Upgrade Offer for Upcoming Andaz Papagayo Stay

My family of five is traveling to Costa Rica early next year for spring break. My husband and I each spent our points from the World of Hyatt credit card for five nights at the Hyatt Andaz Peninsula Papagayo Resort.

Since we booked on points using two accounts, we each requested connecting rooms on our reservations. The plan is to have my husband and I in the king room and my kids in the double room with a rollaway. The kids will all have their own beds, the parents will have some privacy, and everyone will be happy.

Even though we’re still a few months away from our trip, I decided to email the hotel to make sure we can get connecting rooms. I was pleasantly surprised by the reply!

The Offer

The hotel rep told me that we booked standard view rooms, and the hotel does not have any connecting rooms in that category. But, he said if we wanted to upgrade to rooms with a better view and get guaranteed connecting rooms, we could pay $15 for the king room and $35 for the double room each night. Plus, the upgrade comes with free breakfast for four.

What?!?! Yes, sign me up!

Since I am only a World of Hyatt Discoverist (not a Globalist), I don’t have free breakfast privileges. The breakfast buffet at Rio Bhongo that everyone raves about is ~$40 per person with tax and service charge. Even with kids 12 and under at half price, it would still cost my family of five $160 each day.

As I mentioned in my post a few weeks ago about 5 Travel Experiences I Refuse to Splurge On, I normally don’t splurge on expensive hotel breakfast buffets. Not to sound cheap, but there was no way we would spend $160 on breakfast each day for five days. I’d rather pack granola bars and muffins for breakfast and spend that money on an excursion.

But when the cost goes down significantly and includes guaranteed connecting rooms, it was a no-brainer for me to accept this upgrade offer. We are still short one breakfast for our “extra” kid. However, our youngest kid can order from the $9 kids’ menu or even the full buffet for $20.

If by some miracle my kids decide to sleep in, we may fill up on a late breakfast and skip lunch.

What About Guest of Honor Perks?

Even though I’m not a Globalist, I still could have gotten free breakfast if a Globalist would have booked the room for me with the Guest of Honor perks. I would just have to find a Globalist I trust, transfer our points to her and have her book the rooms.

Unfortunately, due to the timing of receiving our points from our credit card bonuses and the category increase this hotel had last year, I did not have time to transfer points to get Guest of Honor perks.

Bottom Line

I’m glad I reached out to the hotel when I did about the connecting rooms. I am happy with our little upgrade situation. Although I’m curious if the hotel would have reached out to me eventually, or if I would have just been disappointed at check-in that we didn’t have connecting rooms. Either way, breakfast is now going to be much cheaper and I won’t be packing as much food in my suitcase.

If you have a reservation on points at the Andaz Papagayo, I recommend you reach out to see if there are any cash upgrade offers to a bed and breakfast rate. Has anyone received a similar offer at this resort?

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