso Airport is a category 1 property and so only costs 5,000 points per night. To give you an idea of how good that is, the World of Hyatt credit card has a 60,000 point signup bonus if you can meet the minimum spend requirements. That means you could get 12 free nights at a category 1 hotel with that one signup bonus.
By comparison, the paid rate would’ve been $110.47 per night including tax. That means we got 2.21cpp (cents per point) of value by using points which is fairly good for Hyatt, but not spectacular. Seeing as we have a $100 daily budget on our road trip though which has to cover accommodation, gas, food, activities, etc., using points for our four nights meant we saved close to $450.
Seeing as we booked our stay using points and they didn’t charge us a pet fee, we didn’t earn any points. Having said that, we did earn 1,000 American Airlines AAdvantage miles thanks to this promotion that offered those bonus miles even on award stays.
Final Thoughts
We had a good stay at the Hyatt Place El Paso Airport in Texas. Their service was excellent, breakfast was good and our room was spacious and comfortable.
It would’ve been nice to have had a better selection of TV channels (and non-fuzzy sports channels), as well as guest laundry facilities because we had to go to the laundromat instead.
Those are minor negatives points though. If you need somewhere to stay in El Paso and are OK with staying 10-15 minutes outside of downtown, the Hyatt Place by the airport is a great option, especially when using points.
Truffles Approval Rating
Truffles gives this hotel four paws out of four – pawfect! She’d have liked a little more grass around the hotel, but she liked how quiet it was and all the attention the front desk staff gave her. The fact we weren’t charged a pet fee was an added bonus.
Our Rating
Room = 4.5 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 4.1 / 5
Food = 4.5 / 5
Location = 4.2 / 5
Service = 4.8 / 5
Overall Value = 4.4 / 5*
Total = 4.42 / 5
Address
Hyatt Place, 6030 Gateway Blvd E, El Paso, TX 79905
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