Our family loves DC. That’s it. That’s basically the post. Ok, there’s more. My mom just hit a milestone birthday, and we decided to meet up for a party at my aunt’s house, which is right outside of Our Nation’s Capital. Naturally, the kids were stoked to cram a little Chinatown and Smithsonian time into our quick trip. The star of our weekend was obviously my amazing mom, but the Hyatt Place National Mall was a real winner too.
On first glance, there really is nothing super special about this hotel, or about any Hyatt Place in general, as it’s the budget arm of the hotel brand. But for families of 5-6, it means the difference between booking one room or two. They also always come with free breakfast, and the breakfast at this particular hotel was pretty good – we’re talking make your own breakfast burritos one day and sausage gravy with biscuits the other. Sam does not like industrial eggs, though, just so you know. This hotel was also just 2 blocks from the National Mall, which made touring super easy.
The number one reason we’ve become Hyatt super-fans as of late, though, is the crazy value when booking with points (and actually, there’s some good value to be found when booking with real money too). About a year and a half ago we stayed at a Marriott Residence Inn right across from this Hyatt Place. They are comparable hotels in nearly every way, except in how many points it takes to book them. We stayed this past weekend for 12,000 points a night. I don’t know what this Residence Inn would have cost, but I did a search for later in the summer and here is what I found:
Same weekend, comparable room, completely different points value. Remember that both Hyatt and Marriott are transfer partners of Chase Ultimate Rewards. Essentially, the Residence Inn is over three times the cost of the Hyatt, and they are practically the same hotel. We love a Hyatt Place: dependable, affordable, and great salsa to cover up your powdered eggs.
Before we checked into the hotel, we made sure to stop in Chinatown. We have a family obsession with China Express – the fresh noodles are amazing. This time, though, we went in a different direction towards a sushi conveyor belt. This was a lot of fun – definitely a gimmick – but a lot of fun. After getting settled at the hotel, we walked to the Wharf for ice cream. We were really surprised at how busy and vibrant it was down there. I guess a gorgeous, 70-degree Friday night will do that. The next morning, we walked around the Mall and ended up spending most of our time at the National Gallery of Art. It was a really lovely, relaxing time, and we capped it off with food truck lunch. Then, off to Rockville to par-tay.
The one thing I was hoping to try but didn’t get to this time is the App Too Good To Go. This app links individual customers with restaurants that have an over-supply of decent food from the day – it’s food rescue on a smaller scale. We don’t have it in Pittsburgh, and I keep hoping to try it when we are somewhere where it works… next trip I suppose.
The best part of the weekend was seeing family and celebrating with my mom. We love that we can use our points to plan fun vacations, or regular weekend travel, or both. Our kids aren’t on sports travel teams, but I keep thinking about parents who are constantly needing to book hotels for that, and how helpful this would be for them. The joy of travel hacking is that it’s flexible and can be customized to nearly any type of travel – there’s even an Amtrak card!
I’ll leave you with the star of our weekend who was so thrilled to have her face on all of the decorations!
