Due to my United 1K Status Match/Challenge I found myself positioning in Boston ahead of a flight to Shanghai. While this is not my first stay at the Hyatt Regency Boston Harbor, it was my first time in one of their suites. I also tried out a suite upgrade trick that worked, but made me feel guilty after using it. Was it wrong? Was it fair? You decide.
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Upgrade Trick/Deception
In my ultimate quest to get the benefits I am entitled to through my status (entitled as in the hotel loyalty program grants it to me in exchange for my business), I have been a little more diligent in pursuing upgrades. I covered why they are difficult for some hotels, and I also covered that I will start to be more insistent this year in this post.
From the airport, I called for the shuttle and then asked to be connected with the front desk. The exchange went something like this:
“Hi, I have a reservation tonight and I am a Globalist.”
“I see that Mr. Stewart, thank you for choosing our hotel.”
“I noticed that there are still suites available for sale on the website, is there any chance you can upgrade me tonight to one of them?”
“No problem sir, let me just process that now… [clicking, clacking]… all set.”
There is nothing wrong with that exchange except for one guilty admission. I hadn’t checked the website. I was guessing. Well, no I wasn’t guessing, I was lying. I feel a little bit bad about it, but one thing makes me not feel so bad about it. They hadn’t upgraded me proactively and my luck at hotels trying to upgrade at checkin hasn’t been great.
I may or may not get skewered by commenters on this, but allow me to justify my action. If the hotel already knows I will be staying and chose not to proactively upgrade me, then I have to ask when I checkin. In the past, when I have done this I might get a “high floor” type upgrade, but I’m not usually getting suites. I also don’t want to be confrontational if I can avoid it. I just want my stated benefit if it is available and a high floor but the same room is not an upgrade to me.
The front desk night audit had no issue in giving me the upgrade over the phone so maybe the deception wasn’t necessary. However, if I had looked it up and there were suites available, would my action have been acceptable then (I think it would have been). Was it cheeky to trick them or is it fair play given that some front desk agents (not necessarily this hotel but just generally in my experience) will not offer a suite even though I may be entitled and one might be available?
Room/Suite
The suite was two converted separate guest rooms. The living room had the couch already pulled out and ready for guests on the pullout. There was an additional chaise lounge next to the couch, which seemed a little odd pushed against the wall.
The TV in the living room was huge, I’d guess 60″ which is suitable for a home living room, but pretty big for a hotel room. There was a small library underneath the TV and I thought it was a classy touch. The little library held a collection of both somewhat contemporary fiction as well as some classic books that appeared to be decorative.
In the bedroom, a pair of chairs facing each other and sharing a table would have been nice for room service. The setup was across from another beautiful view of the harbor, like the living room next door.
The bed was comfortable, there were lots of bedside plugs and space for devices – I have nothing but good things to say about the bed. Both rooms also included huge mirrors, a touch that I remember from JW Marriott properties but isn’t really a Hyatt trait. They made the room look bigger and added some simple but elegant design.
I only have two complaints. The first is with that beautiful TV believe it or not. In my previous Hyatt Place and in this Hyatt Regency, both used proprietary software to operate satellite TV and their movie-on-demand service. On this trip I decided to bring along an old Apple TV because I had some TV shows I wanted to watch.
In both properties I was unable to get access to the inputs and switch to something I actually wanted to watch. Satellite TV isn’t my favorite mostly because cloud cover makes it useless, I’d rather stream. If any readers know a work around for this, please leave a comment – I am all ears.
The second minor complaint I had was in regards to the connecting doors from the bedroom to the living room. One of the doors would stay open, the other would close and had to be held open with luggage. If I had guests it could be a little awkward but I was staying alone so it really wasn’t a big deal. Like I said, it’s minor but it’s also easily fixed by the hotel. I trust that it will be corrected in this room.
Bathroom
Neither bathroom in this suite (one in the living room, one in the bedroom) were particularly special. I would have liked a shower-only option instead of shower over tub, but I really don’t have any compliments or complaints. I found it a little odd that the living room bathroom appeared to be nicer, cleaner and more updated than the bedroom, but there wasn’t anything wrong with either of them.
Breakfast
This property did not have a lounge so breakfast was offered to me as a Globalist in the lobby restaurant. If a hotel will allow it (some will and some won’t) I prefer room service when I have morning flights. It’s not a statement of grandeur but rather my food arrives at a predictable time and I can continue doing whatever I might be doing to get ready or answering calls/emails. This hotel said no, and that’s fine. I decided not to pay for it out-of-pocket and instead come downstairs on my way to the shuttle.
