can anybody recommend a mid-priced hotel/guest house in London, preferably in a nice ethnic neighborhood, close to subway stops, etc.
It will help if you define "mid-priced" for us in terms of British pounds per night, give us your travel dates and tell us how many people the room needs to house. Last week I found rates for May very high in London.
There would be two couples, so two rooms and we were thinking around $250 per night, per room. We pan on going late Aug or early Sept. Is $250 anjght within reason?
I just found the Wilde Aparthotels. We're booking for next winter! They're all over the city and half the price of other hotels. I haven't actually stayed in one yet but they seem good so we're booking this one! It's steps from The National Gallery, theatre etc etc.
That would be 198 GBP. I'm pretty sure you'll be able to find something, but that's rather low for central London--an area many of us define as within the Circle Line on the Underground (the yellow loop on Underground maps). You've suggested staying in an ethnic neighborhood, which would probably put you outside the Circle Line, in a somewhat lower-cost area. That will make it a lot easer, I think. I haven't stayed far enough from the center to be helpful, but I'm sure at least a few others here have.
While you're waiting for input, you might take a look at premierinn.com. Premier Inn has locations all over the London area. The rooms tend to very similar across all Premier Inn properties (without character but with nice, comfortable beds and usually air conditioning). Rates are heavily affected by location. You can take a look at how far out you'd need to stay to meet your budget. Be aware that the summary list of hotels shows the non-refundable rate. You need to click on an individual hotel to see what you'd pay for a refundable reservation. That can be 30% higher, or more. The rates are highly likely to inch up as your travel date approaches, so there's something to be said for finding a well-priced Premier Inn that looks like it will work well for you and booking it at the refundable rate while you continue checking to see whether you find something you like better.
Be careful with moderate-cost lodgings in London, because some will not be air conditioned. In truth, the odds are good that you won't need a/c, but if you do, you could be pretty miserable without it. That's one reason I end up in Premier Inns as often as I do--it's easy to be sure the one you've chosen is air conditioned, and in my experience you can trust the quality of the air conditioning.