How I Stayed for FREE at the Sheraton Grand Taipei

Well, after checking out the beautiful mountains in Taiwan, what you really need is a good hotel to relax and chill out in. So after coming back from Hsinchu on the bullet train business class, I stayed at the Xiaozhen Grand in Taipei, booked using the free night on my Marriott Bonvoy American Express card. Free nights are limited to rooms costing 35,000 points, which in the West would mean mid-range hotels, but in Asia, this means luxury. The hotel has a spacious and bright lobby. Our room, although on the small side, was very comfortable with an absolutely huge bed. The room has the usual amenities that you would expect from a luxury hotel. No Nespresso machine in the room, unfortunately, and some mediocre art on the walls. The bathroom is compact, but features both a bath and a shower, and one of those Japanese toilets that washes your butt. You can't do without one of those. Now I love hotel breakfast, so let's go try it. You get to the breakfast area, which is located in this atrium, by taking this cool elevator that can also provide some exciting entertainment for your kids. You can also watch them going up and down from your table. The breakfast selection is extensive, with both Eastern and Western options available. I went for a traditional English type plate first, then a bowl of Chinese congee, then some salad-y stuff, then a Japanese miso soup, and then some roasted sweet potato and an egg, and then I ran out of time and the buffet closed because I got up too late. My verdict on the breakfast is good food, but I don't like the huge, open, echo-y atrium you had to eat it in. Now back to the room. Alright guys, so we have been staying at the Sheraton Grand in Taipei for two nights now. We're actually leaving today, but I'll just give you my thoughts about this hotel. It's certainly very cool. It has a luxury feel and it's an amazing use of the free night on the Marriott credit cards. I used the one from the Bonvoy card, the old SPG card that is not available to new customers anymore, but I'm grandfathered into, but there are other Marriott credit cards that you can apply for and you can get the free night. You can use it here. If you used a free night at a hotel in the West, it would not be quite a luxury product, not really a luxury property, but this one definitely does have a luxury feel. I'll just share with you my one thing that I don't like about this hotel though, and that is the bed sheets. They're way too thick for Taiwan. I don't know whether it's the thickness or whether it's the material, whether it's made of man-made stuff instead of breathable feathers or whatever, but at night I would wake up sweating. It was horrible. They don't do that one sheet underneath and then a duvet thing on top. They just do one duvet for the whole bed and you've got AC on in here or heating. Taipei's winter really is not cold at all. It's very warm. It's like 75 degrees outside. It's like California, right? Yeah, you've got this thick duvet. Every night I would wake up sweating and have to have a shower in the morning. But that's the only real annoyance I have about this hotel. The pillows have been pretty nice. Hotel pillows normally suck, but these ones were great. So everything else about this hotel I really loved and to get a sort of five-star luxury feel for a free night on a credit card is absolutely amazing. Today we are going to be moving hotel over to the Regent, which I'm very, very excited about. So do look out for more videos on that in the upcoming days. All right, guys. Thank you so much for watching. If you like hotel cards and free nights, we'll put a selection of our favorite hotel cards below. They'll have some of the Marriott ones in that selection. If you're interested, please check it out. We'll see you next time. Bye-bye.