Getting the best hotel deals in London

Getting hotel accommodation at discounted rates is like playing a game. There are various ways to do it, and everyone has their favourites.

Apart from using travel agents, who often give great rates for a package travel deal with accommodation, you can try using selected websites which act as consolidators for hotel rooms.
Two that I have used are londontown.com and lastminute.com. And of the two, I have found that londontown.com usually provides a better deal and service. Rooms can be booked and often cancelled up to 4pm on the day of arrival, meaning that you can secure a deal and still not incur a charge if you plans change. However, beware if you wish to extend you stay at the hotel once you are there, you may have to go online or call londontown to do so, as the hotel may say that they don’t have rooms available. (The rooms will have been allocated to the consolidator.)

Lastminute seem to be less flexible on cancellation, and what is more I have seen some last minute rates that were actually more expensive than the advertised rate at the hotel when booking direct; so don’t assume that just because you are securing a rate from a discounted website, that you are getting a discounted rate. Always check out the rate directly with promoted hotel first before booking to ensure that it really is a good deal.

Lastminute also have a “top secret section” where a hotel description is given, but the hotel is not named, supposedly because the rates are so low. But if you check the hotel description and cross reference with other hotels returned in a non top secret search, it doesn’t take too much detective work to figure out what the top secret hotel is. Again, don’t assume these are the lowest rates. Do your homework before you book.

Big Ben image from www.royaltyfreephotosstore.com