My 4 most recent Kimpton Inner Circle welcome amenities.
Okay, so it’s no secret that I am a Kimpton fangirl. I LOVE THEM.
One of my favorite Kimpton perks is the welcome amenity: once you get to Kimpton Inner Circle status, they shower you with your favorite drinks and snacks every time you stay at one of their properties.
The way it works is that you complete an online form letting them know what your preferences are, and they get creative with different Inner Circle amenities at each different hotel. My preferences look like this:
- Drink: single malt scotch, sparkling water, dark beer (Porter or Stout)
- Sweet Treat: chocolate and caramel
- Munchie: BBQ, Salt and Vinegar, Sour Cream and Onion Chips
- Other: a good cheese and cracker
I recently had a flurry of Kimpton stays and enjoyed the heck out of the treats they gave me. Here’s a peek at what they were…
Hotel Buchanan, San Francisco
These guys went all out! Here’s what they gave me:
- A fifth of Glenlivet single malt scotch
- 2 large bottles of Lagunitas Imperial Stout
- 4 bottles of Stewart’s Root beer (my kids were with me!)
- Big bag of BBQ pop chips
- Cheese plate
- Ghirardelli chocolates
- Kimpton caramels
- Strawberries
- Snack mix
Hotel Palomar, Los Angeles
This was our first stay of a 3-night girlfriend getaway. We loved the personalized welcome message printed on a little blackboard! We also loved the creative beer and chip pairings.
- Large bottle of Bear Republic Racer Five
- BBQ chips
- Large bottle of Ballast Point Sea Monster
- Salt and pepper chips
- Large bottle of Karl Strauss Mosaic Session Ale
- Jalapeno chips
Hotel Wilshire, Los Angeles
This was the least personal amenity we got. While we enjoyed it, it felt a little thrown together.
- Three bottles of Guinness
- A bottle of Voss water
- A bowl of BBQ chips
- Two chocolate chip cookies
- A small bowl of mixed nuts
- An apple, a kiwi, a tangerine, and a bunch of grapes
Hotel Palomar, Los Angeles
These guys are good. Earlier in the day, we had joked about Charlie’s Angels with the front desk staff, so we loved seeing this framed print of the angels displayed with our amenity.
They also included:
- Two large Ghiradelli chocolate bars
- Two mini bottles of Johnnie Walker Black
- Two cocktails
- A nice cheese plate
- A big bottle of sparkling water
Sigh…I just love Kimpton.
Have you received any fabulous welcome amenities from Kimpton recently? Which hotel were you in, and what did you get?
Some things about Kimpton seem very cool for sure, but I’ve been nervous to stay recently namely due to 2 items:
1. Upgrades: In the last iteration of program changes, they watered down the language about what upgrades were available. I’m not sure if they still upgrade people in the field, they very well might, but this change in language made me nervous as it would make it very easy for a hotel to give you say a high floor room and call it an upgrade, etc.
2. Late Checkout: I really value the 4:00pm checkout with Hyatt & SPG. Its almost always proactively offered upon checkin with Hyatt and SPG. Also notably Mariott & IHG do not offer this, so I shy away from these hotels. How does Kimpton handle late checkout in the field?
3. Breakfast: This isn’t as big a deal, but again, Hyatt Diamond (they do it best) and also SPG Platinum and even Hilton Gold offer breakfast. It might be out in the wild that Kimpton does too, but I haven’t read many trip reports one way or another.
In conclusion, I’d appreciate any observations in staying at Kimpton when compared to say Hyatt Diamond or SPG Platinum???
Mika – I have had REALLY great experiences with upgrades (usually a suite), late checkout (4 pm), and amenities. However, breakfast has not been a strong suit for the properties I’ve stayed at.
Kimpton has been much more generous for you than they have been for our last 7 stays with them this year (in terms of the amenities)… enough so that we’ve started picking up snacks and beer on our own before checking in since it has been so hit-or-miss in terms of what they bring. In terms of upgrades, we’ve found it depends on the property. The Lumen in Dallas, for example, didn’t provide an upgrade despite the hotel being nearly empty and the website showing every room type available last year. The manager later claimed they gave us an upgrade of the pool view (although we couldn’t see the pool because a tree was blocking the view). We even had to call the front desk for the welcome amenity when it hadn’t arrived by 10pm. I guess I expected more since we were celebrating my spouse’s birthday (which they knew about). On the there hand, the Palomar in Chicago and Marlow in Cambridge have been awesome… although again, we’ve never received amenities even close to what you have. In terms of breakfast, I’ve never heard of a Kimpton offering free breakfast. The restaurants are typically awesome… although the restaurant in Pittsburgh sent us away and said they couldn’t seat us at all for the entire night. As for late check-out… again it has been mixed… there have been several occasions when even getting a 1pm checkout has been difficult and only occasionally will they agree to a 2pm checkout. So while I love the idea of Kimpton and have some very fond memories, we’ve been booking more Hilton and Hyatt stays as we’ve planned our trips for the rest of the year… I like consistency.
Michael – I agree that it totally depends on the property. Also, I’ve find that properties can vary from one stay to the next! One thing I’ve discovered that helps is if you let them know you are coming in multiple different ways. Email, call, tweet, Instagram…whatever. They are really very responsive to social media.
I think the best amenity I ever got was at the Savannah property, the Brice. I think they gave me a full 6-pack of local beers, dip and veggies, a full size bag of chips and a candy bar. All of this was in an upgraded suite with a living room and amazing bathtub with salts. Over the top.! The Shorebreak was a close 2nd, no suite but a view room and great treats! Plus they spoiled my dog. The worst was the St. Regis in SF. I had updated my profile to be more healthy, and they gave me 1 small bubble water (there were 2 of us) and a tiny fruit plate of really old whole fruit, too old to actually eat. Dismal.
Hottie – Savannah does sound great!! I love that property in general.
I had a one month Inner Circle membership, a match from Club Carlson Gold for “the rest of 2015”, which was…December.
No matter. We rarely, if ever, stay at Kimptons, and were planning a long weekend at the Donovan on Thomas Circle in DC.
I eat low carb, and don’t drink much, if at all. So, my choices were sparkling mineral water, pork rinds and very dark chocolate.
Upon arrival, our no view queen room was a king view room, looking down on Thomas Circle and two lovely old churches. We had, beautifully arranged on the desk, a large bottle of San Pellegrino, an impressive amount of spicy pork rinds, and a big Lindt 86% chocolate bar.
Each night, at least one of the chocolates on the bed after the turn down service was dark chocolate.
And the restaurant, serving modern Japanese, had the most amazing Chef’s Bites. The foods we ordered, and the foods that were graciously offered for the entire table were competing among themselves for the title of Most Awesome Food Ever.
I am a little in love with Kimpton, myself.