Budget hotels for London vacations

Want the cheapest nice room? Don’t see the point spending loads on a London hotel? Want good value rather than a place with bed bugs and filthy sheets? I can help. Here’s my totally independent guide to finding the cheapest best hotel rooms for your vacation in London.

Nice London hotels for less than £100 a night – places you wouldn’t mind your mom staying - is it too much to ask?

If the very phrase ‘budget hotel’ strikes horror into your heart, you’re not alone. if you get your choice wrong you can face the spectre of filthy sheets, rude staff, paper-thin walls and unidentified stains on the carpet. Fear not! Here are my top tips for finding budget hotels in London – the cheapest rooms available, while still being somewhere I wouldn’t mind my mother staying.

Being budget, you have to sacrifice to a certain extent: rooms may be quite small, with fewer luxuries; the area may not be right-bang central. With the underground though it doesn’t really matter which part of London you stay in, as long as its in zones one or two. (that refers to the London tube 'zones' - there are six in all and everywhere in central London is in zones 1 and 2. You can look at a map which has the zones on it here; i've also got an article on how to use the tube)

So first: How to search

Second: the big chains and independent hotels also worth considering.

1. BUDGET HOTELS: HOW TO SEARCH

First: grab a pen and paper – searching for hotels can be complicated as there are so many different things to consider: price, location, reviews, facilities.

(NB this article is about hotels specifically. See my other page for the best London Hostels)

Let's start with the biggie: price. London's budget hotels are far from budget by the yardsticks of many other cities. What this guide will tell you is how to find a nice one for less than £100 a night.

Realistically if a double room in London is less than £50 a night you should check very, very carefully:

(a) where it is - is it in a central part of town at all? and

(b) the reviews. More details on how best to do that in a second.

Now it may seem ridiculous saying that there's a 'best' way to search, but there is. Many of the travel sites you see are simply clones of each other, or search the same information - it's why you consistently get the same hotels or prices back. By shopping around properly you can genuinely be sure you're getting the best deal, but without duplicating effort, missing out on deals or getting so frustrated that you end up just giving up and booking the first thing that comes along.

The way you do that is searching in a pre-determined order so that you're not missing out on any good deals.

If it sounds nerdy and a little complicated, it is. But then if I offered you $100 for half an hour's work you wouldn't be quite so easy to dismiss the idea, would you? You should save that, and much more, by following this strategy.

So to get started, it’s time to look at the big online travel agents. This section really is pot luck but it's worth doing first as sometimes they have amazing deals and that means you can stay in a really nice hotel for not very much money. Other times they'll come back with prices so high you begin to think about cancelling the whole thing and just staying at home with some DVDs. Even so, it's an important stage.

A. Check out the big guys

Start with Expedia and the often-overlooked Travelocity. Most of the time I say to try and avoid the massive companies but these are a london hotel room with a touch of luxury t wo of the biggest and offer a huge range. Even though they mainly offer the more expensive part of the market they d o sometimes have great specials and deals that aren’t available anywhere else. And that could mean you get a non-budget hotel for a budget price, so it's definitely worth examining. After all, who isn't tempted by the thought of an amazing deal? Remember to write down any good deals.

B. Move on to smaller sellers

Ok. Now unless you've been really lucky the chances are you're struggling to find somewhere nice in your budget. That's ok. It's time to move on to hotels.com - it’s ‘price promise’ policy means that for many hotels you’ll get a refund if the price drops right up to your departure date, rather than the more normal 24 hours after booking. Remember, while it may feel like you're plugging in the same information again and again for no good reason, behind the scenes you're actually searching three entirely different sets of information. And that means you have a much wider view of where the good deals are: hotels.com, travelocity and expedia all have substantially different portfolios of hotels on their books. Keep at it. Once you've got an idea of the best prices and best places on these three sites you should now have good 'benchmark' prices – now it's time to try and beat them!

C. Go for the budget specialists

Ok, now head over to a site called Travelstay. It's squarely aimed at the budget end of the market, and you may not have heard of it but actually it has a vast database of the more budget London hotels on it. It's actually got some great bargains on it – but definitely, definitely read the traveler reviews on the site as it also features the very very cheapest options - some of which are less than salubrious. You'll be fine as long as you read the reviews carefully and avoid any properties that you don't like the feel of.

