Conrad Koh Samui vs. Umana Bali LXR: Which is Better?
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When you spend more than $15,000 in a calendar year on the Hilton Surpass American Express Card, you receive a Hilton free night certificate, good at any property in the portfolio except a few distinctive properties.
A couple times, due to using the card for everything and taking European vacations, we’ve ended up with a free night certificate, a large number of Hilton Honors points, and Diamond status. If this happens to you, I’m guessing you might want to do what we did, which is to look for the most expensive/fanciest hotel you can use your free night certificate at to get the most out of it. We try to use our points and status for a stay we otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford.
Two of the best uses of points on Hilton’s map are the Conrad Koh Samui and Umana Bali, resorts in Southeast Asia that offer freestanding villas with private pools to all guests. These hotels generally cost $600-$1,000 or more per night, so you’ll be getting a lot out of your free night certificate. But which is the best?
We’ve stayed at both, and have reviewed the Conrad Koh Samui and Umana Bali LXR on our site. Below, we compare each aspect of the hotels to conclude which one is the best use of Hilton points and free night certificates.
Airport pickup & check-in
Both hotels are located on the south end of their respective islands, and both allow you to reserve a car to pick you up at the airport. In Koh Samui, we were picked up at the airport by a Toyota Fortuner that was waiting right outside. In the backseat, there were coconuts, snacks, and cold towels waiting for us. The drive through Samui takes a while, but there’s a lot to see. We also booked the car to take us back to the airport, so we didn’t have to worry about getting a cab.
In Bali, we had issues with the airport pickup. As detailed in our full review, we got a text intended for someone else, struggled to find the guy waiting for us, had to stand in the sun, and the water in the car wasn’t cold. The car also wasn’t as nice. We didn’t think the experience was worth paying $50 for again, so on the way back to the airport, we got a Grab for $10 and were perfectly happy with it.
At check-in, both hotels gave us juice and cold towels, but in Samui, they gave Eriko a free massage. The check-in experience in Samui was also a little smoother. In Bali, they didn’t notice we had Diamond Status and hadn’t utilized most of the information we’d provided on our pre-arrival questionnaire. It wasn’t the best first impression.
Diamond Status comes with certain perks, including upgraded rooms and discounts on food/beverage. My general experience has been that Diamond Status is treated with a little more weight at hotels with the Hilton name on them (Conrad, Hilton, Doubletree, etc.) than at their partner brands. In Samui, we got an upgraded room and 25% off all food/beverage at hotel restaurants. At the Umana, they didn’t realize we had Diamond at first, so we may have missed out on some perks, and we only got 25% off some of the hotel restaurants.
Winnder: Conrad Koh Samui
If the airport ride and check-in were the entire experience, Samui would take it by a mile. But there’s actually more to do at these hotels than just sign your name and get keys.
Rooms
Both hotels offer individual villas, separated from the other guests. This provides privacy and the cool factor of your own villa with its own pool. In Samui, the door brings you right into the room, where there’s a big bed, couch, and bathroom, along with a patio with lounge chairs and, of course, the infinity pool. The room is impressive, but what’s more impressive is the view. Watching the sunset from your own infinity pool is an incredible experience.
The room in Samui was easily the biggest I’d ever stayed in, but that was until I got to the Umana. The villa here was massive. It had a kitchen and living room, two TVs, two bathrooms, a walkway on the side that led to the back (ideal if you’re staying in a big group and want to invite people to your pool but don’t want to have them dripping water in your villa), a hot tub, gazebo, and a free Sonos speaker to listen to while swimming in a pool that can be entered directly from the bedroom.
Winner: Umana Bali LXR
The villa here was just incredible, so gigantic that it was basically a private apartment. The rooms at the Conrad Koh Samui, insane in any other context, are small by comparison. The one thing the Conrad Koh Samui has over the Umana is the view, as the pool at our Umana villa didn’t have a view at all, instead offering privacy in the form of greenery shielding us from prying eyes. It’s sometimes possible to hear other guests at their pools in Samui, but we never heard anyone in Bali. However, Bali does have monkeys that can steal your stuff if you don’t keep the door closed, so watch out.
