There are two hotels that I’d long wanted to stay at in Paris for a special occasion.
You see, Paris is so full of good and affordable hotels relative to US chain hotel brands, I’d never been able to get myself to part with points for a stay there.
But you also know my “raison d’etre” for loving miles and points so much is to travel in ways I wouldn’t otherwise spend my money. I look at it as, essentially, steeply discounted luxury.
So, when my wife and I decided on Paris as the opener to our summer vacation with our 3-year-old son, concurrently celebrating our 5-year wedding anniversary, I decided it was time to splurge. The two hotels on my list were the Prince De Galles, a former SPG-affiliated and now Marriott Bonvoy affiliated Luxury Collection hotel, and the Park Hyatt Vendôme, part of World of Hyatt.
We would be in Paris for 4 nights, so 5th night free at the Prince de Galles wouldn’t work. I had a couple of Marriott Bonvoy 85,000 point certificates to use from the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant® American Express® credit card and the Ritz Carlton credit card, but you can only top those off with up to 15,000 additional points (a huge downside of the program given all the devaluations) and the Prince De Galles never dropped below 100,000 points for any of the nights we needed over the 6 months I was searching.
Meanwhile, I hit gold with the Park Hyatt Vendôme.
In this article
Booking
As a Globalist with available Suite Upgrade Awards, I was hoping to book a standard room for 4 nights using points (it is, as of this writing, a Category 8 which runs from 35,000 points per night off-peak to 45,000 points peak). This was August, so very peak indeed, but I found a string of nights that had availability in the Park Suite, the only room type that is SUA eligible. Since you can’t use the Points Advance Globalist benefit (reserve a room without the points in your World of Hyatt account) if you want to apply an SUA, I transferred 180,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points over to World of Hyatt and made the booking. Note that it’s only the Park Suite, not the Park Suite Deluxe, that you can use for the SUA. I make a point of this since it’s so hard to find standard Park Suites that you may wonder if there are other available room types for an SUA, but there are sadly not.
For a while leading up to the trip I wondered if it was a bit of a waste, only because of the plentiful cheap hotel rooms around town. But those would be a bed, not an experience. And I’m so glad I stuck with my gut and stayed at the Park Hyatt Vendome!
The base level room was selling for about 1,400 Euro a night, with suites over 2,000 Euro a night. The Euro was at 1.17 meaning the equivalent was about $1,640 for the base room or over $2,500 for our Park Suite, which was upgraded to a Park Suite Deluxe with Terrace – more on that in a second!).
We got about 5.5 cents per Hyatt point and I again want to point out that no, I’d never pay $2,500 for a hotel night but YES, I definitely value and appreciate true luxury!
(And not to get too much off topic, but yes – the room was “worth” that because that was the price to stay in it. I got to stay in that room! I would not have had that room without the points. What I would be willing to pay for a “bed” somewhere else is not relevant as I indeed did get to experience a suite in the Park Hyatt Vendôme!! Moving on…)
I’d read some reviews of the hotel that alluded to dated rooms or subpar service, but in 4 nights at the property, I never could figure out how anyone would have that opinion. From arrival to departure, everything about this property was 5 stars and then some.
My Hyatt Concierge, Lauren, had let the hotel know that it was our 5-year wedding anniversary. I can only assume that is why they managed to find us an upgrade to the only Park Deluxe Suite with a gigantic terrace! And this is a huge reason why I try so hard to remain a Globalist year after year – the amazing service I get from My Hyatt Concierge, something no other program comes close to (just ask a Marriott Ambassador!!).
At check-in, they let me know about the upgrade and the unique feature of the terrace which, as you can see below, had two big plush chairs plus a separate large table with 4 chairs.
The bellman (two on the way in and three on the way out) had our bags in our room in no time and a crib was also brought promptly. We also realized we needed a voltage converter for something, and they delivered one of those in moments as well.
As you can see, the room was very spacious.
The bathroom had very fancy soaps and shampoos, and there was a full-on Japanese Toto bidet for the toilet – extremely rare in hotels outside of Japan. The shower was great and even had a sink and mirror inside it, which made shaving extremely easy and it was connected to a bathtub as well.
The room had ample power ports behind the bed and around the room along with a giant TV which I confess we never turned on although we could have streamed to it from our devices if we wanted.
We requested the mini bar be disabled and emptied so we could use it as a fridge. Some nice hotels (or not nice hotels!) will refuse that and let you know that even if emptied, you cannot use the refrigerator or you’ll trigger the sensors and get charged, but they were very clear the sensors would be disabled for our stay and we were welcome to use the minibar as a personal fridge. That’s classy!
