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Back in 2021, Hyatt announced that following renovations to the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas, one of the property’s towers would become a Hyatt Regency property and the remaining guest rooms would be branded with (or affiliated to) another of Hyatt’s flags.
Well, based on today’s announcement, that’s not quite how things are going to work.
Hyatt has now confirmed that effective 1 March 2024, the Rio Hotel & Casino Las Vegas has joined the World of Hyatt while it’s still in the middle of its renovations, and it has been added to the program as a Category 3 property costing 9,000/12,000/15,000 points per night on off-peak/standard/peak dates.
These are some of the images of the renovated rooms that are currently on the hotel website:
I’ll leave you to decide whether the refurbishments look good or not, but be aware that with some rooms now called ‘deluxe rooms’ and missing the word ‘suite’, not all the rooms at what Hyatt is still calling an ‘all-suite hotel’ may be as large as they were before the renovations.
Another thing to be aware of is that there are other images of ‘renovated’ rooms on the website which are mostly close-up shots of a small section of the room with one or more people in it (so you can’t see what the room looks like) …
… and in these images, the decor looks more modern than the decor in the other rooms.
I’m not sure if this means that different rooms at the Rio will have completely different decor or if there’s a mistake on the website and in Hyatt’s press release and the rooms in the images I posted two paragraphs up are not really ‘renovated’. Your guess is as good as mine.
Moving on…
We’re told that ‘phase one’ of the two phase renovations is expected to be completed by ‘fall 2024’ and that this is when the property’s 1,501 room tower (the Ipanema Tower) will join the ‘Destination by Hyatt‘ brand (not the Hyatt Regency brand as originally announced).
Phase 2 of the redevelopment is said to include a full renovation of the Rio’s second tower (the 1,012 room Masquerade Tower), but the latest news from Hyatt doesn’t mention when this work is set to be completed nor does it tell us what brand we can expect the second tower to come under.
With the open areas of the Rio now participating in the World of Hyatt, members can earn and burn points on their stays and for stays made between 1 April and 30 June 2024 all World of Hyatt members will earn 500 bonus points/stays as part of Hyatt’s usual new property offer.
Give that the Rio is currently bookable through Hyatt.com for tonight, I’m not sure why stays made in March won’t earn the 500 bonus points, but the information we have from Hyatt very clearly states that the bonus will be paid on stays in April, May, and June.
Lastly, it looks like the Rio will continue to copy all the other rip-off merchants in Vegas by charging a $40 ‘destination fee’. This fee won’t be payable by top-tier Globalists or by guests redeeming points, but everyone else will be expected to pay up (yet another reason I haven’t been to Vegas since 2016).
Bottom line
The Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas has joined the World of Hyatt as a Category 3 property and we’re told that the first phase of renovations at this property are expected to end in the fall when the hotel will join the ‘Destination by Hyatt’ brand.
We’ll post more details as they become available.
