We have an upcoming trip to New York City, and despite the rumors of travel experiencing a lull, the city is absolutely packed. How do you find value when hotel points aren’t an option?
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No (Value) At The Inn
After shopping fastidiously over the last few weeks for our specific three-night weekday stay in New York, we have yet to find a value worth either a points redemption or a cash purchase. I hold status (though credit cards) with Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott, and somehow I have some leftover status with IHG. And they all have hotels with availability, but none that present the value we have come to expect.
On this particular stay, we have reasons to be in a specific area of Manhattan. That causes issues for us. Truly, this is a perfect time to use points as all of the rates are very expensive, but with dynamic award charts, many of the award prices have also increased.
For example, a Moxy in lower Manhattan is running more than $450/night or 212,000 Marriott Bonvoy points. A Hampton Inn not far away wants 80,000 Hilton Honors points, comparatively, the Conrad selling for $1,200+/night is asking for 90,000 points. And while that should seem like a great value for Hilton Honors points, in fact, about 3x our normal valuation for the brand, this stay is not one where we would be able to spend a lot of time in the hotel but will still need space for our family of four.
Hyatt is a great candidate, and there are 20,000 point options still available for our stay but they are not close to where we want to be and we will spend more time and money in cabs getting to our planned engagements than we’d want to. There are sub $400/night Hyatts around but nothing other than out-of-the-way Hyatt Place properties.
Usually, when hotel cash prices are high, hotel points come into play and save the day. This is where they truly demonstrate their worth. But dynamic charts have made that harder.
Alternative Opportunities
One of the benefits of our remaining American Express Platinum Cards is the $200 Fiine Hotels & Resorts credit. The most affordable FHR hotel for our stay is 33 Seaport, a lovely-looking property but one we don’t know well. To keep our costs as low as possible, we would potentially use separate stays booked on different cards and hope the front desk would be kind enough to marry the reservations and keep us in one room.
As a luxury travel agency owner, I was hoping to get by with a little help from my friends. However, the city is absolutely packed and many hotels are sold out making it hard to offer even a last available room at properties that fit our criteria. What’s confusing to me is that we can’t find what’s going on to push the city to occupancy levels I’ve not seen in some time. While I elect not to disclose my specific travel plans here prior to travel, we have already packed UN General Assembly and New York Fashion Week. It’s not during a holiday, and it’s a Monday-Thursday trip.
We looked at the boroughs as well, New Jersey has plenty of options at reasonable rates for dynamic points currencies or cash. The Bronx and Brooklyn are more expensive but add options to the list. However, we will spend more time and cost in transportation than we would save by staying outside of our target area.
I’d look at AirBnBs but the city has done away short-term home rentals and for this timeline, it’s not really our speed.
Can beggars be choosers? Apparently.
What Will We Do?
I can honestly say that I haven’t found myself in this position before. I am tempted to try hopping the AMEX FHR benefit from room to room and finally deriving value from that card benefit. However, I don’t love that plan and I can’t really blame them for making us check in and out every day if that’s what they choose.
I don’t want to mix and match properties like I might if I was traveling alone, I have my wife and kids with me and that would be far too difficult for the effort.
If we are paying more than $1,200 for a three-night stay that we don’t really get to enjoy then at least we should be earning points on the expense so I’m considering a split between an award night and high cash rates.
But really, we have been stumped all week. We can’t figure out why rates are so high, we aren’t sure if they will stay high as we near our travel dates, and we don’t know how much tolerance we have for risk.
In fact, I’d welcome reader suggestions though I understand that there’s not a lot of specific help that can be provided given that I won’t publish the dates of our trip.
Conclusion
Rumors of the death of peak travel have been greatly exaggerated, and despite no clear cause for New York City being overrun, it appears as though it is during our travel period. We will have to be creative and constructive but will continue to check back for a miracle as our travel dates near.
What do you think?
Is it true that hotels are forced to accept immigrants or homeless in NYC?
Docntc – no, it is not. Some (older hotels) have sold to the city or otherwise contracted for migrant and or / low income shelter, but nothing is forced
Seems like you need to be downtown. I would recommend Wall Street Hotel on an Amex FHR rate – I did a local stay there and enjoyed it, and found it a better value than chain hotels.
If you must do a brand, I don’t understand the reluctance to do 90,000 points per night at the Conrad. That’s $450 a night based on how most value Hilton points, and I view that as a “fair” price for that particular hotel during peak time periods.
