Using Hotel Hustle to find award availability during peak cherry blossom season in Japan

Introduction

I’ve heard of Hotel Hustle in the past, but never found a need to use it since I book my hotels 6-9 months in advance and usually the award rooms are available.  However, back in early November, I was looking for award rooms in Kyoto for the first week of April, which was expected to be peak cherry blossom season (which lasts about one week.)  Here were my POINT hotel options:

image courtesy of awardmapper.com

When I looked at each one of them one by one, NO AWARD ROOMS WERE AVAILABLE FROM 3/31 TO 4/3.  Not even the Crowne Plaza or the Comfort Inn!  Yes, I was willing to stay at a freaking Comfort Inn (to be fair, international Comfort Inn’s are usually better than domestic ones.)  However, there were CASH bookings available and so this was what I tentatively booked:

  • 3/31 – NOTHING
  • 4/1 – Westin for ~$400 a night BEFORE TAXES
  • 4/2 – Westin for ~$500 as well as the Comfort Inn for ~$75
  • 4/3 – Westin for $400

Notice how I had no room on 3/31 and was going to have to shell out $1500 for 3 nights!  IMAGINE MY PAIN!!!  However, I figure it was still very early so I’ll wait it out and see if award rooms open up.

 

Late December rolls around

Throughout December, a couple of times a week, I’d casually look on SPG, Hyatt, and IHG to see if anything popped up.  Eventually, there was a 10K night award room that opened up on 4/3 at the Westin (over 4c of value.)  Then a week later, a Westin room on 3/31 opened up for $400 a night.  WHEW!  At least I had beds for all nights now albeit very expensive beds.  By January, I now had this booked:

  • 3/31 -Westin for ~$400
  • 4/1 – Westin for ~$400 a night BEFORE TAXES
  • 4/2 – Westin for ~$500 as well as the Comfort Inn for ~$75
  • 4/3 – Westin for $400

Around early January, the manager at the Westin emailed me to ask me why I had picked 1 guest for one of those nights and should have picked 2 instead.  I told him it was an accident and that they should change it to 2.  Hand it to the Japanese to be very meticulous around number of guests.

 

 

February rolls around

As Feb rolled around, I was getting pretty nervous about the hotel room situations.  I looked on Hotels.com, but they just didn’t look as nice.  I thought about AirBNB, but I’m pretty anti-AirBNB when I go on vacations now.  That’s when I went onto Hotel Hustle and signed up for the free membership which gives you 5 active alerts.  Within a few days, IT WORKED!  It found award availability at the Hyatt Regency on 3/31!  I then tried to add more dates but realized you have to pay the $2.99 premium option to get more than 5 alerts.  I happily obliged if it could save me hundreds instead!

At this time, my friends decided to book an onsen in Kyoto on 4/3.  Fast forwad to late February, I got a HH alert that there was a room at the Ritz on 4/1 for 70K Marriott points.  I immediately snapped it up!  SCORE!

This was now my itinerary:

  • 3/31 – Hyatt Kyoto 20K points
  • 4/1 – Ritz Carlson 70K points
  • 4/2 – Comfort Inn for ~$75
  • 4/3 – onsen

As you can see, this is a logistical nightmare.  I would hate moving hotels that often and that’s why I didn’t even bring it up to the wife.

 

March rolls around

I woke up to a HH alert on Saturday morning showing the RC available on 4/2.  I was able to immediately snatch it up.  I forgot to mention that HH also found a Westin room on 3/31 as well.  I have them both booked right now, but I’m leaning towards the Hyatt instead of the Westin.

  • 3/31 – Hyatt Kyoto 20K points or Westin 10K
  • 4/1 – Ritz Carlson 70K points
  • 4/2 – Ritz Carlson 70K points
  • 4/3 – onsen

I think I’m okay with this schedule.  Ideally, if a RC room opened up on 3/31, I’d book that as well although a part of me does want to try the Hyatt.  So we’ll see.

 

Lessons Learned

If you’re in a similar situation, go pay for Hotel Hustle!  It’s awesome!  The second lesson is – try to book cherry blossom season rooms as far out as you can!

10 comments on “Using Hotel Hustle to find award availability during peak cherry blossom season in Japan

  1. We stayed a couple nights at the Hyatt Regency in Kyoto last November. Bloggers tend to rave about it and while I had no complaints, I think I’ll try the Westin next time. I absolutely loved the Westin in Tokyo.

    1. Did you stay as Diamond for the breakfast at the HR Kyoto? Did you have Plat at Westin Tokyo? I think everyone and their grandmas usually do Hyatt in Tokyo for some reason; rarely do ppl mention SPG.

      1. Nope, just Hyatt platinum and SPG gold. We bought breakfast at the Hyatt one day and it was fine.
        In Tokyo at the Westin I did pay $60 a night for a club access room that came with free breakfast that would have cost us $30 each anyway. I thought the Westin breakfast was amazing.

        I did the “blogger tour” of hotels on our trip to Japan last Nov. Spent two night at the Westin Tokyo, bullet train to Kyoto for two nights at the Hyatt, back to the Park Hyatt Tokyo for two nights, then the final two nights at the Conrad Tokyo.
        All on points and free nights. The Conrad was the best, followed by the Westin.

        Also flew JAL first ORD-NRT and Singapore first back to LAX.
        (Followed by a miserable 3 hours on Southwest back home to STL)

  2. I use Hotel Hustle as my go to method of checking award availability, and it’s a great tool. That said, it’s glitchy at times, for instance showing all SPG hotels as sold out in a certain city or that there are no rooms with a certain chain available for awards. Also, about 1/5 of searches fail, with no real pattern as to why. I will cheerfully continue to use HH, but do wish it was a bit more precise and less glitchy.

    1. Agreed. I had issues finding NYC for July 4 weekend. Had to try 5 diff days before it finally pulled up results.

      1. Yeah, NYC is pretty much broken all the time. I’d pay a larger monthly fee for a better product. Again, So much can be done with this.

  3. i don’t think there is a comfort hotel in kyoto. you can not find it in choicehote website. how did you book it?

    1. Ah you’re right. I didn’t even realize that it was actually in Nara. I would have cancelled that booking regardless and booked a hotels.com place.

  4. As great as HH is, I can only imagine how amazing it would be if he got some full-time development help. So much more can be built on this.

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