Overall: Excellent location, Executive Lounge, and value for points.
Pros: Superb drinks, service, food at Executive Lounge; lovely spa access included for guests; convenient location.
Cons: Offer to sell me an upgrade at check-in despite Hilton Diamond status.
We paid: $0; 2 Weekend Night Awards from the Hilton Aspire Card. (Standard Rooms normally 80,000 – 95,000 points/night.)
Value: $2,036 including taxes & fees.
How to stay here without paying full price:
- Get one of the Hilton Amex cards and link it to your Hilton account.
- Hit the minimum spend required for the Hilton card you chose:
- $4K for the Hilton Amex Aspire card (which is my favorite) – See why here!
- $3K for the Hilton Honors Business card
- $3K for the Hilton Amex Surpass card
- $1K for the Hilton Honors card, which is fee-free
- Wait for your bonus points (and/or weekend nights) to come into your Hilton account.
- Once your bonus points/nights hit your Hilton account, search the app or website for award availability. Standard nights at the Conrad Tokyo Japan range from 80,000 – 95,000 points per night. You can stack free weekend nights with a night you book with your points too.
- Book online through the Hilton app or website, OR if you want to stack your weekend night(s) to the reservation, you should call Hilton.
- Make sure to take advantage of your elite benefits during your stay, which include an awesome Executive Lounge if you’re a Diamond!
For full instructions, see my guide to booking Hilton hotels for free.
Full review – Conrad Tokyo Hotel:
Location:
The Conrad Tokyo Hotel is in the Minato neighborhood of Tokyo. The hotel is connected to the Shiodome building and subway station via pedway, and it’s a short walk to the Shinbashi subway station too. (The two stations serve different lines.) Immediately outside the Conrad Tokyo building is the Hama-rikyu Gardens, which is great for sightseeing. And, about a 15-minute walk away, you’ll be in the middle of the glitzy, ritzy Ginza shopping district. There’s no shortage of things to do here, and the transportation is easy.
Check-in Process:
I’ll be honest: The Conrad Tokyo didn’t make a good first impression. The check-in process took way more time than necessary, and they tried to sell us an upgrade. That’s not cool, since my partner is a Hilton Diamond and supposed to receive complimentary, space-available upgrades. They got everything sorted out eventually and provided us a regular Executive level room. We definitely found ourselves wondering what suites were available that we weren’t getting, but we realize we’re not going to get complimentary upgrades to huge suites every time. (Read my secrets to getting hotel room upgrades!)
The baggage delivery to our room took a long time too. I rarely write anything about the check-in process at a hotel because, well, it’s usually pretty uneventful. This wasn’t a great experience, though. That said, the rest of our stay at this hotel was wonderful. I’m happy to say that while the Conrad Tokyo Hotel made a poor first impression, it was NOT a bad omen for the rest of our stay, which we enjoyed immensely.
Our room at the Conrad Tokyo Hilton:
As mentioned, we had a standard King room on an Executive floor. The room had thick, heavy doors, so it was very quiet. The overall size was kinda small, but this IS Tokyo. We did have a pretty awesome view, despite the foggy weather!
The bathroom was modern and had both a soaking tub and a separate rainfall shower, plus dual sinks and privacy glass.
We absolutely loved the Shanghai Tang toiletries in the Mandarin Tea scent. These were also provided at the Conrad Osaka, which I reviewed in detail too.
The hotel-provided pajamas and slippers were really soft and comfortable. Sorry for the blurry pic!
We had a nice coffeemaker and DVD player. The minibar was stocked, and there weren’t any nastygrams about how if you opened the door, you’d immediately get charged $100. We were able to take a few items out of the fridge and stock it with a couple of our own bottles with no issue.
The only odd downside was, there were literally zero outlets next to either side of the bed. This hotel was otherwise really modern, so I found that strange!
Overall, this was a nice room, made more so by the fact that it was super-quiet and boasted a comfortable bed.
Welcome Amenity at the Conrad Tokyo due to Hilton Diamond status:
My partner got a tray with a lovely set of candies and mochi-covered cookies along with a personalized note. And, we got the Conrad bears on our bed!
Review – Conrad Tokyo Executive Lounge
We arrived at the Conrad Tokyo Hotel in the evening in the middle of their evening cocktail hour. Naturally, we threw our stuff in our room and went straight to it.
We were really impressed with the spread in the Conrad Tokyo Executive Lounge. They provided the usual cheese, crackers, and fruit, along with some really nice extras including beef appetizers, charcuterie, and other assorted small bites.
They didn’t skimp on the drinks, either! You could have wine, whiskey, beer, and a variety of soft drinks. I really loved the Japanese Coedo beer.
Breakfast in the Conrad Tokyo Executive Lounge was very good and included made-to-order eggs, grilled fish, dim sum options, plus some Western options and charcuterie. I didn’t manage to get any pictures, but both days they served nearly identical, very hearty breakfasts.
Review – Conrad Tokyo Spa
One standout of the Conrad Tokyo is that the Japanese bath area is complimentary to hotel guests, even if you don’t buy a separate spa service. This is a traditional Japanese bath (read: totally naked), so I couldn’t take pictures. But, both the men’s and women’s areas included:
- Locker rooms with all amenities and showers, plus robes and slippers
- Four individual Jacuzzi pods
- Wet sauna
- Dry sauna
- Lounge area
The lounge area included iced green tea, iced lemon water, and “black bean” (haha – they meant “black”) tea.
Value per point
I used two Weekend Night Certificates for this stay rather than any Hilton points. Either way, I got an amazing value. Each of my free Weekend Night Certificates was worth a whopping $1,018, which is way more than the $450 Hilton Amex Aspire annual fee. (Check out all of the reasons I think the Aspire Card is totally worth the annual fee here.)
Normally, Standard Rooms here run 80,000 – 95,000 Hilton points per night. At 95,000 Hilton points per night, this redemption is worth 1.07 Hilton cents per point. TPG values it at only 0.6 cents per point, so this is a great value. And, if you are a Hilton elite – which you ARE if you hold a Hilton Amex credit card – then you’re eligible to get your 5th Night Free if you redeem points or certificates for your first 4 nights. That would make this redemption even more valuable.
We were really sad we couldn’t stay for 5 nights. However, we needed to spend that time so that I could stay at the Park Hyatt Tokyo, which I reviewed here.
Bottom line
First impressions aside, I thought the Conrad Tokyo Hotel was amazing! I would absolutely stay here again. I think it’s an excellent way to stay in a really expensive city at a 5-star luxury hotel for free.