Ans Kyle – It’s funny, you have been predicting “peak travel” for what seems like two years on this blog, and have consistently missed the mark; don’t worry, everyone else has as well 🙂 Autumn in NYC will always be extremely busy. Business travel continues its slow grind higher, and NYC is full of European tourists, and Americans.
Second this- if you need more Hilton points, buy them right now with the 100% bonus offer. You can get 90k points for about $450.
I don’t know when you’re going, but December is always a busy time in New York. Why is subway/PATH not an option? You can move around pretty easily from Gild Hall or the Regency in JC.
This is when I turn to Hotwire/Priceline Express, and I’ve gotten some great deals that way. I have to be in Times Square for two nights next month during a busy weekend, and won’t be spending any time in the room. With the promo code “SAVEAPP10,” I ended up snagging the Times Square Edition for $275/night as a “five-star hotel in Times Square” when rates were $525+ on the Marriott site. Consider me one happy camper.
Yes, I won’t earn points or stay credits, but they weren’t paying nearly 2x the price to get, especially now that I am lifetime Platinum.
I think you need to specify where in Manhattan you need to stay, and the dates, if you actually want reader suggestions.
“ A new ordinance, Local Law 18, which goes into effect Sept. 5, requires that all short-term rental hosts in the Big Apple must register with the city, live in the place they’re renting, be present when someone is staying, and can only have two guests.”
https://www.thestreet.com/technology/airbnb-may-have-just-lost-the-battle-for-new-york-city
I know that this will not appeal to people whose New York visits are planned around the Christmas holidays, but after January 1, the city is almost empty of tourists, and that’s the one time of year when hotels will practically pay you to stay in them. Point prices are reduced too. And theater tickets are far more plentiful. It has been my experience though that you have to wait right until the day after New Year’s to book these rates. Don’t worry though: they won’t have sold out!
I was in New York last December and stayed at the Hilton Times Square for an enormous points rate. Unless they have made significant changes, the only good thing there was the bar (when it was open) and the view out of my room which smelled musty. It needs a total overhaul!
Just take the subway from a hotel father away? or are we too good for the subway?
We are also having an issue in NYC. We booked a two night stay at a Fairfield on points and the hotel cancelled the reservation twice, trying to force a cash rate of $614 per night to book. My rep filed a report against the property. I rebooked at a different Marriott branded hotel.
NYC just banned airbnbs last month.
I found myself needing to be in New York for Four nights starting the Friday Night at the end of UN General Assembly. After getting overwelmed I looked at my AMEX offers and they made me feel a little bit better about thr cost. I have an AMEX platinum and booked a series of 1 night stays courtsey of 3 AMEX offers that got me after the offers the W Times Square (worst hotel of the 4) for $300, then the Hotlel 50 Bowery (in Chinatown and my favorite hotel of the trip) for $350 (there were a couple of other options about $20 cheaper using the Save $100 on a $400 stay at the Hyatt Independent Collection but this hotel had much better reviews and was in a better location) the next evening I walked 15 minutes down to my one night stay at the 33 Seaport Hotel which I got for under $200 using the yearly FHR credit (be warned they are the first First FHR hotel I stayed in that wouldn’t let you use the property amenity or breakfast credit to cover gratuity so I paid $25 out of pocket that I was thought the credit would cover and ended up not fully using my credit). Then it was 15 minutes to the Hyatt Centric (formerly the Andaz) Wall Street where I had to book their larger loft room at the 2x points rate to get just over $300 and get that night for $225.
Not sure where you need to be in Manhattan. But… here is my go to… for Hyatt… you can use the Hyatt Place Long Island City. This property is only a direct, 2 stop subway ride that lasts 10 minutes to Grand Central midtown Manhattan. It’s walkable to 2 very close subway stations. And, the cash and points value is usually excellent.
I just heard GUWonder was celebrating the death of Israeli children.
Anyone has his dox? 5000 dollars.
Look at Choice hotels. I got a $250 + 6 000 points rate at the Cambria in Koreatown for a one night weekend stay. Those were actually Radisson points that rolled over. Mo breakfast.but mot a big deal as brunch with a friend is part of my plans.
Since you mentioned Choice Hotels, Don’t forget Preferred Hotels. You can book them with Choice points and if you don’t have Choice points you can transfer from Citi at 2 Choice points per 1 Thank you Point.
Since Kyle said they’re not spending much time in the room I’d go with Choice first. You need to look at ratings because Choice hotels vary greatly in quality hotel to hotel.
“Value” and NYC don’t really belong in the same sentence, and that extends to more than just hotels. I’ve had a tough time finding midrange hotels under $350/night on multiple business trips this year.