Review: Andaz 5th Avenue
Review: Park Hyatt New York
​Review: Andaz Wall Street

As a Hyatt loyalist, Manhattan offers quite a few options for Hyatt stays, but since it's Manhattan, you'll usually end up paying an arm and a leg. We've accepted this fact and since we are usually traveling over the weekend and only have one night in a hotel, it's a bit easier to deal with the hotel prices. Our favorite Hyatt brands are Andaz and Park Hyatt and New York City offers two Andaz properties and a Park Hyatt, all of which we've stayed at on different visits. 

The Park Hyatt is Hyatt's newest property in New York City and it's absolutely stunning. Like the Andaz 5th Avenue, the location is excellent and it's right by Central Park and also convenient to several subway lines, etc. The Park Hyatt is located on W 57th St between 6th and 7th Avenues. 

The Park Hyatt New York is a category 7 property, which is the highest category designation Hyatt has. As such, a standard room can be booked for 30,000 Hyatt points (if there is points availability to be found) and will usually set you back between $600 and $700 a night. I had a free Hyatt night available after being approved for the Hyatt Visa earlier in the year, so we decided to use that for this stay, which was an excellent value.

As usual on our New York trips, we arrived at the hotel early Saturday morning after taking a red-eye from San Francisco. We took an Uber from JFK and arrived at the hotel around 7:15 AM. The bellmen who greeted us were friendly and offered to take our bags. We were directed inside where we were met by another employee who asked for the name on our reservation and directed us upstairs to the main lobby for check-in. 

The elevator to the hotel lobby is to the left when entering the building and the lobby is located on the third floor. You'll pass the hotel's restaurant and bar on the way to the front desk and I loved the modern and artistic decor throughout the common areas of the hotel. 

We proceeded up to the lobby where we were promptly checked in by a friendly associate and given the keys to our room, which was such a wonderful thing to hear after our prior experience at the Andaz 5th Avenue a few months prior. We were also proactively offered late check out, which is one of my favorite perks of Diamond status given that we take a lot of weekend trips where we land Saturday morning and fly home on Sunday night. 

Our room was located on the 15th floor of the hotel, so we grabbed our bags and headed upstairs to get settled in. True to Park Hyatt's style, the hallways were full of wood paneling and were somewhat dark, but still very comfortable and rich looking. 

We had heard so many good things about this hotel and were so excited to finally be checking it out. Park Hyatt is our favorite of Hyatt's brands and we love the minimal but comfortable design of most properties. The Park Hyatt New York definitely did not disappoint. The room was large by New York standards and offered a wonderfully large bathroom. Immediately upon entering the room, you'll notice a very nice cabinet directly across from the door, which houses the minibar and coffee/tea setup. The minibar has a huge selection of snacks and drinks and the attention to detail is incredible. You can find everything from Krug champagne to fancy sweets and chips and the water bottles throughout the room are even Park Hyatt branded with wonderful NYC vignettes.  There are closets to the right of the door and next to the minibar and the bedroom was on the right side. The bathroom is to the left. 

The bedroom had a king bed, a chair (which I really wanted to take home with me) and a desk. I loved the personalized details throughout the room (which Park Hyatt usually does very well), such as the welcome message on the television and on the iPad, which can be used to control things throughout the room and do things like ordering room service if needed. As with many of Hyatt's higher end properties, controls for all aspects of the room, such as drapes and lighting were located next to the bed. 

Review: Andaz 5th Avenue
Review: Park Hyatt New York
​Review: Andaz Wall Street

As a Hyatt loyalist, Manhattan offers quite a few options for Hyatt stays, but since it's Manhattan, you'll usually end up paying an arm and a leg. We've accepted this fact and since we are usually traveling over the weekend and only have one night in a hotel, it's a bit easier to deal with the hotel prices. Our favorite Hyatt brands are Andaz and Park Hyatt and New York City offers two Andaz properties and a Park Hyatt, all of which we've stayed at on different visits. 

First up is the Andaz 5th Avenue. The Andaz 5th offers one of the best locations out of the three and it's usually a bit more affordable than the Park Hyatt. The Andaz 5th is located across the street from the New York Public Library, right by Bryant Park and is on the corner of 5th and E 41st St. 

