December 31, 20195 yr Looking for suggestions for the best Marriott properties. I have a shit ton of points and would like to see what the Surly recommends. I have been on the Marriott website a bunch but wanted to see what experiences you have had.
December 31, 20195 yr College Station Marriott would allow you to travel back in time to 1970's U.S.S.R.
December 31, 20195 yr We spent a week at Hotel Punta Islita in Costa Rica, and loved it. It’s an Autograph Collection property.
January 1, 20205 yr Ritz and St. Regis are clearly the Crown Jewels. I can recommend the following form staying there, some of these on points: Ritz properties: Aruba, Amelia Island, Tahoe, Dove Mountain, Rancho Mirage, New Orleans, Bachelor Gulch, Waikiki (it’s a Ritz Residences but they offer it like a hotel), NYC Central Park. Also stayed at the one in Dallas several times, but there are better locations obviously St. Regis: Deer Valley. Houston is nice, but no real reason to go there unless you just happen to need to stay in Houston. Next steps down are things like JW, and Autpgraph Collection. Some good locations for both of those. Great thing about Marriott — stay 4 nights on points and get a 5th night free typically
January 1, 20205 yr 3 hours ago, AustinMT said: Ritz and St. Regis are clearly the Crown Jewels. I can recommend the following form staying there, some of these on points: Ritz properties: Aruba, Amelia Island, Tahoe, Dove Mountain, Rancho Mirage, New Orleans, Bachelor Gulch, Waikiki (it’s a Ritz Residences but they offer it like a hotel), NYC Central Park. Also stayed at the one in Dallas several times, but there are better locations obviously St. Regis: Deer Valley. Houston is nice, but no real reason to go there unless you just happen to need to stay in Houston. Next steps down are things like JW, and Autpgraph Collection. Some good locations for both of those. Great thing about Marriott — stay 4 nights on points and get a 5th night free typically Good stuff there, agree. Will add that we loved the Renaissance Lodge at Sonoma.
January 1, 20205 yr All the higher end Marriotts in NOLA are great, although the JW will “fee” you less than the Ritz. Recently had a great stay at a JW resort in Scottsdale. The St. Regis in Houston is a great property, as mentioned already.
January 1, 20205 yr Points don’t go very far at Ritz and St Regis any more. 70-100k a night. But they are pretty nice. JW in Cabo is an incredible property. W Punta de Minta is as well. Didn’t really like the Ritz in New Orleans, we preferred the Autograph Collection. If Vegas is your thing the Cosmopolitan is a Marriott property. We just spent 10 days at the Marriott in Kauai. Property was not the most high end but the pool was incredible and the points value was great.
January 1, 20205 yr 8 minutes ago, LebongJames said: Points don’t go very far at Ritz and St Regis any more. 70-100k a night. But they are pretty nice. JW in Cabo is an incredible property. W Punta de Minta is as well. Didn’t really like the Ritz in New Orleans, we preferred the Autograph Collection. If Vegas is your thing the Cosmopolitan is a Marriott property. We just spent 10 days at the Marriott in Kauai. Property was not the most high end but the pool was incredible and the points value was great. Ahh — if you look around and are flexible on dates, you can get Some of the Ritz locations (yes, good ones) for 50-60k/night. Again, you have to be flexible, but it can be done. As I mentioned, if you do 4 nights on points, you get a 5th night free as well.
January 1, 20205 yr 12 minutes ago, AustinMT said: Ahh — if you look around and are flexible on dates, you can get Some of the Ritz locations (yes, good ones) for 50-60k/night. Again, you have to be flexible, but it can be done. As I mentioned, if you do 4 nights on points, you get a 5th night free as well. The 5th night free is huge. I agree with the flexibility but it just seems we never have that.
January 1, 20205 yr 5 minutes ago, LebongJames said: The 5th night free is huge. I agree with the flexibility but it just seems we never have that. Dates matter somewhat, but the key is checking all of the Ritz locations for whatever dates you have. Location flexibility is as pr more important than date flexibility. Fortunately, my wife is a master at figuring this stuff out and using our points
January 1, 20205 yr Marriott has acquired several small boutique hotel chains as well the you might want to check out. I’ve stayed at some of the Luxury Collection hotels that were really nice. Hotel de Berri in Paris was phenomenal. Ritz properties as mentioned above will always be superb on service (all though sometimes rooms and hotel can be dated) Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
January 1, 20205 yr We've typically leveraged our points on beach-type trips. Not sure how it's recovered from the hurricane in 2018, but we stayed at the Autograph Collection on Scrub Island in BVI and it was awesome. That was six years ago. Did Playa Largo (also Autograph Collection) two years ago in Key West and it was nice. We're considering French Leave Resort in The Bahamas this year. Most of our Marriott point trips (with the exception of BVI) have been leveraged in conjunction with Southwest points, so we tend to stick near those locations, and I don't have much to offer outside of those areas. I accrue a significant amount of points, but not a "shit ton", so I've always tried to find point values and avoided splurging on Ritz / St Regis properties.
January 2, 20205 yr French Leave resort. Eleuthera Bahamas. Amazing experience. cant go wrong with Ritz in caymans or any where in Caribbean.
