Luxury travel is something that I never thought we’d experience. That is, until I entered the wondrous world of miles and points in 2012. Suddenly, 5-star hotel stays were within reach. With things like IHG and Hyatt free night certificates at my disposal, I found myself looking at luxury properties when planning our first European excursion in 2016.
Those first 5-star stays were unforgettable. I’d never experienced that sort of quality and luxury in my life. But as the years have passed, I find myself looking back with a different perspective. Now, more often than not, I think stays at 5-star hotels are overrated.
Sure, there are really nice aspects to luxury hotel stays. I don’t want to discount the fact that we were steps from the Mediterranean at the Intercontinental Carlton Cannes, or a short walk from the duomo at the Park Hyatt Milan. But there are other aspects of staying at 5-star hotels that leave me wishing we would have booked somewhere a bit less bougie.
Here are five reasons why I think most 5-star hotels are overrated:
They Nickel and Dime You For Everything
You’d think that paying a small fortune in either points or cash per night would mean that all the small things would be free. But exactly the opposite is true. Luxury hotels are the most likely to nickel and dime you for everything.
Breakfast? That’ll be $35 per person. Dinner? Now we’re looking at another $50. Add in parking, pool chair rental, items from the minibar, and other ridiculous charges for “amenities” and we’ve suddenly blown the budget for our entire vacation in all of 2 days.
Why do they charge for everything? Because they can. If a hotel has mostly business travelers (spending other people’s money) or are frequented by a wealthier demographic, dropping an extra $100-200 per day for meals, drinks, and the like is nothing to them.
The minibar they put in your room for convenience is for them, not for you. It’s just another revenue stream. Sound too cynical? Maybe I am. I just find that I’d much rather book a Hampton Inn with free breakfast and parking. You can keep the rest of the silly charges for all the extras.
You Feel Like An Outsider
Maybe this is just me, but I am totally out of my element at luxury hotels. The idea is staying at a super nice property always seems so appealing sitting behind a screen looking at amazing photos. Everything looks so perfect and so luxurious.
But then we arrive, and suddenly I’m feeling like the Clampett family arriving in California from the Ozarks. It just isn’t us. I’m not saying the staff don’t treat us well or that the property isn’t stunningly beautiful. I just can’t help but suddenly notice the holes in my son’s jeans amid the designer-wear all around us. Do I normally care? No. And this is telling.
The fact of the matter is that we are a very middle class family, and staying at a luxury property is well outside the norm. I’m far more at home in a Hyatt Place or a Residence Inn that at an Intercontinental. My wife and I literally laughed at the excessive ornateness of our room at the St. Regis Rome.
You know which stay was more memorable than the St. Regis Rome from our summer trip to Europe a few years back? The Hilton Florence Metropole. A Hilton is already upscale for us, but this was a much better pick. It was the perfect blend of quality, experience, and award cost. I’ll take the 4-star hotel stay over the 5-star.
What The Heck Is Turn-Down Service?
The first time I read about turn-down service, I had no idea what to make of it. You really let someone into your room to “ready the bed” and place chocolate on your pillow?!? How strange.
I’ve let the housekeeper in to ready the bed on two occasions that I can recall. What I mostly remember is us awkwardly standing there while she moved the duvet and and placed a chocolate on the nightstand. It was just weird. Now I simply decline the offer.
Returning to your room after being out in the evening to the nicely readied duvet and a chocolate or two is entirely different, however. This was how we experienced turn-down service in an amazing suite at the Fairmont Banff Springs.
So here is the current rule: turn down the turn-down service if we’re staying in, but let it happen if we’re out.
The Cost Isn’t Worth It Over Slightly “Worse” Options
In many cases, a luxury hotel stay commands quite the premium over other choices. Would it be worth paying $450 per night for the St. Regis San Francisco when the Le Meridien a few blocks away is going for $180? I don’t think so. The rooms look pretty comparable to me. I don’t know what I’d be paying nearly $300 more for.
I find that this is the case in so many locations. Luxury commands a premium, but I don’t see why. Sure, there is the brand name, and there are often special amenities and more personalized service, but do we really need any of that? No.
In all honesty, mid-scale to good value upscale hotels are the sweet spot. Depending on our needs, a 3-star to 4-star stay is perfectly adequate. Experience has shown that 5-sat hotels are overrated.
