London gains a Hyatt as Crowne Plaza The City rebrands

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In a move that will cause much grinding of teeth from IHG loyalists, and whoops of joy from Hyatt fans, Crowne Plaza London The City will rebrand on 1st March.

The hotel will become Hyatt Regency London Blackfriars.

Crowne Plaza London The City has been closed throughout 2021, and 1st March 2022 has been the published reopening date for some time.

London gains a Hyatt at Crowne Plaza The City rebrands

What was NOT announced was a change of brand.

In retrospect, we should not be totally surprised. This hotel is under the same ownership as Crowne Plaza London Kensington, which changed brands to DoubleTree London Kensington – a Hilton brand – when it reopened this Summer.

Crowne Plaza London The City was well regarded

Many people believed that Crowne Plaza London The City was the best IHG hotel in London.

InterContinental Park Lane is expensive and a little worn, whilst InterContinental O2 is, well, out at the O2. Kimpton Fitzroy is a beautiful hotel but the standard rooms are very small.

Crowne Plaza The City had good sized rooms and an executive lounge. Whilst The City is very quiet at weekends, Blackfriars station is literally across the road and St Pauls and Tate Modern are a short walk away.

This is a real coup for Hyatt. It will be a good sister hotel to Hyatt Regency The Churchill, which is just behind Oxford Street. It will also complement the Andaz at Liverpool Street which is aimed at a different market, and is likely to be cheaper than the new Great Scotland Yard hotel which Rhys recently reviewed here.

If you have a booking at Crowne Plaza The City after 1st March 2022, you may want to move it if you were relying on benefitting from your IHG Rewards status or wanted to earn IHG Rewards points and elite night credit.

IHG Rewards update – December 2021:

Get bonus points: You can earn up to triple IHG Rewards base points with IHG’s new Autumn promotion. It runs from 1st October to 31st December. You can register here and our full article on the offer is here.

New to IHG Rewards? Read our overview of IHG Rewards here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our article on ‘What are IHG Rewards points worth?’ is here.

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Category

IHG Rewards, World of Hyatt

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

KBuffett says:

21 Oct21 October 10:32

What is the Churchill Hyatt Regency like?
- tony says:
  
  22 Oct22 October 00:08
  
  I stayed there once. We had a 1 br suite which could be connected to another room. There was a tiled floor under the connecting door. Said room was being used as a knocking shop for the evening, I kid you not.
  
  Hyatt did at least take the problem seriously – eventually – but I guess that’s high end hotels in W1 for you….
Jonathan says:

21 Oct21 October 10:53

Crowne Plaza starting to feel like a bit of an unloved and purposeless brand.
Chris says:

21 Oct21 October 11:44

Interesting fact. There’s some stone pillars at the entrance, which are pretty much all that remains of the old Fleet Palace.
MKB says:

21 Oct21 October 11:44

As IHG Spire Ambassador and Hyatt Globalist, hopefully I should now get (a) guaranteed rather than discretionary access to the lounge, and (b) there will actually be a decent food/drink offering in it. All good news I think, as long as the room rates stay affordable.

Another vote here for the snug street cellars. Also enjoyed a Sixties music night in the bar on one visit.
- Tony says:
  
  21 Oct21 October 13:54
  
  Presumably that revolves around the lounge remaining open. Unless they knocked through, it would be tiny compared to the Churchill’s lounge so might not fit with the brand or number of top tier members who expect admission.
Sam says:

22 Oct22 October 00:37

Kimpton Fitzroy is a beautiful…from the outside only. As soon as you walk out of the communal areas (I.e. ground floor, the staircase bit on the first floor and basement levels), the other parts including the rooms just seem small, mundane and no different from a 3/4-star standard garden estate hotel.

A changeover from Crowne Plaza to Hyatt (even if Hyatt Regency) is certainly an upgrade. This property has a lot of potentials and I’m glad the owner recognises it’s worth more than a holding a Crowne Plaza brand.
Sam says:

22 Oct22 October 00:42

With two London hotels leaving IHG in a row, I’m sure there’s a lot more to tell…perhaps the management fees, but the recent changes to reward nights payout (with the new calculation, the hotel receives payout that’s even less than than staff rates in some instances) must be part of it.
- Rob says:
  
  22 Oct22 October 01:52
  
  I think there are simply too many now. People who seek out IHG brands have so many options in London that the actual impact of the brand is probably slim.
  
  Moving to Hyatt is expensive – guaranteed lounge access and brekky for elites, compulsory suite upgrades etc.
  
  Similarly moving to DoubleTree cost Kensington a lot of breakfast revenue and extra lounge costs. They must really hate IHG.
  - Sam says:
    
    22 Oct22 October 20:52
    
    I think a lot of these benefits e.g. Lounge access, breakfast, unsold suite rooms are fixed costs so the marginal cost of providing them is minimal.
    
    i.e. the cost of running AC and lights in the executive lounge with 10 pax vs 50 pax is probably the same; the amount of food cooked at buffet breakfast every morning is more or less the same.
    
    I still believe there is something to do with some new calculations which the owners see a huge impact on their revenue…could it also be IHG defaulting payments which they agreed to make?
    
    Would be really intrigued to see the new commission/management fee % of the two hotels compared with the one IHG proposed.
    - TGLoyalty says:
      
      22 Oct22 October 22:55
      
      I disagree you staff and cater your breakfast/lounge etc for your expected daily footfall
      
      Having 40 more people a day to feed will increase costs.
      - Rob says:
        
        22 Oct22 October 23:38
        
        Marginal cost of a breakfast is low but if people would otherwise have paid (and CP City is a hotel where 90% are on work trips) it is money lost.