January 2, 20205 yr On 12/31/2019 at 6:20 PM, AustinMT said: Ritz and St. Regis are clearly the Crown Jewels. I can recommend the following form staying there, some of these on points: Ritz properties: Aruba, Amelia Island, Tahoe, Dove Mountain, Rancho Mirage, New Orleans, Bachelor Gulch, Waikiki (it’s a Ritz Residences but they offer it like a hotel), NYC Central Park. Also stayed at the one in Dallas several times, but there are better locations obviously St. Regis: Deer Valley. Houston is nice, but no real reason to go there unless you just happen to need to stay in Houston. Next steps down are things like JW, and Autpgraph Collection. Some good locations for both of those. Great thing about Marriott — stay 4 nights on points and get a 5th night free typically This is spot on. Adding to the St. Regis...the NYC one is great. Had our own butler who unpacked our things for us. Last night there, realized the only clean dress shirt I had left was a cuff link shirt. Fuck...forgot my cuff links. Called the butler hoping for a long shot that maybe they had some in lost and found or something. He showed up 2 minutes later with an array of brand new cuff links neatly laid out on a tray. I offered to return them the next day and, “no mr landomatic, those are yours to keep complimentary.” That’s service. Also, back on topic, we love The Edition properties which are Marriott...kind of a boutique Ritz from our experience. Highly recommend. It’s our go-to most of the time whenever we’re in a city that has one. But they are pretty limited. Might be Marriott’s best kept secret.
January 2, 20205 yr I'm a Silver Elite member so some places give me a free bottle of water at check in. I used points over the summer for a night at an old Marriott property across the highway from Six Flags - probably should not use all of your points there.
January 2, 20205 yr I've stayed at a couple of resorts - Coronado Island (San Diego) was great, the one in Key Largo was fine but not really close to anything interesting. The Fort Lauderdale location has great beach access and views of cruise ships coming/going on certain days. I do love the Cosmo in Vegas, but they will hit you with like $85/night resort fee. Ritz Key Biscayne is one I've always wanted to check out
January 2, 20205 yr This really depends on how far you want to travel. If you want to go to SEAsia the Vanna Belle is pretty sweet in Thailand. There's a bad ass Westin in Jakarta where the lobby is on the 54th floor. Similar Westin in Singapore. I echo the comments on the Ritz and St. Regis properties though. The Ritz in Muscat Oman is an old palace that was recently redone. Pretty cool city, Muscat.
January 3, 20205 yr W Mexico City is nice. Used some suite night upgrades to get a two story suite on the top floor. Not too shabby.
January 3, 20205 yr On 1/2/2020 at 10:51 PM, Jimbaround said: This really depends on how far you want to travel. If you want to go to SEAsia the Vanna Belle is pretty sweet in Thailand. There's a bad ass Westin in Jakarta where the lobby is on the 54th floor. Similar Westin in Singapore. I echo the comments on the Ritz and St. Regis properties though. The Ritz in Muscat Oman is an old palace that was recently redone. Pretty cool city, Muscat. I stayed at the JW Jakarta a few years after it got bombed. Great brunch.
January 4, 20205 yr St. Regis Grand Hotel in Rome is now owned by Marriott. Want to burn points? This is the place. Category 8 property.
January 4, 20205 yr 1 hour ago, texasdago said: St. Regis Grand Hotel in Rome is now owned by Marriott. Want to burn points? This is the place. Category 8 property. Or do what we did in April, and stay 2 blocks away at the Marriott Anthology COllection Palazzo Naiadi. Very nice, and save:
January 4, 20205 yr Rome, Paris or London will chew thru your points and they have excellent value for larger rooms. *^^^ That place was pretty sweet. Would love to stay there again sometime Edited January 4, 20205 yr by Doc Reeves
January 4, 20205 yr 15 minutes ago, Spankytoes said: Holiday Inn Tehran has pretty good rates going on The bar there sux.
January 5, 20205 yr On 1/3/2020 at 8:47 PM, Shaddie said: The bar there sux. Not sure what you’re talking about. I got bombed there!
January 5, 20205 yr On 1/3/2020 at 5:13 PM, 52-80 said: I stayed at the JW Jakarta a few years after it got bombed. Great brunch. I once dropped a bomb at the JW after a great brunch in Austin, so this post hits close to home. Edited January 5, 20205 yr by Landomatic marriott bomb talk not going away
January 6, 20205 yr On 1/3/2020 at 7:37 PM, AustinMT said: Or do what we did in April, and stay 2 blocks away at the Marriott Anthology COllection Palazzo Naiadi. Very nice, and save: Interesting. I think it used to be called something like the Hotel Esedra and was not part of Marriott. That's new. Both are great locations. The Grand has a deep and amazing history and has some pretty exclusive clientele, if you care about that.
January 6, 20205 yr 13 minutes ago, texasdago said: Interesting. I think it used to be called something like the Hotel Esedra and was not part of Marriott. That's new. Both are great locations. The Grand has a deep and amazing history and has some pretty exclusive clientele, if you care about that. The Grand looked awesome. This one was quite a bit less expensive.
January 6, 20205 yr 1 minute ago, AustinMT said: The Grand looked awesome. This one was quite a bit less expensive. Well, let's just say I have a connection that allowed us to pay drastically less than the going rate. Otherwise...
January 6, 20205 yr 2 hours ago, texasdago said: Well, let's just say I have a connection that allowed us to pay drastically less than the going rate. Otherwise... MMF?
January 9, 20205 yr 4 hours ago, Mack Tripper said: There's also a St. Regis in Florence right on the Arno We are staying at the Westin in Florence in April. Also on the river and a lot less points
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