Aug 2012 - Westin Tokyo

Hotel Stay Details 
Hotel: The Westin Tokyo
Dates: August 24-27, 2012
Rate Paid:  35,356 Capital One Rewards/night
Regular Rate: ¥22,125 JPY/night ($280 USD)
Total $ Savings: $1,060
Point Redemption Value: 1.0 cents/pt

Another trip, another Starwoods Hotel stay.  We were in Tokyo for 3 nights and booked in advance to lock in the 25% discounted rate of ¥22,125 JPY/night.  However, the rate shown upfront does not include the 15% service charge they will add on at the end, so keep that in mind when you're booking Japanese hotels.

After our 14 hour flight to Tokyo, we landed at Narita Airport and took the Japanese Limobus (¥3,000 per person) to the Westin Hotel (took about 2 hrs with traffic but very comfortable seating).

Location
As TripAdvisor reviewers have said before, it's a bit of a walk to the metro stations. If you want the JR line (connecting to Shibuya, Harajuku, Shinjuku), then it's about 10 minute walk from the hotel (including 5 minutes inside the station). If you want the Tokyo Metro Hibya line (connecting Roppongi, Ginza), then it's an additional 5 minutes through the station to the other side where you encounter all the restaurants in downtown Ebisu.

Check In / Room

Check in was smooth and the lobby impressed us a lot.  While we were not upgraded to a club room (with access to the club lounge), they were kind enough to have a baby crib waiting in our room along with a "Westin Kids" goody bag (toys, electrical outlet covers, etc).

We had a beautiful King bedroom on the 17th floor overlooking the city. The room was very quiet and given the business-oriented clients, it was a relaxing environment.   The room as immaculately clean and well maintained.  A very nice welcome after a long flight.

The bathroom also had one of those high tech toilets with the control panel.  My father didn't let me play with it though, since I'm neither potty trained nor tech savvy.

Check Out
Since my father had some spare Capital One Reward (COR) points after opening up a Capital One Venture Rewards card and getting 100,000 COR points as the sign on bonus during a special promotion, we paid for our hotel room with the Capital One credit card.

Unlike other frequent flyer miles and points, COR points are fixed value (1 COR point = $0.01), meaning they can only be used to credit against your outstanding credit card balance.

So 100,000 translated into $1,000 off my credit card bill if we redeemed them for Travel Related expenses (hotels, flights).  So when it was time to pay for the Westin Tokyo hotel, which conveniently came to around $1,000 USD, the choice was obvious.  $0 out of pocket for 3 nights in Tokyo.  Nicely done, dad!

Overall
We were happy to get a nice room and a comfortable place to stay for our weekend in Tokyo, but since this was my first time in Japan, we really didn't spend a lot of time in the hotel.  We had a lot to see and only a few days to see it all!

Reference Links

• Japanese Limo Bus