A month ago there was much fanfare over Hyatt’s taking over the Travaasa Hana hotel on Maui, on the eastern tip of the island – the opposite side from where most of the resorts are located. Initially Hana-Maui is part of their Destination Hotels brand (where many elite benefits don’t apply), it’s believed that it’ll become an Alila property when its renovations are complete.
One thing immediately stood out about the property, however: absolutely no award rooms. While they’ve been selling stays at the property, there weren’t any award nights available through the end of the schedule.
It’s taken a month to get the answer as to why. According to a spokesperson, standard rooms are being renovated. So while the hotel is open, rooms used for awards aren’t.
Hana Maui is undergoing construction given it’s closed and unfortunately the standard rooms are affected. The hotel is working hard to get as much inventory open as possible upon opening but the timing is unclear. We have opened up award inventory for when we’re confident the work will be complete.
Credit: Hana-Maui
This is an interesting trick (perhaps Andaz Maui will try it!). Usually the lowest category of room the hotel has for sale is its ‘standard room’. Here the hotel has identified rooms not for sale as standard. As long as they aren’t offering the closed room type for revenue sale, they don’t have to make anything available for redemption. To me that’s a breach of a promise.
- It’s a Hyatt hotel that participates in the World of Hyatt program.
- They sell rooms to guests.
- Rooms should be available for redemption.
The good news is that looking out a year I see there are indeed standard rooms available for redemption. And three room types are considered to be standard, bookable as a category 7 redemption for 30,000 points per night:
Good place for a Globalist upgrade since they work with any available standard suite.
This is a unique property in an interesting location. I’ve visited it several times and have eaten in the restaurant, but never stayed there. Honestly, I never thought it was worth their room rates, and I now don’t think it’s worth 30,000 Hyatt points. I’d stay at an airbnb in the area instead. I would also note that, before Covid, the increased traffic on the Road to Hana kind of made the experience of visiting Hana not worth it. Hana itself is pleasant, and the hotel beach (not adjacent) is better than you’d expect, but this is an over-visited destination for its modest charms.
I stayed here as the Hotel Hana Maui back in 2012. Cash rate of just over $500 for one night but we wanted to hit Hamoa beach on that side of the island (the hotel’s beach). The hotel property is cut in half by a city street, I’d guess that the garden view rooms are on the non-water side of the property, along with the spa, main building, and restaurants. I stayed on the ‘adults only’ side of the property with stunning views of the ocean. Back then just being a member of the free-to-join iprefer program meant a free upgrade, so off to the sea cottages we went. The pool on that side was fantastic. Food was meh and very expensive but then there were few options. And the rain was intense overnight on our stay. But the beach…worth every cent. During our 4 hours there, from about 10am-2pm we saw 3 other swimmers, 2 guys that didn’t last long and a single girl who disappeared to snorkel. It really was heaven. Oh, the sunrise from our cottage was stunning as well. Hopefully they’ve added some tvs or other, as it gets dark early.