Cheap hotels in London

Ok so here at CheaphotelsinLondon i decided to list few tips that i have picked up on how to get cheap hotel deals in the city of London. I suppose the first point is quite obvious but it still has to be said. You need to check as many websites as possible and also the offline options. First stop should surprisingly be the actual hotel itself. It can be more difficult that it should be on some occasions to find the official hotel website these days as alot of the big sites such as Expedia and lastminute have individual pages for every hotel that they service. This can often mean that when you type the hotel name into google you are still getting the same travel comparison sites, however you will usually find them somewhere on the first page. Surprisingly alot of the smaller hotels may not allow you to book on their site so you will have to go the old fashioned way and pick up the phone. The success of this technique can vary but its worth keeping in mind that many hotels will have to pay the travel sites as much as 10% per booking so this is money that they could in theory give to you instead.

Its also worth trying to bargin a little to get the cheapest deal if you do get onto the phone with the hotel. A case in point is when a colleague was talking to Gainsborough Hotel in London and they managed to get the price down from £1,500 to £1250 which is quite a saving. However bargaining is not for everyone and in most cases is only successful with the smaller hotels. At the same time we are in the middle of the credit crunch and many hotels are desperate for guests so you could be surprised at the results.

Many of the bigger chains now have loyalty schemes which can allow you to make some very big savings right off the bat. The Hilton and Marriot are probably the best known and since these hotels are dotted right around the world there will be alot of opportunities to build up points. You may be thinking there will be no discount if you have just signed up but many chains will still give you a reduction for being a member of the scheme. For example when i rang up the Hilton in London kensington recently i got the standard “this is the lowest rate we have” but when i rang back and told them i was a “preferred guest” then i got almost £60 of the price of the room even though i hadn’t yet acquired any points on my card.

Just turning up at the reception desk and asking if there are any rooms available is something that most people have never done before. However there really is no shame in it if you want to get that cheap last minute deal on a hotel room. The trick with this is really timing, as i will explain. Many hotel managers will tell reception at about 5 in the afternoon how many empty rooms they have and how much they want to sell them for. For instance talking to a reception friend of mine recently she informed me that a room that was £105 before 5 can be as little as £65 after it. I suppose this is because the vast majority of people who book do so before 2 or 3 and so if they still have rooms left at this time they need to vastly reduce the price to get them to sell. Remember if there is no-one in the room then the hotel is losing money on it. Also note however that at the same time many hotels in London do look to exploit peoples desperation. They will usually put prices up from around 10pm to midnight as someone looking to book a room at this time probably doesn’t have alot of options left and is unlikely to want to wonder around the streets looking for a better deal.

So there you have it, my list of tips for finding budget and discount hotels which can really be used all over the world and not just in London!