How I Maximized the Amex Gold’s Hotel Collection Benefit in Australia

On a trip to Australia, I wanted to maximize my perks at hotels and decided to use the American Express^® Gold Card to book a hotel through the Hotel Collection.

Looking at both Sydney and Canberra, the 2 cities I planned on visiting, I ultimately settled on booking the Hyatt Hotel Canberra – A Park Hyatt Hotel to stay at.

Rates and How I Booked

Looking at rates for my selected dates, the Hotel Collection rates actually would have been about the same had I booked the hotel on Hyatt’s website, which I was really pleased about. The Hyatt website charged about $200 a night, and the Hotel Collection website had a similar price.

Logging in to AmexTravel.com, I went to the travel portal, where I typed in my destination and dates. As I have both the Platinum Card^® from American Express, and the Amex Gold card, both American Express Fine Hotels + Resorts and Hotel Collection hotel results displayed, but I could filter between each to only see hotels belonging to a certain category.

In Canberra, there’s only 1 property of either collection, and it’s the Park Hyatt. Unlike Washington, D.C., Australia’s capital city doesn’t have too many luxury hotels, so the Park Hyatt is one of the nicer hotels in the city.

A symbol indicated that it was part of the Hotel Collection, and I booked a base king room from there.

Benefits

I am a Hyatt Globalist, and one of the great things about booking hotels through American Express is that you can double-dip your benefits. You receive both your hotel chain status benefits and several perks Amex includes on its own:

• Room upgrade, on arrival, pending availability. As a Hyatt Globalist, I’m entitled to a suite upgrade upon arrival, if available, but the Hotel Collection upgrade is usually to only a preferred or corner room, not a suite.
• 12 p.m. check-in, when available
• $100 on-site property credit, which can be used toward food, beverage, spa treatments or merchandise. As I’m a Globalist, breakfast is complimentary, so I used this credit toward dinner each of the 2 nights I was there.
• Late checkout, when available

As you can see, many benefits are duplicated with the Hyatt Globalist program, but since the rates were similar, the on-site $100 property credit made a huge difference since I needed to eat during my stay. Factoring this credit into the cost was like taking $100 off of my bill.

Booking through the Hotel Collection would make perfect sense for someone without elite status, since you receive many similar perks. Even if you didn’t have breakfast included, you could use the $100 property credit toward this. If you’re not a morning person, it’s still flexible enough to use at other times, as well.

My Experience at the Hotel

Checking into the hotel, I found most of the benefits honored. 

As a Globalist guest, I arrived at approximately 1 p.m., and my room was ready to go. I had been upgraded to a 1-bedroom suite, though I attribute this to my Globalist status and not necessarily the American Express Hotel Collection program. Having paid Hotel Collection rates before, I find the upgrades tend to be to a more desirable view or a corner room but rarely a true suite.

Late checkout was confirmed, but for me, I could stay till 4 p.m. at no charge, again thanks to my Globalist status. Normally, I find late checkout on a Hotel Collection rate to be around 2 p.m., though there’s no fixed time and hotels usually work with you depending on occupancy rates.

One thing I did find interesting was the $100 property credit. While the program officially states that you receive $100, the hotel told me they provided AU$150. With the conversion rate, that meant I’d lost about $8.

While I certainly didn’t complain, it’s difficult to understand how international hotels are supposed to comply with the spirit of this requirement while still providing a standard to all guests. An $8 difference is fairly significant in terms of a $100 credit, so it almost seems they should adjust the conversion amount either weekly or overshoot it to $175 to be safe. 

That said, I certainly got plenty of value out of it nonetheless. The credit could be used on any charge at the hotel, minus the room rate, so I ordered room service twice to eat up the credit.

Room service at this property was very reasonably priced, so while I ordered more than I’d typically eat, I didn’t walk away feeling like I didn’t get any value due to the credit. Just to give you an idea of the amount of food I was able to get with this credit, I ordered a burger with fries, side of pasta, and broccoli one night and a steak sandwich, side of pasta, and butter chicken the second night. 

Final Thoughts

Despite the regular hotel room rates and American Express rates being similar, I’m glad I booked through the Hotel Collection to get the most value out of my stay. That said, being a Globalist enhanced my experience and allowed me to get more bang for my buck. With breakfast included with my status, I had more hotel credit to spend on other meals, and my upgrade was likely more significant.