Le Meridien Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai Hotel Review

During our time in the Northern part of Thailand we spent 3 nights at the Le Meridien Chiang Mai and 1 night at the Le Meridien Chiang Rai – both Starwood properties. At the time of my stay, both were a category 2 hotel so require hardly any SPG points for a free night – 4,000 points for a weekday night and 3,000 points for a weekend night. I found that the hotel costs about $120ish/night, so this is definitely a great usage of your SPG points!

The Le Meridien Chiang Mai is located right in the city. It is a high rise hotel across the street from the night market. While I probably wouldn’t pay full price for this hotel since there are other less expensive hotels in Chiang Mai, it is a great usage of points and still definitely recommended.

When I was there, if you had Platinum status you would get access to the concierge lounge and the breakfast buffet (which offered more than you could ask for!). We weren’t at the hotel too much so did not utilize the lounge a bunch, but they did have drinks and appetizers/snacks throughout the day.

The rooms were pretty standard, but definitely well done. We did have a friend who got upgraded to a suite but they forgot to mention it was a smoking room. If you are against a smoking room make sure to ask about the upgrade as you might prefer no upgrade over an upgraded smoking room. While the hotel had Thailand motif (elephants, etc.) it did feel pretty “Westernized” so it depends on what you are looking for.

The location was great as it was walking distance to everything. The night market was right there which was convenient and there were some nice massage places across the street as well. The longest you’d walk to another part of town or the temples was about 10-15 minutes. The concierge was helpful and was able to provide us with restaurant and things to do recommendations.

There was also a rooftop pool which we sat at for about an hour on our last day winding down, but we weren’t really in Northern Thailand to sit at the pool. It was a smaller pool and the water was pretty cold, but the view during sunset was very nice I must admit!

I only stayed at this hotel one night, arriving around 4ish and leaving the next day first thing in the morning. Take this review with a grain of salt as my time at the hotel was extremely limited.

This hotel really depends on what you are looking for. It is more of a resort and not a city hotel – very different then the Le Meridien Chiang Mai. If you are looking for a relaxing resort, then this is great. If you are looking to be right in the heart of the city, this is not for you. This resort was probably 15 minutes outside of the city and required a taxi or shuttle. The hotel did provide a shuttle, but the times were limited. A taxi back to the hotel from the city was pretty reasonable though, but did not allow you to pop in and out of the hotel as needed. Chiang Rai is much smaller than Chiang Mai, so to be right in the middle of the city for multiple days might not be necessary. You can still do the same day excursions from this hotel, and on your off time just relax at the pool. It is still easy enough to get into the city at night for dinner.

Our hotel room definitely showed signs of aging, but our friends room was perfect. There was a bunch of mold in the bathroom (shower specifically). We probably could have changed rooms if we wanted to, but for such a short stay we didn’t really care. There seemed to be a bunch of amenities, but I really cannot comment on them as we were hardly there.

Overall, I definitely recommend both hotels when using points! It just totally depends on what you are looking for – city vs. outskirts resort right outside of the city.