Pools
As mentioned, the Umana villa had a bigger private pool, but lacked the awesome views in Samui, meaning we couldn’t enjoy the same sundown swims. It also had a waterfall that drowned out the music we were playing, but given that the pool is bigger and also comes with a hot tub, I’d have to give the nod to the Umana when it comes to the villa pools.
Another point added by Eriko: at the Umana, the trees provide a great deal of shadow over the pool in the afternoon. This gives one the ability to swim without as much worry about sunburns, as opposed to Samui where you’re going to have to be extremely vigilant about sunscreen. For Eriko, that allowed for much longer swims in the Umana pool than we could take in Samui. It also meant we didn’t have to buy expensive sunscreen and sunburn ointment at the hotel gift shop like we did in Samui.
The Conrad Koh Samui also has a pool in front of Azure restaurant, where we saw families chilling and playing games. It looked fine, but we never went in it, opting to go to the beach. In contrast, the pool at the Umana’s Pad Bar was not only bigger, but empty, so we could swim around and enjoy the view all by ourselves. The Umana also offers a pool at the Uma Beach House, nicely secluded from the riff-raff.
Winner: Umana LXR
More pools and bigger pools mean the Umana takes this one. We swam in each pool each day while we were in Bali, and had so much fun, we’re thinking of signing up for a gym with a pool in Tokyo so we can swim all the time.
Beaches
In Bali, the Umana resort is not right next to the beach. Instead, you have to catch a shuttle that only leaves once per hour to the Uma Beach House. This is a nice place with good drinks (that you must pay for, though Diamond members get 10% off), beach chairs, and a pool, but the beach itself isn’t super inviting, and the Beach House blares music nonstop so you can’t listen to your headphones as I am wont to do. The beach is also in no way private, as there are tons of people around, though they’re nicely kept away from the Beach House’s pool so you can enjoy that.
The Conrad Koh Samui has a beach that is about as private as it gets, as we’ve never been there when there were more than a couple other people, and several times were there all by ourselves. The beach chairs are right on the sand, and there’s no cost for the free water they bring you. The sand and water are gorgeous, and you can swim in the ocean. You might get stung by a jellyfish as Eriko did, but the fact that the resort is right on the beach and we had it all to ourselves made this an easy call.
Winner: Conrad Koh Samui
Samui also has kayaking at the beach, but we never did it. It’s also really easy to just walk upstairs to get lunch, vs. the Umana where you have to keep track of the time to catch the hourly shuttle.
Food
Breakfast
Honestly, this one is tough. Both breakfast buffets were superb. Samui had slightly better juice and a few more items, but the Umana had a menu of specialty breakfast dishes and better pastries. All in all, I would say you shouldn’t choose between these two hotels based on breakfast, because it’s going to be good no matter which one you choose. The Samui breakfast had a great view, so we found ourselves sitting there for longer. Maybe that takes it?
Lunch
At both resorts, we ate our lunches poolside. In Samui, that was at Azure, which had seafood, pizza, burgers, and general American fare. We were honestly blown away by this restaurant. We expected standard lunch food, but everything we had was delicious, including the perfectly-cooked fish. Every time we ate here was a treat.
In contrast, the Pad Bar at the Umana had so-so food, and the service wasn’t spectacular, probably because the bar is basically bereft of people. I think most guests eat at the Beach House, but we chose the Pad Bar because we got 25% off there. The Pad Bar lunch was decent enough, but it didn’t come close to the food at Azure, which easily wins the lunch category.
Dinner
Both the Conrad Koh Samui and Umana Bali have fancy restaurants, named Jahn and Oliverra, respectively. We never ate at these restaurants because they serve fancy restaurant food, and we wanted food that reflected local flavors rather than a big steak or pasta or something. We stuck to Aow Thai (which used to be called Zest) in Samui and Commune in Bali.
