Accomodations for Vienna and Salzburg

I used hotel points for my stay at the Holiday Inn in Salzburg. It's about a 15-20 min walk from tourist sites, but offers parking.

For a reasonably inexpensive stay, consider Gästehaus in Priesterseminar Salzburg -- it's a guest house in a priest seminary and has rooms that can sleep 4, as well as an apartment that can sleep 4. It's located just across the river from the Old Town in a building built in something like the 1500's. No a/c, but that shouldn't be an issue in October. I've stayed here 3 times. There is a coin-operated washer/dryer in the common area on the second floor.

I have the weiss tube hotel booked for next month in Salzburg. It’s a Rick Steves’ favorite.

https://www.weissetaube.at/en/

I can tell you where not to stay, the Pension Nossek, which was the last hotel on my fall 2019 GAS tour. Great location, but that's about it. Rooms are dirty, and they tried to retrofit a bathroom "pod" with a cramped shower into each room, which is just plain weird. Plus, at breakfast they charge you 2 Euros per egg.

I wrote a more detailed review on Yelp in case you're curious. I don't think we're allowed to include links like that here so I will refrain.

Interesting, Jill. FWIW, when I was booked on GAS Tour in 2020 (subsequently cancelled along with all the other tours and border closings due to Coronavirus pandemic), Pension Nossek was still the Vienna lodging venue for itinerary. Upon rebooking GAS for this year (departing next month), the Vienna hotel is now Kaiserhof Wien. I wonder if your unfortunate experience was shared by others, and collective feedback prompted this change?

The name of this hotel in Vienna is a bit cumbersome, but we enjoyed it very much back in 2015. It's still getting great reviews on booking.com and TripAdvisor.

https://www.hotel-rathaus-wien.at/en

The Kaiserhof Wien Hotel was the Vienna hotel at the end of the Best of Munich, Salzburg, and Vienna tour. After a very hot week, I was elated to learn the hotel had air conditioning! Beautiful rooms, delicious breakfast, and helpful staff.

Music to my ears, 54 ... thanks for sharing your experience factor!

I'm sitting right now in my room at the Austria Trend Hotel Savoyen Vienna. As a member of AARP, I googled "AARP Travel Center" to get the AARP travel website run by Expedia. If you are an AARP member you can get great rates. This hotel is air-conditioned, 1 block from the Rennweg train station, and has the largest bathroom I've ever had in a European hotel - all for about $130 per night. I couldn't believe such a nice botel that got such great reviews would have such reasonable rates. Apparently they host a lot of conferences and the conference bookings aren't back up to pre-covid days so they're trying to get more tourist business - and the AARP discount helped as well.