Overall: Over-the-top luxury in an underrated city
Pros: Impeccable service, fantastic Executive Lounge, beautiful hotel.
Cons: We had to leave.
We paid: $0; 160,000 Hilton points for 2 nights.
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 Osaka 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 Osaka Japan:
From the moment we approached the check-in desk, we loved this hotel. The front desk staff was very prompt and thorough, explaining everything about the hotel including all of my partner’s Diamond member benefits. A HUGE benefit was the Executive Lounge, which was incredible here.
The room they provided us was a major upgrade with panoramic views of the city from floor-to-ceiling windows. And, we were immediately greeted with Hokkaido strawberries and a handwritten
The floor-to-ceiling windows provided a complete view of Osaka, which, while not as historic as Kyoto or as busy as Tokyo, was filled with interesting things to do – like this Mario tour we encountered:
We got a Conrad bear on our very comfortable King bed:
The room itself was extremely comfortable and large, with an incredible view:
View from our room’s panoramic windows
Conrad Osaka did a great job on the details too. They provided us with plenty of outlets, high-tech room controls, luxurious pajamas, and a minibar with a large variety of cups, utensils, coffees, and teas:
The bathroom also didn’t fail to disappoint, with dual sinks, plenty of
The hotel also provided pretty much any bath amenity you could think of, from the expected (shampoo) to the unexpected (shaving gel, bath salts, body towels, mouthwash). All of it was very high-quality too; we loved the Mandarin Tea scent.
The minibar prices were pretty reasonable too.
The highlight for us was the over-the-top Executive Lounge, provided to Diamond members (my partner, thanks to the Amex Hilton Aspire card) for free, or for non-Diamond guests who booked a room on an Executive floor. The Lounge provided breakfast, afternoon tea, AND evening cocktails, all with a variety of both hot and cold dishes.
Breakfast was particularly
The evening cocktail hour lasted from 6-8p every night, with a live singer the one night we were able to make it! He sang Elton John songs in English — really well, I might add — and socialized with the guests. Cocktail hour included Kyoto-style pressed mackerel nigiri and potato and pork croquettes.
I won’t bore you with a zillion pictures of food, but I will show you an example of a very generous breakfast:
And the view from the Executive Lounge windows:
Value per Hilton point: About 1.02 cents
The Conrad Osaka’s cheapest rooms go for about $620 per night, including tax. Our King Executive Corner Room costs around $813 per night, and I definitely value the Executive Lounge access highly! Total cost would have been about $1,626 for both nights, so we received about 1.02 cents per Hilton point – an awesome redemption. (If you only received a $620-per-night standard room, this would still represent a .78 per point redemption rate.)
Note: We valued the breakfasts and evening receptions at about $50 per person, per night. This means we got $1,826 worth of value out of this hotel stay – for free!
Bottom line: We loved it and would go back in a heartbeat.
I think my partner’s Hilton Diamond status really made a difference on this stay. Read on to see why I think the Hilton Amex Aspire Card is totally worth the $450 annual fee – a lot of it is because of Diamond status. At this hotel, the Executive Lounge was head-and-shoulders above some of the lounges in U.S. hotels, and the upgraded room was significant.