Let me start by saying the food at Commune is fine. We tried some good Balinese dishes and adequate Thai food. They also had a Balinese BBQ that was particularly fun. The service was decent, but not amazing. But it doesn’t come anywhere near the food in Samui. We love Thai food, and this restaurant showed us dishes we’d never heard of alongside old favorites like a spicy yellow curry that I’m still thinking about. The staff was also amazing, always remembering us and talking to us. And that view! You can reserve a table for sunset!
I should give Umana props for adding our 25% discount to the bill every time, so it was easy to see that we were definitely receiving it. In Samui, there was this awkward thing where the receipt they gave you to sign had a line for a tip, even though they’d already added 10%, so your choices were to add an extra tip or write “0.00” like a jerk. They should fix that.
Floating breakfast
Both hotels offer an in-room floating breakfast, where you can eat in your infinity pool while the food floats around you. We’ve done this twice in Samui, and it’s awesome. You can look out at that amazing view while enjoying a giant tray of coffee, juice, pastries, satay, curry, fruit, and all sorts of other stuff.
We chose not to do it in Bali after seeing some photos online from visitors who’d gotten the floating breakfast. It looked similar, but with a lot less food. We didn’t really want to pay for a lesser version of a thing we’ve already done, so although we can’t directly compare them, I’d say Samui takes this one, giving it just about a clean sweep of the food category (probably not surprising because Thailand is a food paradise).
Winner: Conrad Koh Samui
Activities & Surrounding area
Rating the activities at a hotel is tough, because we often don’t take advantage of all of them. Both have spas, but Eriko only took a massage at the Umana (she liked it). Both have coffee shops (Samui’s is better) that offer coffee tasting experiences, but we only did the one in Samui (not good).
However, when analyzing the things on offer, Samui definitely has more. There’s kayaking and watersports activities offered through the hotel, whereas in Bali, you have to do those things at a different beach and pay for a hotel car to take you there and back.
The one thing we did in Samui was the Longtail Boat Trip (above), which was absolutely amazing. It included a boat ride, snorkeling, and a visit to an island full of pigs. Wouldn’t trade that experience for anything, and the Umana doesn’t really have anything like it.
Umana does have the edge on helping you explore the rest of the island, as they offer excursions to local villages and historic sites. We didn’t do any of these things, but maybe we should have. In Samui, we went to an Elephant Sanctuary (which was mid) and Tree Tops Restaurant, which was nice but not super memorable.
Overall, Bali is much, much bigger than Samui, so if you’re not a beach person and don’t want to simply sit by the pool all day, you’ll probably find more to do there. But we are beach people, so for us, the Longtail Boat Trip was exactly what we wanted.
Winner: Tie
I was going to give it to Samui, but I think I have to make this one a tie because there are different kinds of people. If you want to do watersports and beach activities, Samui wins. If you want to venture out of the resort and see culture, the Umana wins. That’s up to you.
Oh, and we should probably talk about families. We are a lovey-dovey couple, so we want a resort geared toward that, but some of you may have children coming along. The Conrad Koh Samui has its Turtle Club for kids, and we saw families playing in the pool and having a good time. In contrast, we saw zero kids at the Umana, and its beach-party vibe seemed geared more toward singles and couples. This is confusing, because to me, with its many pools and secluded atmosphere, it would be ideal for families. For whatever reason, the Umana doesn’t do as much as it could to attract kids. Samui’s view is definitely the more romantic, yet Umana is the setting where you’re encouraged to drink and party.
Facilities & service
Both resorts feature individual villas built into cliffsides, and are spread out over a large area. As such, you can’t really walk anywhere. Instead, you request a buggy (golf cart) to come pick you up and drive you wherever you want to go. In Samui, this is done through the Hilton Honors app, and at the Umana, it’s done via WhatsApp. I can’t say I found the requesting process to be any different at either, and the buggy drivers themselves were always nice.