Some prefer buffets for their fast self-service and extended variety (or quantity). Others like to order off the menu for their bespoke, made-to-order quality. Globalists had their choice of either. As I was seated, the host noted that I could order custom eggs off the buffet and that it featured juice, coffee, fruit, french toast, etc.
I was running a little late so I went ahead with the buffet and sat there for a few minutes waiting for a server to come by with coffee and take my egg order. It didn’t happen and the clock was ticking so I headed for the buffet to make myself a plate and found myself returning to the table with just potatoes and bacon.
If you wanted hot food on the buffet, the options were pretty limited.
In the tins (I didn’t have time to open them all then stand back and take a photo) were scrambled eggs, breakfast potatoes and bacon. There was also a sausage option but that wasn’t for me and was pretty sparse. Everything was pretty well picked over and just seemed to lack effort. For example, there were three choices of fruit, watermelon (abundant), cantaloupe (limited), and green melon. Seriously, all of them were melon. I’m not an anti-melonite, but would it have killed them to peel a couple of oranges?
Breakfast took more than 15 minutes to arrive and the plates were hot which suggests to me (5 years working in the restaurant industry) that they were sitting in the window for at least five of those minutes. I had made it clear that I was pressed for time so this was disappointing.
View/Harborside Fire Pits
The view both from my room and downstairs in the restaurant was amazing. For hotels that want to appeal to millennials (it seems every brand is at least saying this regardless of whether or not they actually do appeal to them) – this one has cracked the code.
I walked outside to grab a picture of the harbor and found a handful of fire pits lit, about half of them hosting a group of young people talking, drinking and eating. Each group seemed to be having a great time without disrupting the other separate groups.
While I don’t think that fire pits or enjoying a nice evening outside on the harbor is exclusive to millennials, there were zero people outside that looked over the age of 40. Inside, however, there were a few tables and couches with people who appeared to be Generation Y or X having glasses of wine and talking as well.
The view from my room matched the one downstairs (they both faced the harbor) but from the restaurant the view was even more impressive. Windows appeared to extend more than 20 feet high – I didn’t have a tape measure, I am just eyeballing it.
Proximity to Airport
The hotel is not connected to the airport but it’s so close that one of the runways is directly in line with one of the runways to the extent that departures are only a possibility in one direction. In fact, there were some Southwest 737s parked so close to the hotel that it looked like they were just sitting in the parking lot.
Unfortunately the photos I took were not of very high quality as it was in a glass elevator in motion. They weren’t worth posting, but the view was impressive.
I took the hotel shuttle to and from the airport. It took about 10-15 minutes for the shuttle to arrive (for B gates the door is 115) and was available on demand when I arrived at 10:20PM. The actual drive was only about five minutes and mostly consisted of curling around the airports intricate roadways.
It’s about as close as you can get with the exception of the attached Hilton hotel. I am sure the Hilton is faster, but I think that also depends on which terminal you arrive and depart.
Have you stayed at this hotel before? Was my suite upgrade trick fair, immoral or neither?
I lied and proud of it!!! I even make reason to justify lying.
Oh well, live and lets lie shall we?
So I’ll take it that you’re on the side that this was wrong…?
Who am I to argue lying is wrong?
Then again, someone have been valiantly defending the smear campaign of US3 against ME3, using opinion and insisting it was facts and evidences. Who am I to judge?
I used facts James, you just didn’t like the ones I used.
“I also don’t want to be confrontational if I can avoid it.”
Is it?
Your complaint against restaurant dress code, your entitlement to free breakfast, you can park your (rented) car wherever, might say otherwise. Then again, who am I to judge?
If you think you were entitled to every privilage you can think of, then you surely deserve it. No matter what courtesy and logic says… right?
In fairness, James, you judge pretty much every post, remember a couple of weeks ago when you filled 50% of the comments on one thread? And of course you are entitled to your opinion… wait, that makes you entitled. Eek!
1) As addressed in your “restaurant dress code” I presume you are referring to the lounge dress code post in which I noted that the same week I return dressed to their standard and found more than 75% of the lounge out of compliance yet unaddressed by management in the same way.
2) If the benefit states that I am entitled to a free breakfast, then that’s exactly what that means. Just like if I pay for a ticket to a movie, I am entitled to watch it – entitlement is not a bad word.