The One Thing I Appreciate About Upscale and Luxury Hotels
If there is anything I love about luxury properties is that they tend to have fantastic showers. This is the feature I remember most about the Park Hyatt Milan. The bathroom was as basically as big as the main part of the room, and the tub and shower were both out of this world.
But you can often find this at upscale brands that don’t bridge into luxury territory. Recent examples for me include the Renaissance Beijing Wangfujing and the Grand Hyatt at SFO. The former is a 3-star property, and my best guess for the new airport hotel is that it is 4-star.
In any case, an awesome shower is nice, but it’s not worth another $100 per night or substantially more points.
Stick to Mid-Scale, 5-Star Hotels Are Overrated
It’s hard to define what exactly mid-scale and upscale hotels are, but the brands roughly between Holiday Inn Express and Hyatt House represent my ideal hotel stay. They offer the necessary amenities, have free breakfast and comfortable rooms, and are more than enough for family travel. There’s no need to go bigger. Rather than look for the best luxury properties around the globe, I find that I’m burning free nights for airport hotels.
Sure, I’ll take something with character or style now and then, such as a Hyatt Centric, Hilton or Renaissance hotel. If there is value in an award at a 4-star property and elite status get us the perks we need, I’m in. But this is usually when one of these stays is marginally more than a stay at the Hyatt Place down the street.
Even so, we’re reaching in those situations. Hyatt Place is my most ideal hotel brand. It has all the basics, has a consistent experience at every location, and is pretty much always a great value whether using cash or points (the new location in downtown SF excluded from that final sentiment).
The only time I would consider a 5-star hotel stay is when it is objectively cheap. Even then, I’d prefer it to be an award. You can really only find these abroad, and most likely in Asia. China and India in particular have some nice properties that you can score at great rates.
Then again, if Hyatt Place hotels started cropping up at half the cost, I might be hard pressed to not book those.
What do you think of luxury hotel stays? Do you think 5-star hotels are overrated?
“Luxury hotels are the most likely to nickel and dime you for everything.” lol… of course they do. Everything at a 5-star hotel costs more because their target market is rich or affluent customers who have the money to blow on those expenses. 5-Star hotels were not built for the budget-conscious or middle-income earners. Just because you can stay at a five-star hotel using points does not change the fact that everything there is still expensive. Holiday Inn Express vs Park Hyatt is like comparing a Hyundai vs a Mercedes, of course, everything for a Mercedes will cost more. “You… Read more »
Sounds like a good choice moving forward! For Europe trips, I totally agree. Something reasonably comfortable with the necessities (i.e. 3 or 4 star place) is totally sufficient. We spend all day out exploring, too.
My favorite 5-star free night story occurred about 15 years ago at the St. Regis in NYC. I checked in wearing my usual Reeboks and dragging my $30 carry-on bag from Marshall’s, looked around at the Louis Vuitton carrying clientele in the lobby and decided, to quote Sesame Street, one of these things is not like the other. But I was amused, not embarrassed, and I enjoyed living in the lap of luxury, if only for that night. Since then I’ve stayed in many other five-star hotels and never felt like an outsider. After all, all the fancy people you… Read more »
Good point! It’s true that you can’t/should’t judge based on appearances. But it’s so often what we do, and I feel like we stick out like a sore thumb at 5-star places.
This is SUCH an astute post! We stay in uber-luxe hotels all the time using points and enjoy all kinds of status-driven perks. The extraneous charges are indeed insane. But I’ve never felt out of place. This girl from Minnesota and her Bronx-born husband always dress well, we never haul plastic bags full of Dollar Store goodies through the lobby, and we’ve treated everyone politely our whole lives. Our take on the other clientele? Too right, they’re amusing trying to impress each other. The staff surely don’t care, and the rest of the guests you’ll never see again, so why… Read more »
5 star hotels are definitely overpriced and overrated, the latest trend in travel and housing seems to service apartments which provide all the facilities you need to feel at home.
check out stayeasy.co.in for budget stay options with good service
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I completely agree, and one item to add to the list is they may make you feel compelled to stay in the hotel more rather than go out and explore. If I spent double or more for the Intercontinental vs Holiday Inn when I was in Paris last year, I’d likely feel like we’d need to be back at the hotel way more. At the Holiday Inn, we wake up, freshen up, leave and explore for the day, returning 8-10 hours later, relax for 60-90 minutes, go out for the evening, come back, and sleep. If it was the IC,… Read more »
So true. If we were heading somewhere to just park it for a while, a nice resort hotel, or 5-star hotel with lots of amenities might be appreciated.
