We had a quick trip to the New York/New Jersey area in early November. We spent one day in New York City and then the weekend in New Jersey with our younger daughter at parents’ weekend. I won’t be reviewing the flights as they were standard domestic flights on Delta. We flew up from Atlanta in Delta Comfort+ to LaGuardia and flew home in Delta First from Newark. I was able to use my last two Regional Upgrade Certificates that expire in January 2023 for that upgrade otherwise we never would have cleared the upgrade list.

For our one day/night in New York City, we were visiting a wholesale art supply store in Midtown Manhattan (well, my wife was anyway) and then seeing my brother and his family in Brooklyn later that day. I decided to book a hotel in Brooklyn as it would be easier to return there from my brother’s apartment and also easier to rent a car the next morning and drive down to New Jersey.

I had a Marriott free night certificate (up to 40k points) that would expire 12/31/2022. I checked both the Marriott and Sheraton in downtown Brooklyn and both were available for 38k points (so my certificate would be eligible to use). The Marriott had better reviews online and the M Club was open so I decided to book it. The room had a cash price of around $350 when I checked so an expiring free night certificate was certainly a better option.

I tried to apply a Suite Night Award (all of mine expire 12/31/2022) and it actually cleared. We were upgraded to a Water View 1BR King Suite according to the app.

We arrived at the hotel around 3pm after taking an Uber from Manhattan. The location is easy to get to as its just off the Brooklyn Bridge on the Brooklyn side. Luckily traffic was not too bad at that time. The enthusiastic front desk agent excitedly told us about the upgrade. She also informed us that there was a $25 destination fee (yuck!) and that we could avail ourselves of a $25 credit at the bar or restaurant and that we also had access to free Citi bikes (which I would not use as it’s just too dangerous on the streets of NYC), and a $15 Lyft credit. I never really understood how the Lyft credit worked, but I assume you would need to get a Lyft FROM not TO the hotel which we didn’t need while we were there.

Anyhow, we were looking forward to our water view suite and we took the elevator up to see what kind of view we had.

The two pictures above were the views from the two windows on two different sides. No water that I can see here. Anyway, we were upgraded and didn’t spend too much time in the room so I didn’t make an issue of it. I was just a bit annoyed that they sell this suite (probably for a hefty premium) as “water view.”

As for the rest of the suite, it was spacious and comfortable, if not particularly memorable.

I was a little surprised that a full suite didn’t have double sinks or a bathtub. The suite was clean and comfortable.

We had a fun time with our family a mile or two away in Brooklyn and took an Uber back to the hotel as some of the streets between the two locations are a bit sketchy. We decided to use our $25 credit at the bar. I just got two draft beers and brought them back to the room. We kept one cold in the fridge as we shared the first one.

I find Marriott’s streaming capability a bit lacking as we were unable to cast the football game on Amazon Prime to the TV. We ended up watching that on a tablet and the World Series on the TV (wife is a Philly team fan).

The next morning, we went to the M Club for breakfast and found it pretty good. Hot options included scrambled eggs, chicken sausage, bacon, pancakes and French toast. There were breads, cereals, oatmeal, bagels, fruit (just melon though) and yogurt. Coffee was available from an urn and Espresso drinks were self serve from a machine.

The lounge was fairly empty around 8:30am when we were there. We spent another hour or so getting ourselves organized and I walked down to National Rent a Car about 2 blocks south of the hotel in downtown Brooklyn. I drove back to the hotel and the bell staff allowed me to park for a few minutes in the driveway as I went back up to collect our things and my wife from the suite.

Overall, this was a good use of an expiring certificate. Given a choice, we prefer the Hilton Brooklyn as it’s much closer to where my brother lives and in a better area of downtown Brooklyn close to Atlantic Avenue. The Marriott is a solid choice if you need to be closer to the bridge or as in our case, have a compelling points-related reason to give it a try.

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