Greetings from the Conrad Bali! Full review of this amazing property coming soon, but I wanted to quickly highlight why I think this hotel defines the reason many of us value elite status.
The best loyalty elite statuses come with many perks. Sure, the perks are watered down more often than we would like, but in almost every case some elite status is better than no status.
In this example The Conrad is a chain of upscale hotels falling under the Hilton brand. Hilton Honors Diamond can be achieved with either 30 stays, 60 nights, or 120,000 base points. I have HH Diamond status based on over 60 nights this year, but I also hold a very valuable credit card that can actually bypass those aforementioned requirements.
That credit card, the American Express Hilton Honors Aspire Card, grants you Hilton Diamond status automatically upon reaching the minimum spend and paying the annual fee.
The annual fee as of this writing is $450. Seems steep, yes, but let’s see how much of that $450 we can chip away with just one stay at the Conrad Bali.
Hilton regularly runs pretty good sales in the Asia-Pacific region, and it was during one of these sales that I booked 7 nights at the Conrad Bali at 35% off the regular rate. I booked the cheapest available room with 2 beds, which was the Deluxe Garden Twin for the equivalent of $109 + tax. The total with taxes came to $920. I am typically a budget traveler, and use points whenever I can, but this rate combined with the current points earning promos from Hilton Honors, looked like a great deal to me.
Let’s first take a look at the Diamond benefits at the Conrad Bali, and then see what type of value we can expect to get from them.
- Space available upgrade
- Breakfast for you and 1 additional registered guest in Suku or the lounge
- Conrad Suites Lounge access with the following scheduled refreshments –
- Breakfast from 7AM – 11AM
- Afternoon tea from 3PM – 5PM
- Evening cocktails from 5PM -7 PM
- Complimentary internet access at the Club Lounge between 7AM and 11PM
- Free internet all around the resort
- 15% laundry and dry cleaning
- 15% restaurant and bar accounts
- 15% off Jiwa Spa
- 15% off Business Centre services
I’m here with a friend of mine, so let’s see which of these benefits were valuable to us, and how it affected our stay.
1) I booked a Deluxe Garden Twin at $109. I received an upgrade prior to check in to a Deluxe Lagoon Access Twin. This room was selling for $254. This room was amazing, with a patio that was directly on the pool. The difference in price between the basic room I booked and the incredible upgrade was $146. Obviously I didn’t book the Lagoon Access room because I was hoping for an upgrade, but I could see myself booking that room specifically, under different circumstances, so this upgrade represented a savings of $1022 (7 nts x $146). Sometimes in some hotels an “upgrade” is just a bigger room, and doesn’t really move the needle for your stay. This upgrade was a game changer.
2) The Diamond breakfast benefit allowed us to have complimentary breakfast in Suku Restaurant, located under the lobby, or in the Conrad Suites lounge. I’ll dive deeper into this in my review, but let me just say, the breakfast spread in the restaurant is quite simply overwhelming. This may well have been the best hotel breakfast I have ever had. If you were paying for breakfast, the cost per adult is $18. $18 ea x 2 adults = $36 per day x 7 days = $252 saved. You need to eat somewhere, although you could find breakfast somewhere else much cheaper, so I would value this at about half the total, or $125. It’s easily possible to fill up enough at breakfast, that you don’t even need to eat lunch.
3) We also had access to the Conrad Suites Lounge located over near the Conrad Suites. We went there nearly every night for evening cocktails and finger foods. There is an extensive drink menu and several small finger foods and fruits that they never seem to stop replenishing. It’s not a ton of food, but for us it was enough for dinner each night. It’s difficult to put an exact price on this, since access to the lounge is complimentary, but I would say conservatively between the drinks and food, we saved about $20 per night x 7 nights = $140.
Those were the 3 main benefits we received at the Conrad Bali as Diamond guests. The food discount could be useful as well, but we didn’t use it.
The Wrap Up
Hilton Honors Diamond status appears to have saved us or added value of around $1200+ for this 7 night stay at the Conrad Bali. The case could be made that the food savings were even more than I’ve shown, simply because we were able to skip lunch since the breakfast was so amazing. That savings, or added value, however you want to look at it, far outpaces the $450 annual fee on the Aspire card without even considering the many other benefits that come with the card. I have no affiliation with American Express, but just wanted to illustrate how your travel life can be impacted by the right credit cards and/ or elite statuses.