Earlier this month, I attended the 2025 Chicago Seminars. Even though it’s the longest-running points and miles meetup, I somehow have never been able to attend it before due to other commitments or travel that weekend. I was excited to see some old friends, meet some new ones and learn some new tricks of the trade.

The conference was held at the Hyatt Regency Chicago O’Hare. The downside of the location is that we were stuck out by the airport, a good half-hour (or more) from downtown Chicago. It didn’t matter much as we were kept busy from Friday afternoon until Sunday afternoon. The upside of the location was the proximity to the airport and the free shuttle, which made it easy on arrival and departure.

I flew in on Friday afternoon and arrived pretty much on time, despite the government shutdown and many flight delays and cancellations going on at the time. The hotel shuttle arrived a couple of minutes after I reached the stop at Terminal 5, where I flew in on Delta. The shuttle also stops at Terminal 2.

I checked into the hotel and received an upgrade to the renovated, larger rooms in the Premier Tower. I didn’t expect a suite (or ask for one) as there were hundreds of Hyatt Globalists staying for the conference, many of whom arrived Thursday ahead of me. I used Hyatt points to book the hotel. It’s a Category 2 Hyatt and cost 8,000 points per night for my stay. The cash rates were over $200 per night. These two nights were also my 59th and 60th Hyatt elite qualifying nights for the year (and my last ones), which re-qualified me for Globalist for the sixth year in a row.

There are almost 1100 rooms and suites in this hotel, and even though we had about 500 people at our conference, there was also a large delegation of youth hockey teams staying there along with a massive charity ball being held on Friday night. Despite the number of people, the hotel seemed to run pretty smoothly and must be used to multiple large events going on at the same time.

To access the Premier Tower, you have to walk through a corridor off the lobby away from the main part of the hotel and take a separate elevator which is confusingly numbered with floors 21-29. Of course, this is to prevent repetitive room numbers as the main hotel tower is floors 1-20.

My room was a fairly standard Hyatt Regency room, although it was spacious and did seem to be recently renovated with plenty of USB outlets.

There was a mini-fridge, where I stored my complimentary water bottles, and a safe.

My view was nothing special, just the roof of a parking deck. I heard a few planes from the airport, but the soundproofing was pretty good considering the youth hockey players staying on my floor.

Breakfast was served in the lobby restaurant. We were advised by the conference to get there a bit on the early side as it would be packed from 8-9am just before the conference got started each day. As I was alone and booked a room for two people, I offered my extra Globalist breakfast spot each morning to conference attendees who were not Hyatt Globalists and it gave me a chance to get to know someone new over breakfast. We just arranged to meet at the restaurant at a certain time each morning.

Breakfast was quite impressive. There were made-to-order omelets, along with all the usual breakfast foods.

The one thing that could be improved was the coffee. It was so bad that I had to go buy some coffee at the coffee shop on the lower level near the conference center. I’m no coffee snob, but this was absolutely undrinkable. There was an espresso drink maker (latte, cappuccino, etc.), but even those were also terrible.

I received 4pm checkout proactively without even having to ask about it at check-in. When I left for the airport around 4pm, my 6pm flight was showing about a 45 minute delay. In the end, we boarded around 8:30pm, but a freak snowstorm and cold temperatures required us to get de-iced. That took about two hours, so we didn’t take off until 10:30pm central time. We landed around 1am eastern time and I got home at 2am, around four hours late. Many of my fellow conference attendees were not so lucky and ended up getting stuck overnight. Thankfully, the government shutdown ended the next day and things seem to be returning to normal in the skies just in time for Thanksgiving.

Overall, I thought the Hyatt Regency Chicago O’Hare was fine. I wouldn’t hesitate to stay here for another conference (or for next year’s Chicago Seminars), but the location is only good for that (or a quick overnight for an early flight if you need it).

My last trip of the year is Las Vegas in December for Zork Fest – another points and miles meetup. Zork Fest is a bit smaller and has some interesting content planned, including some gambling focused sessions. I will be staying at the M Resort & Spa (the host hotel) for the conference and also the Venetian for a night. I’ll post reviews of both properties. I’ll also review my Delta First Class flights to and from Vegas as I was able to upgrade using my Regional Upgrade Certificates.

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