Question re: hotel/flights pricing for a May 2024 Trip

Hopefully others with more knowledge will chime in but I can offer this. I find London to be the most expensive hotel city that I deal with. I booked a room for a 6 night stay for September of this year about 7 months ago. I have continuously checked that price - and the price of other hotels that i had considered and they have not gone down - they have only gone up.

In addition, I just finished booking a two-night stay for April 2024 and found all of the prices higher than when I was booking for the September stay.

I spent two nights in London about 6 weeks ago and found similar issues. For that stay, I booked a room at the Darlington Hotel near Paddington Station for one of the nights. It was $340 for a room with three beds. It’s a nice enough budget hotel - but it’s definitely a budget place - old furniture, no A/C, out of date bathrooms etc. By comparison, I paid that same amount in Berlin at the 5 star Regent this year.

It’s just London, I guess. I could get better prices staying at a place that rates under 8.0 on Booking.com but 8.0 is the threshold I won’t cross.

My experience in 2022 was that many hotels were running on reduced room rates and coming out of the pandemic were under valuing their product. Hitting 2023 and beyond visitation numbers have recovered and are projected to increase and hotel prices have recovered and returned to normal. May 2024 is far enough out that there's no reason or incentive to discount their room rates at this point and the rates look similar to other hotels like St Pancras Renaissance. Plus hotels have no problem getting bookings for May.

Hi Valerie and VAP -

Thank you both for your responses! I find the post COVID pricing reason very plausible. I will continue to watch the rates and I am hoping they will go down. I don't expect to get a "deal" by any means but I also don't want to pay $900+ a night for a standard room for three (currently the price). I never paid that much in the 10+ years of travel to London so fingers crossed...

But thank you both!

Lisa

Lisa, can you make fully refundable, pay upon arrival reservations now and simply cancel/change if you do find a better deal?

Hi Carol,

Yes, I can make the reservations now but I will likely hold off a few more months to see if the prices fluctuate. At the current rates, it is a little too steep for me.

Thank you,

Lisa

It used to happen but since Covid has been worse - many hotels are releasing in small batches. This creates a false reduced supply and that kicks off the algorithms to pump up prices.

Simply put everyone is trying to do the right thing and book super early but then finding daft prices and reduced supply.

For this year I booked in advance that was cancellable then kept checking back - one hotel remained the best option, two others were both replaced by equally as good options at lower prices, and one saw me book the exact same hotel for less.

Some companies aren't doing this but it is the exception - I think they a relying on there just being enough people coming.

My recent experiences line up with what others are suggesting. Probably post-covid rebound prices and could be too soon to book. I haven’t been to London since 2018, but I’ve booked 4 European trips in the past 2 years and currently researching a 5th.

Carol makes a very good suggestion to book cancellable, placeholder hotels now and continue looking. The keyword being cancellable. This strategy just worked out for me for an upcoming 3 week trip to Germany, Austria and Switzerland in September. Back in March I booked cancellable hotel reservations that would work, but weren’t ideal. This was my hedge against prices going even higher.

Over the last 5 months, I continued to periodically look for hotels with better prices and just last week rebooked 3 out of our 6 hotels to shave $1000 off our hotel expenses. These weren’t rebookings of the same hotels at lower prices. I just found a greater inventory of hotels, at better prices, 2 months out from our departure. YMMV

^^^ This is great advice....secure rooms that are refundable (although 2024 is a long way out) and then monitor prices as long as you can up till the last date you can cancel.

You may get the rooms cheaper closer to the date. Keep an eye on it as others have said. It partly. depends on what’s happening that weekend. If there are large events announced then it will be much busier. I suppose they don’t want to undersell the rooms now before they even know the demand.

Also, China is on the move again now and that’s a massive market for London, and especially high end London hotels as they tend not to be budget travellers.

Hi GT,

Thank you for the feedback. This makes perfect sense as well. I likely will book soon (fully refundable) and continue to track the costs. I appreciate your input!

Thank you!

Hi JenS,

Thank you for your response. I will definitely book a cancellable hotel. Your recent trip planning gives me hope! Hopefully the prices will continue to dip and more inventory will open up. Thanks again - and safe travels!

Lisa

Hi Helen,

Very good insight - thank you. I don't believe there are any events, but my weeks are a bit flexible. I will continue to research and check the dates. I appreciate it!

Lisa