Review: British Airways First Class SFO - LHR
Review: Iberia Airlines Business Class LHR - MAD
Recap: Sights in Spain
Review: American Airlines Business Class MAD - DFW
​

American Airlines (AA) #37
Madrid (MAD) - Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW)
Sunday, January 3rd, 2016
12:20 PM - 4:45 PM, Duration: 10 hrs, 25 mins
Boeing 777-200 Business Class, Seat 5H

Introduction

When we originally booked our flights to Spain for New Year's, we weren't able to find many options for the return flight: no Star Alliance, oneworld, or SkyTeam airline had two award seats available from Europe to the US during the first few days of January, and paid fares were crazy expensive. We were pretty set on going to Spain, so we decided to book an American Airlines "AAnytime" award, which requires many more miles than a "MileSAAver" award but has better availability. In our case it cost us 135,000 miles each for one-way business class, which is a ton (a saver award would have been 50,000 miles). But we were gambling that some last-minute award availability would open up and we'd be able to change our tickets.

Unfortunately nothing better ever opened up, so we were stuck paying the high mileage rate. To make things worse, we weren't all that excited about the flight itself, since the plane type was an unrefurbished 777-200. Jen reviewed this product last year and wasn't impressed: the cabin is dated, the seats aren't lie-flat, and there's no all-aisle access, so it's one of the worst international business class products out there. But hey, at least we had a way to get home, and we didn't have to fly in economy!

Check In

We took the train to Madrid-Barajas airport and got there about two hours before our flight. The economy class check-in line was insanely long, and the business class line wasn't much better, so we went to the automated kiosks. An agent quickly stopped us and told us that none of the machines were working and that we had to wait in the line instead. Later, while we were standing in line, we saw several passengers check in using the machines, so I told Jen to hold our spot while I tried to use the machines again. The agent repeated her earlier statement that all the machines were broken, and refused to explain why a select few passengers were being allowed to check in using them. It was bizarre.

After about 30 minutes in line, we finally made it to a check-in agent. I'm a relatively patient person, but Jen has a short fuse, so by this point in time she was getting pretty snippy and wanted nothing more than to quickly get her boarding pass. The agent had other plans, and decided to play a game with us that I can only describe as "500 questions". She started out by asking Jen a bunch of general questions about our trip, that gradually got more and more specific to the point of being ridiculous:

• "What were you doing in Spain?"
• "We were on vacation."
• "Where in Spain did you visit?"
• "Madrid and Seville."
• "What did you do in Seville?"
• "Sightseeing."
• "Specifically?"
• "We saw the Alcázar and Plaza de España."
• "What else did you do in Seville?"
• "Um, I don't know. Ate some tapas."
• "What were the names of the restaurants that you ate at?"
• "I have absolutely no idea."
• "OK, what else did you do in Seville?"
• "Seriously? We took the f***ing train down to f***ing Seville, walked around, took a bunch of pictures of orange trees, got caught in the rain, saw a bunch of sights, then took the train back to Madrid. I don't know what else to tell you."

At that point the check-in agent turned her attention to me, and asked me some equally specific questions, except mine focused on my job rather than our travels. Toward the end of it I was having a minor existential crisis - she had managed to probe so deep that I'd learned there were many things I couldn't answer about myself. Eventually she decided that we probably weren't terrorists and handed us our boarding passes.

As I walked away from the check-in area, I checked our boarding passes noticed that our seats had changed - we were in row 5 instead of our previously-selected row 10. I suspected there might have been an equipment change, so I looked up our flight on FlightAware.com, and saw that our plane type had changed to a retrofitted 777-200. This was great news, as it meant we'd be getting a brand-new cabin with lie-flat seats, all-aisle access, and large TV screens.

We headed through security, which was relatively quick, then had a train ride and a long walk to get to our gate. On the way there, we briefly stopped in at the Iberia lounge, which was quite nice although very crowded.

Flight

The line for priority boarding was extremely long, probably due to the fact that Dallas/Fort Worth is American Airlines' largest hub and thus has many elite passengers flying to it. We got onboard and settled down in our seats: my seat (5H) was a rear-facing seat in the middle section, whereas Jen's (5K) was a forward-facing window seat. The cabin is in a 1-2-1 configuration, which meant I had someone next to me, but there was a tall partition so I never saw or noticed them for the duration of the flight.

The old 777-200s have 16 first class seats and 37 business class seats, whereas the retrofitted 777-200s only have a business class cabin with 45 seats. I suspect some passengers got bumped down from first to business, but honestly it's not much of a downgrade considering how crappy American's old first class product is.

