With 7 Hyatt free night certificates, 5 Hilton free night certificates, and 6 IHG free night certificates sitting in our accounts with expiration dates approaching, I put together a short trip to Florida this summer for my family.

First stop on the trip was Miami – after flying Southwest to MIA, we grabbed a rental car and headed to Hyatt’s The Confidante Miami Beach.  

Points Required

The Confidante is a category 4 Hyatt costing 15,000 points per night – so you can use Hyatt’s free Category 1-4 night certificate that you can earn with the Chase World of Hyatt visa.  

A lot of blogs list this as one of the better redemptions for a free night certificate as rates can climb to $400-$500 or more in the winter months.  

Standard rooms were running ~$300/night (inclusive of taxes and resort fees) during our stay in the summer – so a 2.0¢/point value ($300/15,000 points) is good.

Checkin 

This hotel is located only 20 minutes away from Miami airport.  We rented a car since we were heading to Key Largo after just a couple of nights stay at The Confidante.  There is a valet that was happy to take our rental car but there was no assistance with luggage (neither unloading from the car or bringing into the hotel or up to our room).  I liked the ‘text for your car’ option the valet provided.

Check-in was quick an easy in the small lobby.   I liked flamingo these touches.

We booked two rooms for two nights.  Our kids got lucky with an upgraded two queens room (11th floor with a small balcony and an ocean view), while our king room was just a standard room with a view of the street/front entrance.

Wristbands were given to use so the staff can identify hotel guests on the beach and pool area.  We were also given two cards (because of my Globalist status) which were good for two drinks each at the bar or two hand crafted local popiscles, etc.

Rooms

The rooms were as I expected – cute with a retro 50s theme for a mid-tier hotel.  While the hotel was built in the 1940s, it’s renovation to 50s retro chic was completed in 2017.

I really like the hotel’s theming. There were a few small issues with the rooms that I noticed.  I’m not sure why they left out a door in the shower, if you aren’t careful the floor gets soaking wet from water splashing out.  It also took an extremely long time for the hot water to warm up which seemed odd for a hotel.  The A/C worked ok, it was 73 when we arrived but like it cooler so set it at 68, it took all night to get down to 68, it finally turned off at 6:30am – expect it to run 24/7.

Housekeeping was just standard – our room didn’t have conditioner when we first arrived, then after our first night, housekeeping didn’t leave any shampoo or conditioner in our daughters’ room.  Our iron also wouldn’t heat and we had to exchange it for a working one. Our room also was missing a hair dryer while our daughters’ room had one. But the room was clean with comfortable beds and soft pillows.

Around the Resort

There isn’t much to the resort, inside there is the main restaurant and a nice bar/lounge area (where we used our Globalist check-in welcome gift for cocktails).

The restaurant extends to the outside if you prefer outdoor dining.  Then there is a courtyard before entering the pool area.

Past the pool area there is a fence with gate to take you to the beach.

Globalist Breakfast

Globalist breakfast was offerred in the restaurant Ambersweet which I learned about in the welcome email a few days before our trip (no mention of it at check-in even though the front desk thanked me for being a Globalist member).

Our first morning, we had the buffet ($34) which was NOT good.  It wasnt wasn’t very large.  The tiny croissants were rock hard.  The scrambed eggs were cold.  Not the best experience.

The buffet was so limited, my daughter ended up ordering french toast from the a la carte menu which was probably the way to go.

I was even a little shocked when the bill arrived – $198 for four of us with automatic 20% gratuity included.  Frankly I would have been disappointed if I was paying for the buffet – definitely go a la carte!

Pools & Beach

The pool areas while compact seemed fun, there was some music playing.  There is a separate pool for adults only with cabanas to rent.

We spent our first day at the beach.  Two lounge chairs are included per room at the beach – umbrellas are $22/day.   They also had larger loungers in the first row for rent – not sure what they were charging for those.

Towels are complimentary but not in great shape 2 of the 6 towels were got were stained badly and looked disgusting.

Service at the beach was great – periodically a server would come through for drink and food orders (food and drink menu).  I thought it was stingy to charge $7 for a bottle of water if you ask for a cup of ice water at the beach, they do tell you can get complimentary water at the pool area – but would it be a big deal to bring a cup of ice water with our food and drink order?  At the pool area a server was handing out cups of ice water without having to ask.

I should mention at check-in they raved about the artisan popsicles available at the pool area (and one of the options available with the Globalist ‘gift’ at check-in) – but when we tried to try them they only had coconut flavor on the first day and none available the second day and the bartender was very rude to my daughters. 

We stopped at the Cielito’s Artistan Pops store after we left on our way to Key Largo and I must say they were pretty darn good!

Activities

There is a fitness center located on one of the upper floors with a nice ocean view that is open from 6am to 10pm daily.  There were even a couple of Peloton bikes.

There are complimentary (2 hours) bicycles available at the front of the hotel.  It’s a little difficult to figure out and involves downloading an app, etc – an employee helped us figure it out and provided recommendations on where to go.

Wrap Up

I think this hotel is exactly what it is – a mid-tier resort.  It’s not the nicest resort and there were some hiccups but overall it was a cutely themed clean room with a nice pool and access to the beach.

Would I come again?   Sure, if I had some free night certificates to burn for a winter weekend getaway but would probably try something else if paying cash or using points.

Chase World of Hyatt

Definitely my favorite of the Chase hotel cards.  The Chase World of Hyatt card currently there is a 60,000 point bonus (30,000 points after spending $3000 in the first 3 months of account opening  plus earn 2 Bonus Points total per $1 spent on purchases that earn 1 Bonus Point, up to $15,000 spent in the first 6 months of account opening).

Hyatt has one the best award charts of all the hotel chains with free night awards starting at just 5,000 points.   

This card also gives you a free night certificate (good at any category 1-4) each year when you renew.

The card's annual fee is only $95.  Learn more and apply here.