D. Take stock of what you've found.

You've probably got a mass of information by now, and before moving on it's a good idea to review your prices, what other travelers say about them, and look at the facilities in each hotel. You can also check out further reviews on TripAdvisor and independent guides to some hotels are available for free on the Good Hotel Guide. You have to register to see them, but it’s free.

If you're happy with one of your hotel options already then you can book it this stage, but if you really want to make sure you've got the very best deal, it's time to move onto stage 2: looking direct. Now, just double-check on this list before booking it:

Is there a tube (underground) station nearby? Check the hotel postcode on Google maps and see. Underground will be your main form of transport in London, so it's good not to have to walk too far to one.

Is the tube station in zones 1 or 2? You can look at a map which has the zones on it here;if it's not that means it will be more expensive and take longer to get to the sites when you want to see them.

Are the reviews you've seen largely positive (always making allowances for some bad reviews)?

Does the hotel have the facilities I need? Would I rather pay more for a better location or more hotel facilities? Am I paying too much for stuff I don't need and won't use?

Is it a price I'm prepared to pay?

If you still haven't found anywhere that matches what you need, then it's time to look direct. This takes longer, because you have to search each hotel operator one by one, but you may be able to find a bargain not listed elsewhere.

2. Budget London Hotels: Booking direct

Now: With benchmark prices in hands, check out the big budget hotel chains and a few select budget hotels, just in case they’re cheaper than the search results you already have.

Many of these don't appear on the hotel search engines above so may be cheaper. These are all big chains that I’ve stayed in personally and would happily allow my mom to stay in! They’re all ‘good value’ rather than ‘cheap and horrible;’ as a rough guide, they're a 'Days Inn' level of quality.

Luxury on a budget

City Inn Westminster – is yards ahead of the rest of the budget crowd in terms of facilities, it’s not really a budget hotel at all. But they just can’t stop themselves charging budget prices. Cheapo basics this is not: there’s a minibar, bathrobes, a computer in each room, free wifi and it's all beautifully designed in a way that for my money makes it a more attractive option than many hotels three times the price.

Hoxton Hotels - The achingly hip Hoxton hotel is famous for its £1 room sales: unsurprisingly these are snapped up before you can say ‘Andy Warhol’ but you might be lucky enough to grab one: sign up to their email list for advance warning. Even if you miss out, rates are surprisingly affordable for such a cool place: doubles for around £60 much of the year.

Nice middle ground

Premier Travel Inn – Basic, comfortable and invariably spotless, with an 'all you can eat' breakfast to die for, these guys have several hotels across London and many hundreds across the UK. Last year I spent a cumulative total of four months staying in hotels; mainly I chose here for comfort and price. Their County Hall hotel is right by the London Eye and South Bank: a nice place to stay, particulary for families. Recommended.

The cheapest but still ok

Travelodge - this is as cheap a ‘nice’ hotel as you’re going to get in London. They’ve got 20 hotels in London, most of them in central locations. You’ll get a clean room, a TV, tea/coffee making facilities and a bed. There are no fancy extras, they even tell you to pack your own shampoo. With rooms from £29 a night, it's not exactly the Ritz but for budget travelers, who cares?

Cheap – for the brave!

Easyhotels - One for the very small, the hardcore frugal traveler, or those who really love orange, this is an option for people who REALLY mean it when they say “I only use my hotel as a base”… the prices are budget – under 30 pounds per room per night – but they’ve made the savings by miniaturising the rooms; most are barely bigger than the beds, with a showerpod/WC in the corner. Few have windows, either. There are four easyhotels scattered across central London – and another one at Heathrow. In all they are consistently clean, well-located and really, really cheap – but still one for only the most adventurous travelers…

3. STILL STRUGGLING?

Don't despair! You're not out of options.

If you want somewhere 'classier' than you've found on your budget search you could consider bidding on Priceline and saving money on a more luxurious hotel (it's not hard and can genuinely save you heaps - I'll talk you through how to do it) renting an apartment or getting a room at a B&B (more intimate but harder to find and not cheap) or trying university accomodation. If you want really cheap and don't mind giving up a bit of privacy then London also has some good hostels - I've got guides to getting the best deal at these too. They're pretty good places to meet people if you're a single traveller.