But at the Conrad Koh Samui, everyone is nice on another level. They were talkative, friendly, and thoughtful. The staff at the restaurant memorized our drink preferences so that when we walked in, they already knew what we wanted. They smiled the moment they saw us. We walked away thinking we were their favorites. They even helped when Eriko got stung by a jellyfish. The Umana staff was nice, but not on that level. And some of the service there was a bit slapdash, forgotten orders and being asked the same question several times.
The overall facilities in Samui (except for the pool) have slightly more to offer as well. The promenade and pier area are beautiful, and the little gift shop and Botannika coffee shop were great when we were staying past checkout because we had a late flight.
In Samui, we got teddy bears with our names on them. At the Umana, we got coconuts with our names on them. That’s an easy call.
Winner: Conrad Koh Samui
Most important to me, and the real clincher, is the view from basically everywhere in Samui. That view is incredible, especially from your own private infinity pool. Looking at these pictures again made it clear just how amazing Koh Samui is in general, and how awesome the Conrad resort is specifically. We’ve had a great time there twice, and would definitely choose it again over Bali if we were deciding between the two and price were no object. But for those of you not going for free, how do they compare? And which is the best use of a free night certificate?
Verdict: which private pool villa resort is tops?
Comparing prices for resorts like these is tough because it depends on when you go, so I’m going to pick Valentine’s Day week for the Conrad Koh Samui and Memorial Day for the Umana LXR Bali, because I figure a lot of Americans will want to travel then.
(Also, quick message to Hilton Hotels and all other search engines: NO ONE wants to view hotel prices in the hotel currency. We want to see the prices in OUR currency. I am tired of clicking that little drop-down window. Thai Baht and Indonesian Rupees are meaningless to me. Fix this.)
The Hilton Honors rate for a 1-bedroom sunset pool villa (the cheapest one) on Valentine’s Day at the Conrad Koh Samui is $1,136. No standard reward rooms are available. That’s insane. We’ve stayed at this hotel that exact week and it definitely didn’t cost that much. Valentine’s Day 2027 must be a big deal. So, looking at another week (mid-March), the flexible rate for the lowest-priced room (Tropical Island Pool Villa) is $827, or 110,000 Hilton Honors Points. When we went, it was 95,000 points and like $650, so prices have definitely gone up, probably due to the resort’s popularity. We never paid the $650, but at the time, it seemed like it would be a bargain.
At the Umana on Memorial Day, a One-Bedroom Valley Pool Villa is $1,252, but that’s only if you’re a Diamond member, because all other rooms are sold out, as they seem to be at the other Hiltons on Bali as well. Okay, maybe trying to choose holidays was dumb. In mid-September, a One-Bedroom Valley Pool Villa is $697, or 110,000 points.
Given that they are both 110,000 points, choosing for an award stay is basically a straight comparison. And for that, I have to pick the Conrad Koh Samui. The food is better, the service is great, the activities are fun, and that view… I mean, come on. That view is the clincher. If you want to get the best use out of your points and free night certificate, go with the Conrad Koh Samui.
For those paying cash, the Umana is $130 cheaper per night. Is the Conrad Koh Samui worth $130 more per night? If you’re just deciding by the hotel, that might be tough, but Bali vs. Koh Samui is a much larger choice. For us, going to Bali means flying through Singapore, while going to Samui means flying through Bangkok. We love Thai food, so we’d probably choose Bangkok in that situation. But you do you.
The Conrad Koh Samui wins in basically every category except for price (depending on date), rooms, and pools. But the rooms are a pretty big deal here, as they are gigantic and involve private pools. If you are going with a lot of people, want a young person’s singles getaway, or really really want a hot tub, you should choose the Umana. But for everything else, especially if you’re old and lame or traveling with a family, the Conrad Koh Samui is the winner. I’d pick Thai food and the Samui view over privacy and a bigger pool. And one more shout-out to the amazing staff at the Conrad Koh Samui. You made this choice easy.