You’re thinking of entitlement in the sense of expecting something for which one has neither reason or claim to expect it. But in the defined use of the term, I am expressly entitled to receive the benefit and that’s a benefit that the hotel has chosen reward their customers. There is nothing wrong with being entitled to something, it’s being entitled to something without cause or earning it that would be wrong.
3) You still want me to hand the keys of a rented Audi over to a stranger out-of-uniform with no Hyatt employees in sight, and I still think that’s crazy. Let’s leave that one there – we are not going to agree.
4) On the benefit itself, it doesn’t matter if I was truthful or lied. The benefit, which the hotel has set up to reward their most frequent guests, states that if there is a suite I could be upgraded to it. The question I pose is given that I didn’t even check the status of availability, was that aspect wrong? But your statement implies that I am “entitled to every privilege [I] can think of” and that’s factually incorrect. I am entitled to the benefits they say I am entitled to which includes an upgrade if space is available up to and including a one bedroom suite. Space was available, I was upgraded. Clearly though, you think I should play upgrade roulette at the front desk, for which I am sure others hold the same position, perhaps others hold a counter position too.
Lol. You were entitled to every privilage pursuant to the contract, which stated along the lines of depends on availability. It doesn’t care what you think. Unless, you have the mentalitity of DYKWIA.
Great review, my writer Shelli wrote about her stay at this hotel too:
http://travelwithgrant.boardingarea.com/2017/07/07/my-wonderful-5-night-stay-at-the-hyatt-regency-boston-harbor-shelli/
I’ll check it out and thanks for leaving the link so others can too. I haven’t read it yet, but I am sure that there will be things we agree and disagree on, aspects of their stay that was better or worse than my own experience. As far as I am concerned the more data points available, the better we can make purchase decision as a travel collective group. Thanks for reading and keep writing!
I have absolutely no problem with what you did to get the upgrade. If they didn’t have suites they would have told you no, and that’s that. If you did check and ended up with the exact same results, then what’s the difference? If you checked, found availability and were still denied, then you’d be (rightly) upset. Especially arriving as late as you did that room was not in danger of being taken by a walk-in.
I also have hotel/restaurant experience. The empty plates could have been stacked in the corners of the pickup window to heat up. They also could be flashed under a salamander before pickup, as is the custom in some kitchens.
That said, the display and offerings are pretty pitiful for a Hyatt Regency. Your “omelet” looks like molded scrambled eggs and ham, very dry and overcooked. Disappointing indeed. Breakfast and morning service in any establishment is about speed. In a situation where the guest specifically vocalizes the need for it and is ignored, then they are really dropping the ball. For an airport hotel it’s unacceptable. Seems like their F & B Director needs to be a lot more proactive and hand’s on.
Donald, there is at least one commenter that disagrees with our shared logic/justification. On my next stay at the property I will try it out and see how it works again – maybe it was a one-time trick.
You could be right on the heated plates, that’s a reasonable assumption too.
Yeah, F&B Manager has some work to do. Let’s see how round two goes.
We stayed there twice because of the good service , proximity to the airport and ease of taking the water taxi into the North end of Boston. Once, I mentioned it was my birthday, and they upgraded us (unsolicited) to a lovely room with a view of the harbor. Another nice story: my husband was ill with Parkinson’s and was unsteady on his feet. We were dining in their main restaurant with great views of the harbor, my husband got up to go to the restroom. Our server hurried over to assist him in getting up from his chair because it was very heavy. My husband headed off, and I noticed that the waiter stayed close by as he neared the stairs, then once they were successfully navigated, he backed off. I learned later that he was a caretaker during the day for someone with Parkinson’s and he just wanted to be sure my husband didn’t fall. It brought tears to my eyes. So, while the hotel may not be perfect (plate stacking and all of the minor criticisms mentioned above), the service has been terrific for me, and it seems so for the author being given the suite without any trouble. Love this blog. Thanks for posting this article.
I really appreciate you sharing your story. It’s customer care like this that makes all the difference and proves that great people are still lurking in the world waiting for their opportunity to shine.
nice story!!
Thanks Dotti, glad you enjoyed it.
Finally getting caught up on my weekend reading. While I find your trick rather amusing, as far as it being wrong – meh? I guess it’s technically dishonest, but it’s not like you received anything that you weren’t entitled to with your status. Then again, I’ve been known to employ similar passive-aggressiveness when it comes to companies playing games…