London over Thanksgiving

There is no way you are too late getting a hotel in London for a trip happening 10 months from now

No, you're not too late. I just checked booking.com for hotels in London for November 23-28, there are over 200 3-star hotels available those dates and a lot more if you include apartment hotels.

I started out by just looking at hotels on the Hilton website, and I'm surprised that over half of the hotels (16 out of the 28 that are listed as being within a 5 mile radius) are listed as "sold out" for that week

Are you looking for a family?

I just checked the Hilton website for 2 persons from Nov 21 - 29 and no hotels were sold out. When I changed the criteria to 2 adults and 2 children, a number of the Hiltons showed as sold out. Rooms that accommodate more than 2 persons are not as common in London as they are in the U.S. so I am speculating that could be the issue.

I just went to the Hilton app and EVERY Hilton property not only in central London but also within 40 miles of Central London is available during the Thanksgiving weekend.

What a fun time of year to go. I used to do this 4 day long weekend with one of my girlfriends and one of the things we enjoyed was going to a play every night. 🙂

Laura is correct. About 1/2 of the Hilton hotels (chain) are sold out during Thanksgiving week (Sat to Sun, 8 nights) when booking for a single family room—2 adults, 2 children. It is a popular time for US families to travel and Hilton is a US associated brand that many families would book.

Still lots of Hilton hotels with rooms available - OP just what type of room (# of people) are you looking for?

There are much nicer hotels than Hiltons in the UK and I am seeing plenty of availability for this weekend. If Hiltons are showing some with availability and others without, I doubt that it would be because they haven’t released their November schedule, as they would all be released at the same time.

While Thanksgiving itself is not celebrated in the UK, there is one part of the weekend that the British do follow: Black Friday. Yes, the stores will be busy with Black Friday sales.

Maybe not so noticeable in and around London but I remember Black Friday (which is more of a week to a fortnight sale in the UK than a day) being definitely busier locally last year, which hadn't been the case before. Didn't do the shops any favours in the end though.

Thank you for the responses. I am traveling with my family - two adults and two children. While we don't stay at Hilton properties exclusively, that is our first go-to because we have a lot of points racked up with them. I'll expand my search.

I'm confused/surprised that traveling as a family of 4 is so odd. Granted, I haven't been to London in over 25 years, but do families not normally travel with their children? We went to Paris last year at this same time and had no trouble finding a hotel for our family of 4, and we didn't start planning until much later.

Look at Premier Inn Hotels.

@Emma thanks, I did mean that.