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The Lexington Hotel New York
The Lexington hotel was the final stop on our impromptu hotel Tour de New York City. What started out as a single night stay in the city turned into 6 nights ( Intercontinental Barclay, Edition New York, Conrad Midtown, and we saved the worst for last, The Lexington Hotel. With so many options in the city, and a great hotel across the street, the Intercontinental Barclay, I won’t be staying here any time soon. The exterior of the property is art deco and we thought the vibe would carry on once inside, and there is certainly a vibe, but it’s just not understated to say the least.
The hotel isn’t bad per se, and if you could snag something around $150 I’d change my tune, but for the $282 we paid, there are far better options. I usually like Autograph Collection properties, but this one didn’t steal my heart.
Booking:
We booked through the Capital One Portal which should preclude you from enjoying Marriott benefits on the stay. The rate on the Marriott website was 45k points per night, which I found to be too high compared to the 50k we used to stay at the Edition the night before, and would have been only a 6/10 a cent redemption. I thought it’d be a good experiment to see if they would extend Marriott Platinum benefits to us, which they didn’t, and my Capital One Venture X $300 travel portal credit was burning a hole in my pocket. I booked, and 4 days after the charge posted, it was refunded.
Stay Details:
We needed to stay one final night in the city, and wanted to be relatively near the Peninsula Hotel so we could enjoy their rooftop bar for a celebratory anniversary cocktail. We got engaged at the Pen in 2019 3 years ago. I really wanted to stay at a new property so I could review it. I’d seen the Lexington when we stayed at the
- When: April 2022
- Where: New York Midtown
- Rate: $282 + destination fee
- $35 per night, plus tax, covers the following:
- $35.00 daily food & beverage credit for The Stayton Room (currently open for breakfast only)
- $35.00 daily laundry valet credit
- 2 daily Crunch Fitness passes
- 2 daily Citi Bike passes
- High speed premium wireless Internet (valued at $16 per device per day)
- 1,000 bonus points per night for elite gold & platinum members
- $35 per night, plus tax, covers the following:
Location
The location is pretty good in midtown within roughly a 10 min walk to Grand Central, New York Public Library, and is diagonal from the Intercontinental Barclay, and a couple blocks from what will be a completley refurbished Waldorf Astoria.
Check in
We arrived at 4pm, our room was ready, but there was miscommunication about how the room would be charged. When asked for a credit card I clarified about it being just for incidentals. The front desk rep said that no the room wasn’t paid for. Odd. I booked a non-refundable rate via the Cap1 travel portal so the only charges I should pay for would be the incidentals on the destination fee. The problem was my Venture X had fraud on it two days earlier and was canceled, so I booked online using a virtual number, and didn’t have a physical card to check in with. I gave her my Ink Business Preferred for the balance and thought I’d resolve it later.
It just didn’t set quite right. So after putting our bags in the room I popped back by the front desk. I showed her the Cap1 booking and said I’d like to add my Cap1 Venture X to the room thinking that just in case it didn’t get resolved, I could deal with one bank and not two. The problem… they needed a physical card and couldn’t take a digital one. Ugh. She offered up using a credit card authorization sheet and said her manager would send one. He never did. I thought…I’ll just resolved this later.
Ultimately, the hotel kept us “checked in” for days after we actually checked out as they tried to resolve how the bill was paid. Weirdly, it kept showing up on both cards and roughly a week after we checked out, all charges were removed except the Cap1 Travel Portal booking. Even after calling the hotel several times and leaving voicemails we never received a call back. I’ve never had this happen before, and on this alone, would just not stay here again.
The Room
The room is tiny. Roughly 200 sq feet, which, even by NYC standards is on the small side, and the hotel has quite low ceilings compared to the other properties we stayed on this trip. The hallways are dark and feel kind of sad.
The room was clean, but the pictures don’t really do the decor justice. It isn’t a peaceful aesthetic at all. It’s chock full of mishmash colors and odd textures. For nearly $300, given the other options in the city, I’d just go elsewhere to have a fresher feel.
The bathroom featured a shower and tub, single vanity, and was a tight squeeze.
Gym
Closed. Very weird given every other hotel gym I’ve stayed at in the past year has been open, some will require booking appointments, but this was flat out closed due to covid.
Dining
The destination fee yields a $35 food and breakfast credit at the bar/restaurant. We didn’t use it, but we did go to the Starbucks which is located right off the main lobby.
Overall
The billing situation left a bad taste in my mouth. It was resolved, but the lack of communication is avoidable. Personally, with so many options in the city, and so many options at competitive price points, this is a property I won’t be revisiting anytime soon.
Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities.
Chase Sapphire Preferred® Card
Welcome Offer
Earn 60,000 bonus points after you spend $4,000 on purchases in the first 3 months from account opening.
Annual Fee
$95
Points Earned
Transferrable Chase Ultimate Rewards
- 5x on all travel purchased through Chase Travel℠
- 3x on dining, including eligible delivery services for takeout & dining out
- 3x on select streaming services
- 3x on online grocery purchases
- (excluding Target, Walmart and wholesale clubs)
- $50 Annual Chase Travel Hotel Credit via Chase Travel℠
- The begins immediately for new cardmembers and after your account anniversary for existing cardmembers
- 2x on all other travel
- 10% Anniversary Bonus
- Every year you keep the card, your total spend will yield a 10% points bonus. If you spend $10k in a year, you’ll get 1k bonus points
- Chase Sapphire Preferred continues to redeem at 1.25c in the Chase Travel℠ and the slew of other benefits remain in tact including Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver ( primary ), purchase protections, etc.
- Points are transferrable to 14 Ultimate Rewards partners
- Redeem in Chase Travel℠ for 1.25 cents per point
- No foreign transaction fees
- Suite of Travel and Purchase Coverage
- Auto Rental Collision Damage Waiver is my favorite
- Get complimentary access to DashPass which unlocks $0 delivery fees and lower service fees for a minimum of one year when you activate by December 31, 2027.
- $95 Annual Fee
We keep an up to date spreadsheet that lists the best ever offers: You can find that spreadsheet here.
Historically 80k is a very, very good offer and hit in both 2022 and 2023. In 2021, we saw the offer hit an all time high of 100k. Who knows if that will ever come back.
Main Cast:
Cards that earn flexible points and should be used on the bulk of your purchases.
Supporting Cast:
Cards that earn fixed points in the currency of the airline/hotel and can not be transferred at attractive rates. These cards yield benefits that make it worth keeping, but not necessarily worth putting a lot of your everyday spend on.
The Chase Sapphire Preferred® is exceptional starter card and offers transferrable Ultimate Rewards, and pairs well with other Chase cards.
If you carry this card alongside Chase’s cashback cards like the Chase Freedom Flex® and Chase Freedom Unlimited® or the business versions: Ink Business Cash® , Ink Business Unlimited® you can combine the points into Preferred account and transfer into hotel and airline partners
Annual fee is quite low at $95 a year + you get a 10% anniversary bonus on points + $50 hotel credit in Chase travel.
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