Why 7Pines in Ibiza is an outstanding Hyatt redemption – even if you buy the points

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• Genghis says:

  12 Jun12 June 06:09

  “ 56,000 acres of gardens”. That’s one big garden! Almost 100 square miles, 10 miles x 10 miles. Wow.

  • Mike says:

    12 Jun12 June 06:36

    As my boss says “ always check: numbers , units, currency and grid reference” it is amazing how being a “little” bit out with one makes a big difference

  • Matt says:

    12 Jun12 June 07:33

    I thought the same when I read that! 56000 acres is bigger than the whole island.

    • Rj-24 says:

      14 Jun14 June 16:09

      The island is 141,000 acres (I checked as I also thought 56k was a bit on the large side).

  • Prince Charles says:

    12 Jun12 June 10:37

    56,000 acres is not really a garden – it’s a jungle!

• Thiago says:

  12 Jun12 June 07:16

  How to transfer Amex points to Hyatt?

  • meta says:

    12 Jun12 June 08:02

    Hyatt is not UK Amex partner. Amex should really think about it.

    • Memesweeper says:

      12 Jun12 June 09:26

      *Hyatt* should really think about it 😁

      • Russ says:

        12 Jun12 June 09:30

        I don’t care who thinks about it as long as it happens!!! And chuck in top status with Platinum whilst they’re at it.

        • Harry T says:

          12 Jun12 June 10:48

          I don’t think giving Hyatt Globalist away with a credit card would be a good idea, but a lower tier would be appropriate and desirable.

        • meta says:

          12 Jun12 June 13:43

          Actually lower level Hyatt status is as useless as Marriott and Hilton will soon join them. I think Hyatt doesn’t even give status with credit cards in the US. I’d be happy if they just became a partner.

        • Lyn says:

          12 Jun12 June 15:43

          Chase gives the lowest Hyatt elite status, Discoverist, with their US Hyatt card.

• Barry cutters says:

  12 Jun12 June 09:14

  Ok I might be being a bit silly but I never really consider Hilton , Hyatt , Marriott . And have a long standing spire membership at IHG (currently 2m points) .

  The reason is I’m just not sure that there are the actual places for me to stay at .
  I work in sourthern towns mainly between m3+m4 . Usual hotels are CP reading , Indigo bath, indigo Stratford upon Avon , HI Salisbury , HI Winchester , cp Marlow, cp Basingstoke . Oxford voco
  When I’m Henley on Thames or somewhere with no IHG I tend to use hotels.com and have a healthy number of redemption nights left with them . (Historically Redeemed 80, 29 current)

  I have thought about Mercure Accor before as Salisbury and Winchester have options but they are just crap. .

  So I am really up for diversifying – and topping up with a CC etc , it’s just not mush use if I can’t get the stays …any suggestions as to which would be my best option .

  Thanks in advance

  • Harry T says:

    12 Jun12 June 09:28

    If there aren’t any hotels from other chains you want to stay in where you frequently stay, then what benefit would you derive from diversifying?

    • Russ says:

      12 Jun12 June 09:33

      I use miles for non chain hotels and have never regretted it. I’ve got so many banked now because of covid that I may have to do some big spending once we all get paroled 🙂

      • Russ says:

        12 Jun12 June 13:35

        I was just going to wax lyrical about PointsHound but BA seem to have dropped them 🙁

    • Barry cutters says:

      12 Jun12 June 11:20

      The benefit is the redemption possibilities -There are plenty of hotels all over the world from other chains that I WANT to stay at – hence the reason for diversifying so I can use some points for places like in this article .

      As we all know IHG is great for earning points but I’ve exhausted all the nice places to Visit having earnt and burnt over the years a lot more points than I’m currently sitting on

      I guess I don’t know a lot about any of the other chains and I don’t want to get involved in loads of different ones – I’d rather sign up to one , get top tier relatively quickly and then move a fair amount of my business travel to that brand to build up a extent enough pile of points for some decent redemptions .

      Do people generally prefer Hilton or Hyatt , Marriott etc

      • Lady London says:

        12 Jun12 June 13:33

        Based on reports on here I’d go for Marriott next if you like nicer places to stay when you spend your points.

        Hilton is much favoured by road warriors who stay a lot during the week. As Hilton Diamond gets you free breakfast and Lounge access where one exists. But spending points you have to go further away for really nice ones.

        If you go Hilton wait till you can do it via a status challenge. There was/is a good one about now. But doubtless there’ll be another one this year. You should pounce while the terms are better than normal during Covid. Keep up to date on Hilton promos though as well they have far more than Marriott.

        • Russ says:

          12 Jun12 June 13:44

          Lady London, is it your impression that Marriott are reducing the number of back to back promos? They do seem to be getting wider apart but that may just be the times we are living in.

        • Lady London says:

          13 Jun13 June 02:59

          Russ I dont do Marriott myself at all hardly. @Harry T knows a lot about making Marriott work and has an eye for quality. I suggest you ask tomorrow.

          For Hilton @BJ is very knowledgeable.