But so often, it feels like overkill. A waste. Especially when you’re on city tours like you mention.
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I totally agree. I stayed last week at a Comfort Inn that was quite comfortable, and had an amazing shower head. A day later, I stayed at a Fairfield Inn for two nights where I really wanted to steal the mattress! And they both had free breakfast and free parking. I have read many of these travel blogs over time, and the one criticism that I have is that my goals in using points for stays and travel seem to be quite different than those of the writer. The writers tend to want to fly first class and stay at… Read more »
Agreed. The goal is often the most luxury possible, which often isn’t the goal of many travelers.
I still remember my stay at the Farifield Inn Roanoke Salem in late 2018. Hotel was less than a year old. Honestly, it was one of the nicest stays I’d had domestically in a *very* long time at the time.
You’ve nailed all of this. I would add that a lot of 5-star + hotels have started taking the mini-bar out or not filling them anymore. This is worse than the high prices they charge for the stuff. At least you have an option for the $9 beer or $6 snicker bar. I seem to be trending towards more 4 start type hotels these days. Ones with good locations, nice clean rooms and a balance of good service.
A 4-star stay is definitely a better balance. I can count on one hand with leftover fingers the number of times I’ve taken anything from the minibar. I still prefer limited service if the price is much better.
Some people have low standards and are comfortable in substandard settings. I myself like to stay in a nicer place than home when I am on vacation which is the highlight of my year. If I live in a nice home with nice decor of course I don’t want to stay in a room that is going to be lacking in aesthetic. I find the room just as important as the destination because I just don’t run out of the room when I wake up. I enjoy taking a bath in hopefully a stand alone tub, I enjoy relaxing in… Read more »
Wanton personal attacks aside, I see your point about not wanting to travel 1,000s of miles to stay in a Comfort Inn. You do you. I just booked a Comfort Inn for our trip to London for 8,000 Choice points and am quite pleased with the value.
And, yes, I’m bringing two of my beautiful kids, who look nothing like me. Love is stronger than blood.
This is such a dignified response to a personal attack, Ian. Kudos to you. Well done!
Jackson was just pointing out the obvious. Ian said multiple times he feels uncomfortable in a 5 star hotel as he feels out of place. Foreign adoption is a controversial practice. Ethopia just banned it in 2018 in the era of awareness over cultural appropriation.
It’s sad that providing a loving home for kids with a difficult background is considered bad practice and cultural appropriation in our modern age.
There are potential pitfalls and valid arguments against international adoption. This isn’t one of them.
Wow… what a nasty comment there at the end. Absolutely uncalled for. You must be a very miserable and unhappy person to go around posting nasty comments like that. It looks like the first part of your comment was designed to draw unsuspecting readers to read your post so that you can surprise them with your nasty personal attack at the end. Very unfortunate that you like to spread emotional poison like this.
Foreign adoption is a very bad practice that destroys a person’s birthright to be raised by their own people and in their own culture. A Japanese boy or girl being sent to subsahara Africa, India, or Europe to be raised by people who don’t look like him or her and in a foreign culture is not my idea of a good thing. Imagine someone in Sweden having a car crash and the Swedish boy being sent to the Congo or the Mongolia to be adopted. Thankfully more and more countries are seeing foreign adoption for what it is and banning… Read more »
The difficulties of adoption transcend race. In all cases you will see a disproportionate number of kids in foster care and adoption (both foreign and domestic) with great emotional difficulties. There is loss in all cases.
But that loss is parents and relationships. It’s an issue of attachment and love, which will always transcend skin color. This current focus on skin color boggles my mind.
Mate, however your parents raised you was clearly a failure. Focus on your own issues before discussing topics you know nothing about. Bringing down others isn’t going to get you the love that you desperately need.
You sound like a miserable person. No wonder you use a fake name. Honestly, many of us travel to discover the unknown, perhaps meet locals and have a unique experience. If I had as awful a personality as you did, I would opt for paying more and staying at a fancy place alone where no one could be depressed by my personality too. Having a nice hotel won’t change your unfortunate character.