Visting the Remodeled Rio and Marriott W

Introduction

In this trip, I check-out the renovated Rio and W hotels in Las Vegas. However, the main purpose of the trip was to rack up some Hyatt nights under an unbelievable deal.

Hyatt Status and Las Vegas

Achieving Hyatt Globalist normally requires 60 elite night credits which you can get through stays and credit card spend. Unless you’re a business traveller, getting to 60 is a challenge.

A few years ago, everyone that wanted to get Hyatt Globalist status would make an annual pilgrimage to Las Vegas to stay (or not) at cheap MGM properties like Excalibur and Luxor. Often these stays would be mostly comped, but you’d still get elite night credits as long as you paid something.

Fast-forward to 2025 and MGM now partners with Marriott under much worse terms. This leaves Rio Las Vegas, which has always had a certain reputation, as the only real option for cheap Hyatt nights anywhere in the US. Hyatt has renovated the property addressing many guest concerns. But is it any good and are there still deals? Let’s find out.

Rio Las Vegas

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You may be able to get a similar deal, but you should understand a few things.

• Rio is not on the strip.
  Getting there is a half-mile hike from behind Caesars.
• Weeknight rates start at $35 plus a $50 resort fee.
  Weekend rates are terrible.
• The resort fee is waived for Globalists.
  So just $35-$50, plus Globalists get free breakfast.
• You need to book through Hyatt to get elite benefits.
  Don’t book through Rio.
• Points prices are terrible compared to cash rates.
  Except on the weekend when all prices are terrible.

Beyond that, it is crucial to look at the different rate options (pictured above). During my stay, I was able to book the “3,000 bonus points” rate for the same price as a regular night. This was probably a mistake, but they honored it, and there often deals to be found in the alternate rates.

Check-In

When entering via the main entrance, general checkin is to your left, and you can chose from:

• Self check-in kiosks without a line.
  You will need a driver’s license.
  I don’t think kiosks will upgrade you.
• General guest services.
  Usually with a short wait.

However, if you are a Globalist, you can go directly to the VIP checkin which is just around the corner to your right. This area is very nice, almost like a lounge, and there’s almost never a wait. You’re most likely to get an upgrade if you check-in this way.

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Room

I checked in at the kiosk instead of the VIP area (rookie mistake), and so I got exactly the room I had booked without any Globalist upgrades. On the bright side, this gave me an opportunity to evaluate a regular room.

However, two issues quickly surfaced.

• Two mornings, there was no hot water.
  Or at best luke warm.
• The in-room WiFi was terrible, often unusable.
  It was fine on the casino floor.

With respect to the WiFi, sometimes it would work for an hour or two, slowly, and then just stop working. Then you’d have to reauthenticate to their portal if you could get it to load, and then if you were really lucky, it might work some more. My suspicion is that they may have had some faulty hardware or something misconfigured in my wing. Unfortunately, the cellular signal was also quite bad.

When I stayed, renovations were still in progress, and since joining Hyatt, Rio has generally been responsive whenever issues have been raised. Hopefully, they’ve resolved these concerns. I’d certainly be happy to give them another try.

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Casino

This may be a controversial statement, but I think Rio has a great casino floor, and I’m not just talking about the carpet. Most casinos on the strip feel like mazes, and this one has a sensible layout making it easy to find everything. The odds tend to be a little better than on the strip, and they have a number of good food and entertainment options.

Hash House A Go Go

Hash House hosts the free breakfast for Globalists. There are a few menu restrictions, but I found the options to be more than adequate and quite tasty.

Before I visited, there had been some Hyatt growing pains in which Rio earned some bad press for playing games with the Globalist breakfast benefits, but that was all settled long before I arrived.

My suspicion is that they were flooded by Globalists expecting unlimited breakfast, didn’t know how to handle it, and were presumably losing a lot of money. By the time I got there, they had the system ironed out. There was a special line for Globalists, who were led to Globalist-marked tables, where all the servers were clear about which items were included.

My only complaint was that service seemed a little sparse, and there didn’t appear to be an easy way to leave an additional tip, nor was it expected. Inspecting the bill, it looked Like Rio was paying a very tiny gratuity, 15% or less. This is unheard of in Vegas. If I were a server, I too would probably focus more on tipping customers.