      • Jim Lovejoy says:

        13 Jun13 June 05:04

        Full disclosure: I’ve never stayed at a Hyatt. But many people seem to think they’re the best program. The problem is that they have a much smaller footprint than the others.
        I’d look at places you want to stay and see which hotel chain meets your needs best.

  • The Savage Squirrel says:

    12 Jun12 June 09:48

    Have you actually looked before saying that other chains aren’t available? Bath, Reading, Salisbury, Oxford all have options from every major chain; often several from each….

  • Lady London says:

    12 Jun12 June 10:42

    Be careful with holding 2m pts with IHG Barry. Stay below the radar with them. I read about 2 months ago on a very reliable site, IHG seemed to use a very flimsy excuse to cancel someone’s membership. Not incidentally, losing their IIRC 1.8m points.

    • Anna says:

      12 Jun12 June 12:42

      That’s very interesting LL. Maybe a couple of way-off, high end redemptions would be in order!

      • meta says:

        12 Jun12 June 13:48

        One of the reasons now I booked everything up with the odd 800k between my partner and I, which is not much when you consider it’s a week in Six Senses somewhere. We are now down to 10k each in our account, but no doubt it will go back up if the travel to Asia doesn’t open up end of year/next year.

    • Paul says:

      12 Jun12 June 15:19

      What was the flimsy reason or where did you read this? My account was temporarily suspended because I made a last min and relatively large reward stay redemption, didn’t realise until I tried to check-in. A call or two resolved it, but was disappointed in their handling of it.

      • Genghis says:

        12 Jun12 June 17:44

        Prob better that than points being stolen? I guess they’ve an automated risk engine that detects strange behaviour which just locks accounts? Whether there’s then a human following these up…

    • Barry cutters says:

      12 Jun12 June 16:51

      They would also lose my quite large annual spend if that was the case .

• Nick Burch says:

  12 Jun12 June 09:32

  Spain is currently allowing arrivals from the UK in without testing, just need to complete the passenger form and get the QR code to show.

  So, you’d just need the 10 days self-isolation when you get home (5-6 if you do test-to-release), £110 for the qured test and the cheapest 2+8 tests, and maybe another £50 for test-to-release if you want to escape self-isolation on day 5. Plus the same again for all the family members who want to come with you!

  • Princess says:

    12 Jun12 June 10:19

    Hi Nick, where did you find the cheapest day2+8 test?

    • Princess says:

      12 Jun12 June 10:24

      Ops I’ve just seen randox dropped the cost

    • Nick Burch says:

      12 Jun12 June 11:25

      Randox are £86 with an airline discount, but check first if you are near one of their drop-off locations. Need to add extra postage / courier costs on if not, they don’t use Royal Mail and there’s some big geographic gaps. I’ve not used them as they’ve currently no drop-offs anywhere near Oxford, but FlyerTalk reports they’re very good.

      RTDiagnostics are £79, but have pretty terrible reviews. Cheap, but not the quickest, and you’ll never get an answer if something goes wrong…. Probably fine if you’re not in a hurry and everything goes ok!

      Prices do seem to be dropping from week to week, so keep checking

      • Princess says:

        12 Jun12 June 13:08

        I will, thank you! Even if after the issue last week I got tired just with the idea of travelling now (I shared last week, but in summary: Eurofins made us almost to loose our flight to Portugal because they made a mistake with the predeparture test. Then the news of removing Portugal from the list and even if we were back just the day before the experience was really stressful…

    • Sarah says:

      14 Jun14 June 10:00

      I used Testing for All which is £99 for day 2&8 – it all worked well for me

  • Colin MacKinnon says:

    12 Jun12 June 10:43

    Or in Scotland you have a £170 day 2 & 8 test through the UK government site – which doesn’t seem to recognise old accounts! – and a £30 pre-return test in Spain and no Test to Release option.
    But only £9.99 for empty Ryanair flights!

  • Anthony Edwards says:

    12 Jun12 June 12:30

    Also a test before departure on the return I think?

  • Anna says:

    12 Jun12 June 12:44

    If you’re concerned about travel insurance, don’t forget that most policies won’t cover mainland Spain or the Balearics at the moment because the FCDO advice is not to travel. We have recently fallen foul of this, hence changed our travel plans to GIB.

• Russ says:

  12 Jun12 June 09:35

  Regarding the hotel, thanks for this Rob and looks good for the money as Hyatt usually does.

• MCO says:

  12 Jun12 June 11:33

  30 days cancellation! Quite a drawback in todays times. Excellent hotel though, thanks Rob didn’t know about this one.

• TGLoyalty says:

  12 Jun12 June 14:56

  Kempinski was planning on opening 20 7pines properties in the next few years. So I really do wonder what happened here

  • Rob says:

    12 Jun12 June 17:26

    It is weird when a US brand is seen as more successful than a German one in getting people to Ibiza!

    The problem with Kempi is that, frankly, they are not very good. Perhaps 7Pines thinks it is too good for them. Perhaps it is too pricey for the Kempi base.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.