Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor Review

I stayed at the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor over the Christmas holiday period. Christmas is a great time to visit Germany! I’ve recently reviewed my experiences at the Park Plaza Nuremberg, InterContinental Berlin, and Waldorf Astoria Berlin, as well as my business-class flight on Austrian Airways. So how about my Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor review? Well, this was my least favorite hotel out of all of my Germany stays. Read on to see why.

In This Article...

Overall: Andaz Munich is not a “luxury lifestyle hotel” as claimed.

Pros: Nice interior design; good breakfast (not complimentary).

Cons: Inconvenient location, poor operations, poor housekeeping, and no elite upgrades despite availability.

We paid: 20,000 Hyatt points per night for 3 nights.

How to stay here without paying full price:

Note, I do not think the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor is worth 20,000 Hyatt points per night. But if this location is somehow convenient to you, and/or you have a lot of Hyatt points you need to burn, here’s how you would do it:

Get the Hyatt credit card and link it to your account. You can also get a card that earns Chase Ultimate Rewards points such as the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card and set it up to link to your Hyatt account.
Hit the minimum spend required to reach your bonus – as of this writing:
- $3K spend on the Hyatt credit card in the first 3 months gives you 25,000 Hyatt points; AND
- $6K spend in 6 months (total) gives you another 25,000 Hyatt points;
- $4K for the Chase Sapphire Preferred card gives you 60,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points.
Wait for your bonus points to land in your Hyatt account. Transfer points from Chase Ultimate Rewards to your Hyatt account as necessary.
Once your bonus points/nights hit your Hyatt account, search the app or website for award availability. Standard Nights at the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor cost 20,000 points per night. This is a Category 5 hotel, so “free night” awards cannot be applied.
Book online through the Hyatt app or website.
- For a full guide, see my 5-step Guide to Booking Hyatt Hotels for Free.

Full Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor Review

I was really excited to stay at this hotel for the three nights I spent in Munich. The Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor is the first Hyatt hotel in Munich, and it bills itself as a “luxury lifestyle hotel.” I disagree with this term and was disappointed in my stay. There were a few positives that I’ll discuss below, however.

Location

I hadn’t visited Munich before, but I understood it to be a walkable city with good public transportation. That, combined with Hyatt’s description of the hotel as “our new luxury lifestyle hotel close to the city center,” is why I didn’t worry about the location much. It’s the only Hyatt in Munich and is “close to the city center,” so how inconvenient could it be?

Google Maps showing a 51-minute walk between the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor hotel and the center of Munich — *A simple Google Maps search like this one could’ve told me that the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor is not exactly near the “center of the city.”*

In reality, this was a mistake on my part. Munich IS walkable and accessible. But the Schwabinger Tor neighborhood, where we were, is a bit off the beaten path. It’s certainly a safe neighborhood – it’s just very residential. We weren’t within walking distance of any of the big attractions in Munich: The famous Hofbrauhaus, exclusive shopping on Maximilianstrasse, or any of the museums.

Check-in

The lobby was really pretty, but check-in process was ridiculously slow, which negatively affected our first impression. There was only one check-in agent, but also only one guest in front of us, so this process should have taken a few minutes. It took twenty-five minutes. I timed it. The one guest in front of us kept chattering with the check-in agent, and she failed to wrap up their conversation or ask another staff member to step in. Even when a line formed behind us, none of these things happened. We arrived around 5p, prime check-in time, so you’d think they’d be a bit more efficient.

Lobby of the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor, which shows a modern and open, light-filled design — *We looked at the beautiful, modern lobby for 25 minutes while we waited to check in.*

Another minus about our check-in experience? They definitely had upgraded rooms and suites available, but they didn’t give one to us. We asked at check-in and again the next day, but no dice. As a Discoverist due to my Hyatt card, I know I’m not entitled to upgrades every time, but I’m supposed to receive “space available” upgrades. This hotel was nowhere near full and I could tell there were “King Bed Deluxe” rooms and various suites available by looking at the Hyatt app.

