Cool: Huge Savings On Luxury Hotels Across Asia With Banyan Tree Pass

The thing about travel to Asia, is that you can’t just stay in one place. I mean, you can, but with such wildly rewarding differences in culture and views across every border, or even region, it’s good to get out a bit.

Banyan Tree, one of the leading luxury hospitality brands of Asia, and now Mexico too, is offering a really cool and simple way to do that, at least in theory – given all the travel restrictions. You buy a super discounted pass loaded with nights, and can use the pass at any of the 35+ luxury hotels from Mexico, to Bangkok, the Maldives and beyond.

It may be the most tempting way to work from anywhere, and embrace the digital nomad dream, however long, or short…

Banyan Tree ‘Habitat’ Passes

Sometimes the best way to understand something is to let the brand do the talking, so here’s the pitch from Banyan Tree, about the new ‘Habitat’ pass designed to tempt in digital nomads and relaxation seekers (everyone?!) around the world.

Habitat offers travelers access to 35 hotels in more than 30 destinations. Thanks to our flexible Unit system, guests will have the chance to live, work and travel around the world for a fixed price. Find your Habitat, find your new home.

Banyan Tree

Basically, you’re buying into a group of hotels at a fixed price, not just “a” hotel at varying nightly rates. For Banyan Tree, this is obviously a great money spinner to get fresh cash into the business, but for guests it can be an amazing hedge against varying prices at each hotel, and with ease of use too.

The process works like a series of pre-paid one night stays. You’re able to buy ‘units’ in increments of one week.

You might be able to seriously save on standard rates, and the offer also includes a variety of add on value adds, in the form of up to $700 in resort credit, depending on the packages selected. All prices are for two adults sharing one room. One adult is the same price.

The prices encourage you to stay longer with Banyan Tree. Purchases are made in ‘units’, and each unit is 7 days. If you buy (4) units, you’d get 28 days of hotels, and pay less than the person who only purchased 1 unit. You’re also only allowed one hotel per unit, so buying 4 units gets you 4 separate hotels in play, whereas 1 unit gets you one.

The hardest part is probably picking which brand’s pass you’d like, within the Banyan Tree portfolio. There’s the flagship Banyan Tree branded hotels, but then also luxury eco options including Angsana Hotels and Cassia Hotels.

A month, or rather 28 days of Cassia Hotels, which only include Phuket and Bintan, costs $1680USD, and is valued at $2800. It also comes with daily breakfast, and up to $700 in resort credit. You could easily do two weeks at one, then two weeks at the other, etc.

For slightly more variety, the Angsana pass has 10 hotels to choose from across more countries in Asia and comes in at 28 nights for $2520, and is ARV valued at more than $4000. It also offers up to $700 in resort credit and daily breakfast for two. This would allow you to pick either 1 hotel for 28 days, or 2 hotels for 14 days each, or 4 hotels for 7 nights each.

If you’re a baller, or just want to see the world one amazing Banyan Tree at a time, the Banyan Tree pass covers 20 hotels from Mexico to Krabi, Thailand, and so many places in between. At $4200 for the month, it’s far from cheap, but for a month of luxury five star hotel with daily breakfast and $700 in resort credits, you could certainly do a lot worse.

In fact, it’s valued at well over $7,000, and makes for a $150 nightly rate. That’s a huge savings.

If you wanted to hit four different Banyan Tree properties, you could span serious ground, and for those worried about being able to cash in the pass, this also opens up the stunning Banyan Tree Mayakoba, or Cabo, which each have rates over $500 a night.

You don’t need to have gone much further than 1st grade math to see the savings a one month pass for $4200 brings there.

Breaking Down The T&C’s Of ‘Habitat’

Obviously these offers are seriously tempting, but require additional scrutiny in a time when borders aren’t guaranteed to open, and each country is approaching life in vastly different ways at the moment.

Thailand, for example, requires 14 days of quarantine, whereas Mexico has no quarantine, or testing requirements. Other countries are still yet to welcome back visitors at all.

The T&C’s of these passes state that the validity is good for 12 months from the date of purchase, and at present there’s no thought of extension. The pass T&C’s do however say that management could consider future extensions. Cancellations where the value of the pass is retained are possible, so a pivot isn’t out of the question if another resort and or country is open.

I, for one, am seriously tempted here. Even a short term plan to Mexico would lock in huge savings versus daily rates and the concept of staying somewhere long enough to live and work in total enjoyment sounds like a lot more fun than most work from home setups right now.

You can check out the full offer here.