The cabin felt modern, with new finishes and seats with plenty of privacy. There was more than enough overhead bin space, so I had no trouble stowing my bags. The seats were in a reverse herringbone configuration, with rows alternating between forward-facing and rear-facing seats. At my seat I found a large pillow, a blanket, and an amenity kit waiting. Each seat has two power plugs and two USB ports, and features a touchscreen remote for the TV, along with another touchscreen to control the seat.

Review: British Airways First Class SFO - LHR
Review: Iberia Airlines Business Class LHR - MAD
Recap: Sights in Spain
Review: American Airlines Business Class MAD - DFW


After spending a few weeks looking for the best flight deals in and out of Europe for the week after Christmas, Spain emerged as the clear winner of where we should go. This late in the game (early December), there were few options left for using miles to get in and out of Europe on the approximate dates we wanted. It was a plus if we didn't have to fly in economy, so we chose Spain. I'd never been before and it was a big hole in my personal map of Europe, so I was excited to check it out. 

Barcelona is the most common Spanish city to visit in my opinion, so I was ok with doing something a little different. Chris had been to Barcelona and thought it was much too "touristy" so we chose to do Madrid instead. He had really enjoyed Valencia, so we were thinking about going there as well, but a friend of mine spoke so highly about Seville that we decided to spend a few days there rather than in Valencia.

We ended up flying in to Madrid and spending the night near the Atocha train station since our flight got in so late that night. The next morning, we got up very bright and early for our train ride to Seville, where we spent the next two and a half days before taking the train back to Madrid for another day and a half. This might sound like a very small amount of time to spend in each place, but we tend to enjoy packing things in and actually felt like we had enough time in each location even though the trip was pretty short.

Seville

Seville was, without a doubt, my favorite between the two cities. It was such a cute city with some amazing architecture and I very much enjoyed wandering the streets of the old town. I became obsessed with the incredible Spanish tiles everywhere and the orange trees were almost as ubiquitous. We loved the Plaza de España which was built in 1928 for the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. It instantly reminded me of the entrance to the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas with the canal circling the plaza where you could take cheesy little boat rides, but it was still incredibly charming. The tile work throughout the plaza was amazing and the whole thing was very grand.

Review: British Airways First Class SFO - LHR
Review: Iberia Airlines Business Class LHR - MAD
Recap: Sights in Spain
Review: American Airlines Business Class MAD - DFW
​

Iberia Airlines (IB) #3167
London (LHR) - Madrid (MAD)
Tuesday, December 29th, 2015
6:30 PM - 9:55 PM, Duration: 2 hours, 25 minutes
Airbus 330-300 Business Class, Seat 3G


After spending a couple of hours waiting in the British Airways Concorde Room, it was time to board our flight to Madrid. I had never flown Iberia before, so I was looking forward to experiencing a new airline. As I mentioned, we had booked British Airways First from SFO to LHR plus Iberia Business from LHR to MAD for 62,500 AAdvantage miles and $490 each. It was a rough deal with the fuel surcharges, but I guess this is what you get for booking a last-minute trip to Spain over the holidays.

We boarded quickly and found that the business class cabin was largely empty. It was probably 40% full by the time we took off, which is not something I'm used to seeing these days. The A330 which Iberia flies on this route has a pretty great configuration for such a short flight. Business class is 1-2-1 with alternating seat configurations for each row. The rows were also slightly staggered. Aisle seats would either have a table on the outside of the seat (making them very private) or on the window side of the seat, while the two seats in the middle either had tables on the aisle side of the seats and nothing in the middle or tables in the middle of the seats and nothing on the outside. This made middle seats with no tables in the middle great for couples traveling together (as they were very private), but maybe not so great if you were seated next to a stranger. 

In addition to the nice staggered seating arrangements, the seats were fully lie-flat, which is always amazing on long-haul flights, but seemed kind of silly for a two hour and 20 minute flight (although I wasn't complaining). Each seat had a fairly substantial cubby hole for your feet, which was not too far away - always a plus since my legs are so short! This was great for me, but passengers with longer legs might find these a bit small or hard to fit in. 

During meal service, the table came down from the back of the seat in front of you and the seat controls and entertainment remote could be found next to the table (either on the aisle side or window/middle side of the seat).

As we were settling in to our seats, the flight attendants came around and passed out some fairly nice over-ear headphones to use for the flight. They were Iberia branded and weren't quite Bose headphones, but they were light years better than what we received on British Airways.