My philosophy on award travel has always been to be grateful and share the love. In the past, I’ve even made a little game of testing to see just how large of a tip, if any, each hotel will cover on a free breakfast. I’d love it if there was a way (and expectation) to leave an additional tip. Maybe next time I’ll just drop some cash on the table and be direct about loving coffee refills.

Other Cheap-ish Eats

Las Vegas food has become notoriously expensive. When staying on a budget, it’s nice to have a few wallet-friendly options. In the evenings, I survived largely on happy hour specials from Guy Fieri’s El Burro Borracho and Luckley Tavern and Grill. They also have a food hall for cheaper eats as well as a Smashburger on the opposite side of the casino. You can often find deals on Smashburger giftcards.

W (Formerly Delano)

One challenge with a Rio stay is that it only makes sense on days with good cash rates, and this may not align with cheap flights. I solved this problem with two “comped” nights at MGM/Marriott’s W hotel.

In my particular case, the offer was for up to 4 nights, paying only the resort fee. It included a $100 resort credit and $40 in free play. While I have gambled with MGM, I have never earned their status outside of status matches. My expectation is they are pretty loose with these offers when the economic climate warrants it.

Room

I stayed in a W Premier King Suite and I think it was exactly the same room I had back in 2023. I was hoping they would have renovated it with some of the pizazz I experienced in the W Brisbane. While the room had been updated, the vibe was sadly more granny gambler than alien spaceship. That said, this is still a fantastic room and one of the best base rooms on the strip.

Casino and Food

W is located in Mandalay Bay near the shopping walkway leading to Luxor, providing easy access to everything in both casinos. At checkin, they give you a list of restaurants where you can use the resort credit. There are tons of (mostly pricey) restaurant options on the list, but the printout was missing some favorites like Slice of Vegas.

Flights

For my flights, I booked Big Front Seats on Spirit Airlines flying direct from Columbus to Las Vegas. While these used a mix of credits from my Venture X and Ritz cards, the exact procedure was a bit weird.

To pay for the flights, I…

• Purchased a $300 Spirit flight using my Capital One VentureX $300 travel coupon.
• Canceled that to get a long-lived Spirit flight voucher.
• Purchased an economy flight direct from Spirit, with a SAVER$ CLUB discount, using the Spirit flight voucher.
• Upgraded to a Big Front Seat using a portion of the $300 airline incidental credit on my Ritz card.

This was complicated, but I liked the approach because it:

• Knocked out two truly obnoxious credits at once.
• Transferred the Venture X credit to Spirit without the need to immediately spend it.
• Allowed me to book direct with Spirit.
• Allowed me to use my SAVER$ CLUB discount saving $20.
• Used the Ritz credit on an officially supported use (instead of award fees).

In terms of banking the VentureX credit on Spirit, I like that Spirit has many direct routes (like Las Vegas) not available to me with points. So if I’m going to pay a cash-like rate, it makes more sense to do so when award travel isn’t an option.

Two weeks later, I received a totally unexpected present from Capital One when the price on my original dummy flight dropped, triggering Capital One’s free price drop protection. This resulted in them restoring $20 of my annual travel credit for a price drop of a flight I no longer had booked.

The only problem I had with this procedure was that Chase customer service totally messed up my annual Ritz credit, claiming I’d used up the entire $300 travel credit. They stuck to their guns in repeated requests, despite me pointing out that this was impossible as I’d only charged ~$100 to the card year to date (all transactions). This credit requires dealing with customer service every time and repeated, expensive, failures have me considering downgrading what many see as the best hotel card available.

Summary

This was a fine trip, and I think Rio can be a fantastic deal if you are a Globalist. That said, if you have to fly out there, I don’t know that it’s worth it as a mattress run due to the high cost of airfare and astronomical weekend room rates. If you travel internationally, there are easier ways to rack up cheap Hyatt nights that won’t require Globalist status to work.

That said, for road trips, I could definitely see using Rio as a base of operations or a respite between weekend trips to national parks like Death Valley, Joshua Tree or the Grand Canyon.

My only other concern is the In-Room WiFi.