They were also kind enough to mark the special occasion by leaving a bottle of champagne in the room with some macarons, courtesy of both My Hyatt Concierge and the hotel staff.
Location
The Place Vendôme is very central, in the northwest part of central Paris, walkable to the Louvre and the Tuileries, which also had a fun summer amusement park operating during our stay. We took a few Ubers, and the RER to Disneyland Paris, but we walked quite a lot given the central location. It’s also home to a slew of high-end stores, but also normal bistros and even one of the top-rated sandwich shops in all of Paris (often with a queue to match) at Le Petit Vendôme.
Breakfast
The top-notch breakfast for Globalists was available in the restaurant until 11 on the weekend or 10:30 during the week. Unusually, you also had the option to have breakfast delivered as room service with absolutely no charge as well, though you’d miss out on the wonderful buffet. Even more uniquely, you could order the room service breakfast 24 hours a day!
The buffet was extensive with 3 hot items, which seemed to be bacon and veal sausage every day with hash brown-esque patties and roasted potatoes alternating days, and tons of breads, croissants, cereals, meats, cheeses, and the like.
As well, you could order off the menu a choice of benedicts or eggs prepared to your liking.
The benedicts even came with a bit of truffle!
Oh, and that French toast!! Get the French toast! thick clouds of heaven….
A glass of champagne was included daily as well. (Again, this is for a Globalist breakfast benefit, not just for those using points.)
Here’s the menu:
The service was so spot on, that when we asked for a special order for our son’s allergies, they offered proactively to pre-prepare whatever we’d like for the subsequent days, so we’d know there was no cross-contamination and reduce the waiting time.
On the 3rd day, they gave our son a stuffed monkey that looks like Curious George along with a coloring book and crayons. It was a present “just because” and very much appreciated! “George” will be coming home with us!
Despite not being on the menu, they were more than happy to give us freshly made iced coffees with various milk choices and were even happy to make a to-go cup at the end of the meal (which I didn’t expect given the culture in France still leans against “takeaway” although I suppose less and less each year – Five Guys was everywhere!!).
I’d rate the Globalist breakfast a full 5 stars.
As for dining beyond breakfast, the two restaurants were decidedly too fancy for us, with or without our toddler. If you tend towards very upscale restaurants, then I have no doubt they are lovely, but we preferred our meals a bit more casual. Prices were in line with the price of the hotel, with a draft beer clocking in at 19 Euros (but it hit the spot!).
Concierge
Always available from early morning to near midnight, they were all extremely friendly and helpful and were happy to apply postage and mail postcards for us. It’s gotten much harder to mail things abroad in the digital age as it can be difficult to find stamps and a postbox, but postcards are still fun! Offering to mail them was simply a nice touch at a hotel of this caliber.
Spa
It looked great and if you are walking around a lot, you might want to enjoy the jacuzzi. I wasn’t 100% clear if it was free and included for only Globalists or all guests, but I think all guests?
Unfortunately for me, the one day I had time to use it before the 10pm closing time happened to be the day they were deep cleaning it and it was closed. I’m sure the spa treatments are excellent, though not cheap as you’d expect. It’s not so common for prime location city hotels to have a jacuzzi so I thought that was another big plus for the hotel, even if I wasn’t able to time a visit.
Bottom Line
The Park Hyatt Vendôme is a splurge no matter how you look at it. I value a Hyatt point at about 1.6 cents so even at 45,000 points, it was around $720 worth of points per night – a massive discount to the actual price, but far from ‘free’.
Yet the idea wasn’t a completely free stay. It was a luxurious hotel for a special occasion at a deep discount.
keep in mind that you can earn up to 5 Chase points per dollar for general business expenses, like 5X on office supplies on the Chase Ink Business Cash® Credit Card or 3X on all travel and advertising on social media and search engines with the Chase Ink Business Preferred® – two cards I use extensively, which means I can accrue 45,000 points for $15,000 in business spend or even less. Even the popular personal Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card earns 3X on dining which adds up. That doesn’t even account for signup bonuses.
I found the hotel to exceed all expectations for the room, the hotel itself, the location, the breakfast, and the service overall.
If you are looking to splurge on a hotel in Paris and have the available Hyatt points (or Chase Ultimate Rewards or Bilt Rewards points which both transfer 1:1 to Hyatt), I don’t think you’ll regret it.
Thoughts?
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