The room

Our non-upgraded room was a standard King room. Like the rest of the hotel, it was nicely designed with modern furniture.

View of a desk with an overhead lamp and a leather bench — *We liked the leather bench/desk/table combo in the room.*

View of a brown leather daybed with a lamp and literature mounted on the wall — *We liked how the leather bench opened up to a daybed with a reading lamp.*
*We enjoyed using the daybed for reading, when we weren’t storing luggage on it.*

You could see through to the modern bathroom from the bed, and vice versa, which made for a very open architecture in the room.

View of an open bathroom from the bed in the room at the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor — *From the bed, you could see into the open bathroom. We liked the provided robes and slippers.*

View of the rest of the hotel room from the open bathroom at the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor — *And, you could see the rest of the room from the bathroom counter, which also featured multiple outlets. The bath products, however, were nothing special.*

We didn’t have a bathtub, but we did have a large shower with two shower-heads, one coming from the ceiling.

Tall, large shower at the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor, with a ceiling-mounted rainfall showerhead — *Bath products weren’t wall-mounted, you couldn’t take them home, and were fairly generic. The shower was nice and large though!*

Separate watercloset with a single flower in a vase — *Although the bathroom was very open-concept, thankfully there was a private watercloset!*

Another downside to my Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor review is the fact that you have to call the operator to make sure you get fresh towels every day. Come on. I know this is now standard for bedsheets, but towels? YES I want clean towels, jeez. This is a “luxury lifestyle hotel,” remember? I think this is consistent with the Andaz Munich’s lazy standard of housekeeping – more on that below, unfortunately.

Message in hotel room stating "to do our part to help the environment, we will change your bed linens and towels after every three nights of your stay. If you wish to have your bed linens or towels replaced daily, please contact the hotel operator." — *In a “luxury lifestyle hotel,” I do not believe I should have to call the operator just to get a fresh towel each day.*

One of the hallmarks of the Andaz brand is that you tend to get little snacks and drinks for free. This was true here, and we really liked the sparkling waters. We never received the “popcorn” they mentioned – just the gummies.

Pull-out mini-fridge with a variety of 9 different bottled drinks — *Mini-fridge with complimentary nonalcoholic beverages*

Message from the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor saying that there is some nice popcorn available — *We saw this note about the great popcorn that’s free in our room…but we never saw any popcorn on our 3-night stay*

Little plastic bags of Andaz-branded gummy candy — *We did eat the complimentary Andaz-branded gummy candies, which were replaced daily*

The spa and sauna

Our trip to Germany included multiple hotels with nice spas and saunas. We thought the spa at the Waldorf Astoria was probably the best, but we also enjoyed the facilities at the Park Plaza Nuremberg.

Unfortunately, we did not enjoy the spa area at the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor. It was nicely designed, but the sauna wasn’t very hot. And most importantly, the facilities weren’t kept clean at all. Kind of important in a spa, especially at a hotel that prides itself on being a “luxury lifestyle hotel.”

As with most European spas, this is a completely naked and co-ed facility, so I couldn’t take pictures. I snapped a quick one of the entrance area, which was beautiful and modern just like the rest of the hotel.

Circular room with a circular seat, surrounded by lights and lockers, at the spa area of the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor — *Nicely-designed entrance at the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor spa*

I can’t prove it to you with pictures, so you’ll have to take my word for it:

Towels and water glasses were left strewn all over the sauna area two days in a row, at different times of day. The first day, I gave them the benefit of the doubt. What if a huge, annoying party had just left after failing to put their used items in a neat pile? I can hardly blame the hotel for that. But nope, I encountered the same problem the following day, over 24 hours later. There were very few towels left in the spa area, so they’re neither cleaning up nor replacing needed items.

Given that the sauna itself wasn’t even very hot, and the facility didn’t seem to be cleaned on a regular basis, I skipped visiting the spa for the third day.

