Miami 2021 – Hotel Planning

At the time we were making these plans, Marriott was having a sort of “sale” on points bookings. Marriott will normally have different points prices on a property with low, standard, and high season rates based on their category. For a category 5 property it’ll be either 30,000, 35,000, or 40,000 points per night based on whether what the season for that particular night is. You could have three consecutive nights that are all different rates.

The sale Marriott was holding was to offer most of their properties at the low season rates, even if it was a high season day for the property.

Beach Property

Since we were going to Miami, I decided to check out a property that many people have raved about. The St. Regis Bal Habour is a category 8 (the highest category) property which costs 70,000, 85,000, or 100,000 points per night depending on season. I found this property was being offered for 70,000/night which is quite a discount off the high season rate, especially because if we stayed 5 nights we’d get the 5th night free!

I ended up booking 5 nights starting the day after Valentines Day, checking on a Saturday for 280,000 points rather than the 400,000 it would normally cost. It was a lot of points but this was an amazing and exclusive property according to many of the reviews I had read. This was booked at the end of our trip when the boys were on their school vacation so they wouldn’t be distracted with their classes.

I also applied a suite night upgrade request. My wife has earned 15 of these on her account. The way they work for Marriott properties is not nearly as nice as they are for Hyatt. With Hyatt, I can confirm at booking time which suite type (of there is more than one) I want. With Marriott, it’s a request that doesn’t get evaluated until 5 nights before checkin, and then it’s only a space available upgrade if the Marriott algorithm thinks the suites that are available will be otherwise sold or not. You also need one certificate per night you stay so we’d need to use 5 of the certificates for our stay.

We had never successfully used a certificates before and hoped we’d have luck since the property has quite a few suites compared to regular rooms, but we wouldn’t know until just before our trip or possibly not even until checkin.

City Property

We were planning a 10 day trip where the boys would do remote school for the first two days. We looked for properties in downtown Miami that were close to activities I could do with the boys after their school ended for the day. We found the JW Marriott in downtown Miami that looked promising. It was attached to a high-end gym it looked like we’d have access to and had some games and activities as part of the hotel. This property was also part of the sale so we were able to book 5 nights for 160,000 points instead of 240,000 points at the normal price.

South Beach Alternative

As we got closer to the trip, we realized we wanted to be closer to the beach rather than in the city. We looked for Hyatt properties and found The Confidante which is actually on the beach and has solid reviews and recommendations. From the pictures it looks like a very boutique hotel with lots of art deco character. It could be fun, though the rooms were small. I inquired about options to upgrade to a suite using either a suite upgrade certificate to a standard suite or using points to a premium suite, but none were available. Hoping for an upgrade at checkin time was the best we could do. I booked the room using points as a placeholder and cancelled the Marriott reservation.

A few weeks before the trip I started looking at Google Maps to see what restaurants and activities were within walking distance. There wasn’t much and I was a bit disappointed. I started looking at the other Hyatt property in Miami Beach and found the Hyatt Centric South Beach. We found there were a TON of restaurants and, although it wasn’t on the beach, it was across the street. The rooms here were also small. Even the suites were small and this is a Hyatt location that specifically doesn’t allow you to use points or certificates to upgrade to a suite. We’d have to hope to get an upgrade on checkin as suites were either sold out or otherwise unavailable when I booked. Still, this seemed like a much better option for us than The Confidante so I booked this hotel at the last minute. We’d be going to South Beach!

I booked a paid rate because Hyatt still had a fantastic offer on paid rates that gave 25 points per dollar on cash rates. This is effectively 50% off the cash rates as I have consistently been able to get 2 cents per point or more in value from those points. I had never been to South Beach so we were looking forward to seeing what it was all about!