Hyatt Regency Vancouver, British Columbia Trip Review

Introduction

I had a wedding in Vancouver this past weekend, and while I usually stay in Richmond, I decided to stay at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Vancouver this time because the wedding was within walking distance of the hotel.  I had booked the hotel about 2 months out and paid 12,000 Hyatt points for the standard room.

 

Points and Cash and DSU

During the week of, when the hotel emailed me about asking what they could do to make my stay better, I went online to see if there was p+c availability (it wasn’t there before) and it WAS AVAILABLE.  I then DM’ed the Hyatt Twitter team to ask if there was DSU availability and IT WAS!  I then had the Twitter team change my points booking to a p+c booking and to use one of my DSU’s.  BOOM!  Points and cash cost me 6K points and $100 CAD, which was about $77 USD at the time.  I was also able to use a Hyatt GC that I got for 10% off (25% off can be had these days.)  Lastly I got 1500 points for being a Diamond member.

 

Upgrade upon checkin

We got to the hotel at around 1:30PM, and the checkin agent said they had upgraded my normal suite to an Executive suite, but it wasn’t available yet.  That was fine by us since we were going to go eat at Kirin and walk around for a bit.  I jokingly asked her if it was better than the 2 presidential suites that Scott had gotten.  She said, “Oh yeah.”  That got me excited.

Fast forward to 3pm when we came back, she said she had upgraded me again to one of the 2 presidential suites.  She said it was the nicer of the 2 presidential suites.  I thought it was odd how she said the executive suite was better not too long ago, but whatever, I wasn’t going to argue with her.

 

“It looks like a regular room and a lounge had a baby”

You can see from the pics below, but the room was massive!  I could have fit my entire entourage from our last Vancouver trip.  I showed pics to my friends and one of them gave me that quote.  Anyway, my buddy and I played a game of chess for a bit while we waited for our diamond amenity, which we picked the white wine and hummus.  I almost always choose the amenity over the points just because I think the value is greater in the amenity, especially when a bottle of wine is an option.

 

Misc stuff

• On checkout, I had asked to pay for parking, but the rep said it was cheaper if I paid for it at the pay station.  I paid $8 for daily max + $6 overnight + $6 for parking until noon, so a total of $20 CAD.
• We skipped the cocktail hour in the lounge, but did eat breakfast there in the morning
• The location is really really good

Conclusion

The question now is – would I stay here again or stay at the cheaper Sheraton by the airport.  I think it depends on what the purpose of the trip is – if it’s just my wife and I, we’ll probably stay here.  If it’s with a group of people, I may stay at the Sheraton to save on points.  It just depends on the situation.

 

Pictures