Housekeeping

Normally I don’t dedicate a section of hotel reviews to housekeeping because I expect luxury hotels to keep rooms clean. And they usually do.

But consistent with my experience with the spa and sauna area, this Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor review provides poor marks for housekeeping in the rooms, too.

Our first night, I took off my shoes in the room and, after walking around the hardwood floor a bit, I thought I got a splinter. I looked down and realized I had a small piece of glass embedded in her heel instead. (I’ll spare you the gross feet and instead show you the piece of glass.)

A woman's hands showing a tweezer next to a small piece of clear white glass — *This piece of glass was on the hardwood floors and found its way into my foot. Luckily, we had some good tweezers on hand.*

After that, we noticed little issues like streaks on the glass and things that just hadn’t been fixed. Like this weird piece of duct tape on the wall:

Black duct tape covering a hole in the wall, with some other stickers nearby — *This duct tape appeared to be covering up a hole in the wall*

We told the hotel about the cleanliness issues but didn’t receive anything more than a quick apology and a promise to take care of it. We didn’t see evidence of that. After our stay, we followed up with an email to Hyatt Corporate about the housekeeping issues. Hyatt Corporate simply referred us to the hotel manager, who apologized for our experience but did not offer anything to make up for it.

I expected more out of my 20,000 points per night. I actually expect clean, well-maintained rooms and common areas at ALL Hyatt hotels, even the cheap 5,000 points-per-night ones. But the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor bills itself as a “luxury lifestyle hotel” and failed at housekeeping, which is really not okay.

Breakfast at the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor (not complimentary)

Breakfast was a much-needed bright spot in our review. You do have to pay for it, unless you 1) Are a top-tier Hyatt Globalist, or 2) Paid a bed-and-breakfast rate. They charge 38EUR per person, which is a bit pricey, but I thought it was worth it.

View of part of the breakfast buffet at the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor, showing a spread of various yogurts, fruits, and juices all labeled.

Another part of the breakfast buffet dining area at the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor, this time showing a display of various breads and meats on offer.

The buffet room was very large and offered many choices of traditional breakfast foods and juices, as well as a huge variety of breads.

But my favorite was probably the massive cheese table, with the charcuterie offerings right behind it.

Another side of the breakfast buffet at the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor, showing a variety of cheeses.

Breakfast plate showing rolls, mustards, several cheeses, and about six different kinds of meat.

Another breakfast plate at the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor's breakfast buffet, this time showing crackers and various spreads, plus cheeses and meats and jam.

I’ve never seen so many different varieties of meats and cheeses in one buffet before! I attempted to try them all, including the blood sausage and liverwurst.

I really loved this buffet and the whole downstairs area of this hotel. While I’d never stay here again, I’d go back for breakfast.

Happy hour at the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor (complimentary)

Complimentary to all guests is the happy hour at the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor. It’s from 5-7p every day in the attractive bar area.

Downstairs at the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor, showing couches and lounge chairs and an animal-print decorated piano — *Attractive lobby where happy hour was held. There was plenty of seating for us to enjoy our beer or wine.*

Offerings included self-serve, local beer and wine, which were great.

Table with a candle, a small plate with avocado toast, and a bottle of German beer — *Spicy avocado toast and local beer at happy hour*

There was always a little snack or two as well. This was a nice touch.

I enjoyed pouring myself a glass of wine or grabbing a beer and reading in one of the bar lounge chairs each evening.

Overall – Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor Review

Would I stay here again? In a word, no. I thought this was a poor use of 60,000 Hyatt points. Next time I visit Munich, I will bypass the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor and instead check out the Hilton Munich City or the Hilton Munich Park.

I’d consider going back for breakfast and/or drinks at the bar here, though!

I hope you found this hotel review helpful! Let me know if you’ve had a different experience at the Andaz Munich Schwabinger Tor. Maybe I just visited them on a few days when they were grossly understaffed or something.