Conrad New York Midtown

Until the Waldorf Astoria reopens, The Conrad New York is the flagship Hilton property in New York City, and with standard rates starting at $600-700 a night – it’s charges accordingly. There’s actually two Conrads in New York City, the other being downtown, once an Embassy Suites, and also features a ton of large rooms with easy access to Battery Park and Tribeca.

If you’re looking for oversized rooms, great value out of some Hilton points/credit card free night certificates, and one of the nicest hotel gyms I’ve ever seen… this is well worth your consideration. The entire hotel feels fresh, the rooms are enormous, and I wouldn’t hesitate to stay here again.

Stay Details:

This was a VERY last minute booking. My wife fell ill while we were in NYC the night before we were scheduled to fly to Europe to celebrate our anniversary. As luck would have it, she got a bug, and we ended up spending an entire week in NY while she recovered.

• When – March 2022
• Where – New York City
• Status – Diamond
  • $25 per person food and beverage credit
  • upgrade from Junior Suite to One Bedroom Suite
  • 1pm check out
• Rate – 95k points per night ( We used Aspire Free Night Certificates )

Location:

Personally, I prefer the Conrad Midtown to the one downtown with its exceptional location just a few blocks south of Central Park, Carnegie Hall, and easy subway access. If the hotel looks familiar, it’s because this 593 suite property was once The London New York.

Booking

After it became obvious that we were going to stay in NYC longer than expected I set out to find a good deal.

I hemmed and hawed over where to stay, and ultimately saw Junior Suites bookable with free night certificates the days we needed for the same rate as an entry level room. My wife carries a Hilton Aspire card from American Express and this proved to be a very valuable use of the two free night certificates we were sitting on. Ordinarily they would be limited to weekend stays; however, due to Covid, the restrictions had been lifted and we were in the clear to use them any day of the week.

We’d been staying at the Intercontinental Barclay and seamlessly moved from hotel to another around 4pm that day.  I have Intercontinental Ambassador status which guarantees 4pm late check out so we were able to stay at that property until it was past check in time.  I booked in the Hilton app at 2pm, and within 30 minutes, an upgrade had populated showing us in a one bedroom suite.

As you can see below…rates were egregiously expensive so the value per point was exceptionally high for Hilton. Remember, you can often buy Hilton points for 1/2 a penny, and you get a 5th night free, so there is a pathway to staying here 5 nights for about $2000 if pricing stays at 95k a night. Much less than the rack rate of $5000.

Check In

The hotel has a sleek and chic lobby with a small check in desk immediately to the left. We were informed of our upgrade, and if I had it to do over again, I’d have asked how much an upgrade from our room to a Park View Suite would be. Online, it was around $70 and looks like it has tons of light and partial Central Park View. Well worth the money for the amount of time we spent in the room.

• We were informed of our $25 per person food and beverage credit
  • Room Service and Dabble is where we could use it, not the mini bar
  • good all day, not just for breakfast

Off to the right is Dabble the hotel’s restaurant.

The Room: One Bedroom Suite

The room feels very fresh with neutrals and a hard wood floor measuring about 525 sq feet in total. The ability to fully close off the living room from the bedroom is really nice, and worked perfectly since my wife slept a lot while I worked in the other room. Both the bedroom and the living featured 46 in flat screen tvs.

The living room

Here you can see a reverse angle showing the cabinet that houses the mini bar.

We were given two complimentary small bottles of water, which you can barely make out behind the coffee machine, the rest was all electronically monitored.

The bedroom

King size bed, lots of sunlight, and a flat screen tv. Each side of the bed had plugs as well.

The Bathroom

I loved the white tones in the bathroom and the shower had fantastic pressure. There was also a separate vanity with a make mirror, plugs, and a cabinet for towels.

The Gym

Arguably the nicest hotel gym I’ve seen in a long time. The Biltmore in London also has a very nice gym, but this one felt as if you were in an exclusive private gym, and there were no other members. Perhaps it was because the hotel was pretty quiet, but it felt as if it had never been used. How often do you see herringbone wooden floors and wood paneling in any gym, let alone a city hotel?

A lot of equipment

And it stretched multiple rooms, all filled with state of the art stuff.

Dining

The first night I ordered room service and used up our $50 credit on a single pasta dish. In fact, it was around $57 after paying a $10 delivery fee and gratuity. Had it been exceptional…I wouldn’t complain. But, it was as bland as bland could be and was advertised as having seasonal vegetables in it. Unfortunately, there were no seasonal vegetables and the toast was burnt.

The second evening, we tried out the restaurant for a quick bite. I had an Old Fashioned and we nibbled on some fries. My wife had a mocktail and a club soda ( the club soda was a whopping $10 ). We easily blew through our $50 credit.

Overall

I wouldn’t hesitate to stay here again with a free night certificate, but I certainly wouldn’t pay anywhere near the rack rate. Sure, our room was large, but there are plenty of fantastic hotels in NYC that are a fraction of the cost, in a similar area, and offer far more bang for the buck. The Thompson is a block away for instance and I’m very keen to give it a go. The Intercontinental Barclay, which we’d just left, was under $400 a night for the same dates.

This was my first time staying at a Hilton property since they changed the dining rules. One part of me prefers the credit which can be used at any time during the day, but the other part of me feels the value is less. On both occasions we ended up spending more than the credit simply because everything is so expensive. In the future, should we return, we’d just have a single drink in the bar to use up the credit before heading out to the theater or other activity.