The Fairmont San Jose Review

After a lovely stay in San Francisco at the Hotel Kabuki, I spent a night in San Jose at the Fairmont San Jose. Only about an hour’s drive south of San Francisco, San Jose usually has significantly warmer weather! Read on for my review of the Fairmont San Jose.

Overall: Luxury hotel that lives up to Fairmont standards

Pros: Fantastic location in San Jose; spacious rooms; nice bathrooms.

Cons: “Main building” rooms could use updating; lacks some personality.

We paid: $225 + tax per night

How to stay here for less:

Fairmont hotels are now part of Accor, which is a loyalty program that has more global than domestic U.S. properties. As of this writing, there are 20 Fairmont hotels in the U.S. Accor also owns the Sofitel, Swissotel, and 21c brands, of which there are a few dozen in the U.S. total. But with fewer than 100 domestic properties, Accor points can be hard to earn.

However, there are still some ways to stay here for less! You could:

1. Use the Accor Hotels loyalty program to earn enough for a partial stay; 2,000 Accor points = 40Eur off your bill. Check out my Ultimate Guide to Accor Hotels for more details, including how to use Accor hotel points.
2. Pay using Chase points and the Chase travel portal;
3. Use Amex’s travel portal, which codes the Fairmont San Jose as an FHR (“Fine Hotels & Resorts”) property, granting you several benefits including a $100 on-property credit. You can read details about Amex FHR in my review of another great property, The Breakers Palm Beach.
4. Use Citi’s travel portal and pay with points.

Location of Fairmont San Jose

The Fairmont San Jose is well-located, right by a number of walkable bars and restaurants. I loved the SoFA Market food hall and the San Pedro Square Market. Each had about a dozen trendy food and drink venues inside, and both were within a 10-minute walk of the Fairmont.

There’s no shortage of activities within walking distance. The San Jose Museum of Art is very high-quality and barely across the street. Then, just across a grassy park is the Tech Interactive, a family-friendly technology activity center. And for something free to do, check out the Downtown San Jose Public Art Walk.

To get to San Jose from San Francisco, we actually took FlixBus for the first time, and found it to be a very efficient way to get here! It only cost $7.99 (+$2) and dropped us off at the “Downtown San Jose” station, which was only about a 10-minute walk to the Fairmont San Jose. It took about 45-50 minutes and was stress-free. Transport within the Bay Area can be a big pain, but I feel like this hotel is well-located for that reason too.

All told, the Fairmont San Jose is in a very safe area, with easy to access transportation and lots of fun things to do within walking distance.

Check-in and lobby

Check-in was uneventful, which is always a good thing. We had paid about $15 more per night for a Tower King room, compared to a regular “deluxe” room. They didn’t give or offer an upgrade beyond our Tower King room, but all of the room types are spacious at 450 square feet.

The Fairmont San Jose is actually two buildings, the “Main” building and the newer “Tower” building. Both are right next to each other and connected by a skywalk on the 3rd floor. The Tower building is newer and more renovated.

The room

As mentioned, I paid about $15 more per night for a Tower room with a view. After seeing the difference in room quality between the Tower rooms and the regular Deluxe rooms, I do think the Tower rooms are worth a little extra. They’re the same size, so I don’t value the Tower rooms THAT much above the regular ones. But they’re definitely different.

In contrast, my Tower King room felt a little more updated:

I loved having a “real” desk that allowed me to do work, with two chairs and multiple outlets. (Sometimes I feel like hotel rooms don’t provide good workplace locations, like at the Andaz Scottsdale.)

The room itself was very spacious:

And as promised, my Fairmont San Jose Tower King room had a nice view of downtown San Jose:

The bathroom was pretty great, with a separate shower and tub. Everything was marble.

I also love the Le Labo bath products. These were the lovely Rose 31 scent. (I know individual-use bath products are being phased out, but I think fancy ones are an important way for luxury hotels to stand out. Check out my list of favorite hotel beauty products here, where I rank Fairmont’s Le Labo products #2.)

One downside to the room, they gave you a mini-fridge but don’t let you use it without auto-charging you every time you touch it. Man, I hate those things.

Compared to the regular Deluxe rooms in the older building, you can definitely feel that the Tower rooms are a bit more updated, right?

All in all, I thought this was a nice room, but nothing truly special. Other than The Fairmont brand’s signature Le Labo bath products, I felt like it lacked a bit of personality. Still, a large, luxury hotel room isn’t a bad thing, and Fairmont San Francisco certainly held up its standard of luxury.

Amenities at the Fairmont San Jose

We visited the Fairmont San Jose in late February, so the rooftop pool naturally wasn’t open. But from the website, it looks beautiful.

Another amenity we didn’t take advantage of was the fitness center. Again, these are pics from the Fairmont’s website.

Unlike the Hotel Kabuki, which I just reviewed and loved other than their amenity fee, the Fairmont San Jose does NOT charge a daily fee for these amenities. I give them credit for this!

Bottom line

Would I stay at the Fairmont San Jose again? Yes, if I got a good price! In my book, this is a standard luxury hotel with the service and amenities you’d expect. I’m not a big Fairmont loyalist because they just don’t have that many properties, but this is a good chain and I’d support them again!

I earned 521 Accor points from this stay, worth a little more than $10. Once I get 2,000 Accor points, I can either use them for 40Eur off my bill, or transfer them to some of Accor’s airline partners. I think this makes Accor’s program more worthwhile and I’m becoming a fan.

I hope you enjoyed my review of the Fairmont San Jose. Let me know how you felt about the property in the comments!