My friend Ben from One Mile At A Time shared about his disappointing upgrade experience at the Park Hyatt Doha and I thought I’d share mine, since it was very different.
Park Hyatt Doha: No Upgrade Games For Me
It all was very simple for me. I booked a room on hyatt.com, checked in about 3:00pm, was warmly welcomed by staff outside the entrance and escorted upstairs. There, I was profusely thanked for my Globalist status and informed that I been upgraded to a Park Suite. I didn’t even have to ask. This was in late March 2022.
The room was spacious and I enjoyed a nice welcome gift. I also slept well.
Quite a different experience from the one Ben had, in which he was given the run-around concerning a suite upgrade. Whether this was deliberate or we can chalk it up to confusion relating to the Hyatt Privé program (Ben booked his room through Hyatt Privé while I just booked on Hyatt.com), World of Hyatt policy dictates that space-available upgrades to standard suites be made available to Globalist members.
Now the hotel wasn’t perfect. I was rather disappointed by the breakfast and particularly the coffee at breakfast
(though the hotel had a nice coffee shop on the ground floor).
But overall I quite enjoyed the property, including the fitness center and wellness facilities. I also appreciated the hotel extended my checkout till 6:00pm and I would certainly return.
CONCLUSION
For reasons that escape me, it seems Ben and I have opposite luck at Hyatt hotels. I love the Hyatt Carmel Highlands, he hates it. I had no trouble at the Park Hyatt Doha, he was massively inconvenienced (we both had a great stay at the Hyatt Regency in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, though maybe it was because we went together 😉 ).
But I felt compelled to write a short defense of the Park Hyatt Doha since my experience was so different than his. I’m not sure that the hotel has directed staff to avoid upgrading Globalists, at least based upon my experience. Perhaps the issue lies more with Hyatt Privé bookings?
Stay tuned for my full review of the hotel – there was a lot I liked about this property and a couple annoyances as well. I will say here that the Four Seasons Doha was much better overall.
p.s. Note this post was written before Ben’s update from the Park Hyatt Doha’s General Manager, which he posted hours ago. It appears the GM has taken responsibility for the service issue and has retrained staff. Well done.
Was your review this year? Ben makes a point of saying management change in the last few months seams to be the catalyst for a decline in service.
Yes. Late March. I’ll get to the full review.
Let’s not forget the Hyatt Mainz. One of your favorites and which Ben destroyed in a review.
Although Ben can be a massive snowflake many times I think he has a valid point here but it does not mean a reason to not go back to the hotel. Not all hotel managers are smart. If it was indeed true they had 8 suites available at 2am why not give one of them to a Globalist? The likelihood a hotel will sell a suite vs a regular room is very small. I think Hyatt is very inconsistent in how they treat Globalists. I’ve stayed at the Grand Hyatt Vail several times during peak season and was always upgraded to a suite? Why? Because a regular room that I booked was going for $1,500/night and a suite was over $3,000. The chances of them to sell a suite was much smaller than selling my regular room. Now at the Hyatt Regency in Boston staying with my family of four they upgraded us to a corner room. Really? Again, some hotel managers are smarter than others. The best example I can share was when I had booked two regular rooms with points at the St Regis in Florence Italy in the peak of the summer. Those rooms were going for over €1,000 each. When I checked in the manager asked if I would mind to have my family of four all together in a suite. I said it was OK. Well, we got the Royal suite which at that time was priced at €18,000/night. We got a butler and the best service ever. The likelihood the hotel would sell that room was almost zero while I am sure they sold our original rooms.
He actually posted an update today and an apology from the GM. I agree. This was a legitimate gripe and we have got to defend this from happening globally lest Hyatt just becomes Hilton\Marriott.
I saw it. That’s why I said there is no reason to avoid the hotel based on a bad check in experience that has been addressed. Too much drama.
It is Doha, maybe they were surprised that 2 guys wanted a room with a single bed.
A sad but very salient point.
We are not Hyatt Elite Members and while we were not upgraded, we were treated very nicely by the Hyatt Doha.
We had no intention of staying in Doha but due to a massive ticketing screw up from a re-route we arrived in Doha expecting to continue on to RUH but instead had to spend two day in DOH.
We had no choice to book a hotel for the two days and we choose the Park Hyatt due to our lovely experience at the Park Hyatt Washington DC.
They treated us very nicely and actually turned a bad time into a very enjoyable two days.
Granted, my wife and I were not expecting much and the hotel really tried to make us smile even sending us a nice cake to our room with a note saying sorry about the airline mess and they hoped the cake would brighten our day.
It is the little things.
I love stories like this where places go above and beyond “just because” and create a memorable experience where one wasn’t expected at all. I recall a one-night stay the Hilton Jumeirah The Walk which happened to be on my birthday, and I was traveling alone. When I checked in early they said would I mind waiting an hour for an upgraded room, I said sure and had a coffee in the Executive Floor Lounge (or whatever they call it). When my room was ready it turned out to be a 4-bedroom suite that took up half of one of the higher floors of the hotel, and they had strewn rose petals across the main bed with a box of chocolates. I had not even told them it was my birthday – they just saw it from my passport or profile. The other TBH was otherwise pretty generic but this was such a lovely unexpected gesture.
*The hotel TBH…
autofill will be the death of me…
Ben gives off negative energy and this has affected his hotel experiences.
I have done over 100 nights at this property and seen a massive shift from when Steffan was the GM to the current GM, Roger Saad whom took over and agree fully with Ben that the hotel is somewhat hostile to WoH and you have to push for it there now and the staff are definitely being told to be less accommodating to Globalists. The only reason I believe the GM has emailed is because Hyatt corporate has probably forced him to because of the PR surrounding Ben’s article.
For the record, I’m not questioning Ben’s experience or the horrible service he received. It is unacceptable. I’m just noting my recent experience was different.
He’s an insufferable entitled princess. No surprise that you treat people with disdain and they respond in turn. Ben sucks. No other way to say it.
That’s unfair. Ben is one of the kindest, most generous people I know.
Perception is reality. His writing would suggest otherwise.
what dress code did you follow in the sauna?
Towel wrapped around me — no nudity allowed.
I’ve said it before and will say it again, Lucky has lost the feeling of authenticity in what he does and in his writing he can often come across as entitled. People change with time. Maybe he’s getting back what he’s putting out into thr world.
TPG2 has become insufferable. He books rooms under travel agent rates and is forever bitter if he is not treated like royalty. Does he (or any of us) believe many of the hotels he’s staying in don’t know that his stays are little more than promotional visits? Park Hyatt Doha staff didn’t get the memo to pamper the credit card hawker and were punished accordingly. The rest of us live in another world. We actually pay market price for most room. We get good and bad. Humans are not consistent and on that basis alone hotel service is unlikely to be completely consistent. I appreciate that running a profitable blog is difficult but watching him become an insufferable sellout with his head in the clouds is sad.
I like Matt’s reviews as I feel that he is actually paying for hat he reviews. While I love some of the places Ben reviews, they are a little out of the range of most people.
That said, Ben is providing a service checking that high level status is recognised. Nothing wrong with that
It is not the staff, it is senior management who need to be re-trained about true hospitality.
I think it is a trend among Park Hyatt properties for Globalists. My recently stay at Park Hyatt Sydney yielded a very poor room assignment. They gave many excuses but the staff said the hotel at 60 to 80 percent occupancy. Due to the hard times during COVID, now these hotels are on a money grab and offer few upgrades.