London hotel insanity- $300 for a 3 star ?!?

[Sebb]

I'm doing a last minute trip to London next week and am shocked that Priceline is showing median hotel prices for 3 stars (not 4 stars) at $350 a night

The cheapest of the 3 stars are like $250 sort of at the edge of the center of the city (Best Western,etc). I bid up to $135 for a 3* on Name your own Price and stopped after being rejected.... are prices really that extreme? weak dollar I guess?

 

[in stitches]

stoooop

 

[Blackhood]

£200 per night is quite good. Even out here in the sticks hotels charge about that. Staying in central London at weekends you usually pay £400 ($600) per night for a 4*.

 

[b1os]

If you want to get a cheap, central accomodation, try out easyhotel. You pay about 40-60$ per night there. But beware, it's really small.

Else you have to pay that amount of money. Paris e.g. is that expensive, too.

 

[Medwed]

Peak season, otherwise it is quite affordable.

 

[TheIdler]

You're buying now for a trip next week. Also, yes, the dollar is incredibly weak. Could see the DXY drop below 70 soon.

 

[Not Ed Harris]

If you're looking for something for $135 a night, you're going to have to make a few compromises. That's only about £85 or so, which isn't going to get you much. You could try lastminute.com's 'Secret Hotel' thing where they just give you a vague description of the place and only tell you after you make your booking (which can't be cancelled).

Proximity to the centre of town, or lack thereof, isn't so important as how good the transport links are. Somewhere like Shepherd's Bush maybe, where you'll have direct transport into the centre and there's the Westfield nearby. Or Docklands maybe. The number of decent hotels does drop off pretty sharply as you get outside the centre.

And there's Airbnb, but as it's not a hotel you'll need to be a bit more carefull and make sure you get one in a decent location.

 

[erictheobscure]

It's probably because you didn't plan ahead of time. Last year, I scored a room at the Mandeville in Marylebone for a little more than a hundred pounds a night via Hotwire.

But in any case, like others have pointed out, you're not gonna get much for 135 bucks in London.

 

[fwiffo]

Turn your dollars into pounds and you will get a proper hotel in London. Otherwise, be happy you survive on anything less than 100 quid within Zone 1 and 2; allegedly with it's own bathroom.

 

[FidelCashflow]

Visit the website www.betterbidding.com They have a forum dedicated to priceline and hotwire that can help you figure out what other people are paying for hotels in the city you are visiting, and they can help you come up with a bidding strategy.

You may just have to ratchet up your budget to around $155, or maybe you're SOL. One of the things they told me is that you don't necessarily get a better deal by waiting until the last minute. If business for a hotel suddenly picks up at the last minute, they don't offer good deals on priceline. So really it's a bit of a crapshoot.

If you're just going for sightseeing and you don't mind taking a 30-40 minute subway ride into central london in the morning and out in the evening, you can go to a hotel in outside of central london, just be careful what neighborhood you pick.

There's actually a Best Western in Barking which is a neighborhood in east London which opened up less than a year ago in that has rooms around the $150 mark. It would make a good base if you plan to sleep there and spend your days exploring. My family has an apartment in the apartment complex next door. The neighborhood is OK, but nothing fancy. It's very close to a tube station, and very easy to get to all the touristy spots. Just a thought.

http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_R...x_England.html

 

[michaeljkrell]

You can get a nice hostel with a private room for under $90 a night. I don't know if that is even a consideration for you...

 

[RSS]

Try Number Sixteen in South Kensington. It's small but decently elegant. I've sometimes put friends there when the house is full.

 

[ShayaEXQT]

London is disastrously expensive, I am amazed how people live there.

 

[Jdeansmith11]

Agreed. I've only been here less than a month and my credit card companies are hating me already

London is disastrously expensive, I am amazed how people live there.

 

[freedom_fries]



London is disastrously expensive, I am amazed how people live there.

i feel the same way. i remember finally seeing the bill after having stayed at the berkely a few times because that was where the company people always stayed, and thinking what the F? we eventually shifted to a cheaper hotel, but it was still something like 250-300 pounds a night or so.