Help - likely costs staying in budget London hotel once a week for work

[RoyalVilla]

I've been offered a great new job, but I've been told I'll need to be in the London office twice a week and I'll need to pay my travel and accommodation costs.

The office is in the Fitzrovia area. I live in the Worcestershire so a daily commute is not really realistic.

So I'm investigating budget hotel costs and trying to understand likely costs to see whether it's financially viable.

What do you think I should be budgeting for a 1 night stay, probably on a Monday or Tuesday @ a low cost hotel in London?

I've been doing a bit of research - for example hub by Premier Inn on Goodge Street looks good and over the next few months the prices seem to be £60-70 for a one night stay in a small room which is very reasonable - but when I start looking further out in time (Sept - Nov) the prices jump up - £120-140.

I know there are a number of factors involved and I guess we don't really know what impact the pandemic might have on hotel / accommodation costs in London, but I know many of you work / stay in London regularly so would be keen on your thoughts.
Is a budget of £100 a night realistic?

[Christian]

If this is a long term situation, using todays prices is definitely not the way to go as I suspect the prices are heavily reduced because of the lack of demand from tourists. Pure guess, but I think you will probably see sub-£100 midweek rooms for as long as international tourism is surpressed. How long that lasts is anyones guess...next year maybe?

Pre-covid, you'd be lucky to find accommodation sub-£120 I reckon and even those wouldn't be central.

Long term, your cheapest options might be to find somewhere close to a tube line in zone 5 or 6 and away from places like Heathrow. You might find those hotel rooms cheaper, have free or cheaper parking and the total cost including an oyster tube fare cheaper than a central London hotel. Typical journey time will be 40-minutes to a central London location.

[number2]

Bed bugs

[noTAGlove]

My mate does something like this, but less frequently. He uses Airbnb.

Maybe an alternative to investigate.

[thebuffoon]

Funnily enough, Worcestershire based and had the same problem a few years back.

I found Reading hotels were a great deal cheaper, on the Worcester line into Paddington but only 30 minutes into London.

[JasonM]

If its a long term thing, you may be able to negotiate a rate, certainly with a independent decent B+B place, which will be nicer than a budget chain.

[cbh]

Personally I'd look at somewhere around Watford, as it's less than 30 mins by rail into Euston and an easy walk from the station.

[Christian]

I agree setting up a private B&B-type deal is probably the absolute cheapest way of doing it. There are a lot of "commuters" I know who fly long haul out of Heathrow who do this. Probably a surpressed market considering the lack of aviation currently going on.

[Bonny Marco]

Fitzrovia is just on the border of zone 1 and 2. What you could also look at is hotels in zone 2, north London where you have a 15-20 minute tube journey to work, but their rate is a bit more reasonable.

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[boring_sandwich]

If I were you and it were long term I would consider a room in a flat share. You can then stay any day you wish, keep your personal belonging in the room etc.

A room in a shared property with 1 or 2 other professionals in the area I live (N1) which is zone 1 or 2 depending on which station you would use should cost you between £700-800 pm inc bills, WiFi etc.

If you prepared to live further out in a less desirable area obviously the cost would come down.

[JasonM]

If I were you and it were long term I would consider a room in a flat share. You can then stay any day you wish, keep your personal belonging in the room etc.

A room in a shared property with 1 or 2 other professionals in the area I live (N1) which is zone 1 or 2 depending on which station you would use should cost you between £700-800 pm inc bills, WiFi etc.

If you prepared to live further out in a less desirable area obviously the cost would come down.

I would imagine thats pretty uneconomical for one night a week, more than that it might be ok.

[Neil.C]

Wait until everyone has gone home - sleeping bag on the floor, sorted!

A friend of mine had a similar thing with one of his staff, always last to leave, first in in the morning.

Turns out he had been living at the office, using the showers etc etc. Good wheeze.

[RoyalVilla]

Thanks for all the suggestions, some really good ideas! Lots for me to look into.

It will be a long term thing but I need to judge when I start whether it really will be 2 days a week or not, but that's what I need to commit to.

I like the idea of staying central to reduce the travel and maybe get a chance to enjoy a bit of London at the same time. Hopefully hotel rates will stay low in the near term.

[thegreatdogwood]

I used to stay over in London after late meetings. Despite it being company funded and having a budget of £200 per night, it never felt good value to spend that on a room to sleep in for maybe 7 hours. So I often trawled through lastminute.com and the like to book something around £100 per night - and regretted it most times, the moral being you generally end up with something grotty if you pay less than £150 in proper central London, as others have said I'd personally stay in the suburbs but somewhere with good tube / train links to commute in.

[aa388]

Don’t suppose your ex military? If so there’s some good deals at the victory services club near Marble Arch.


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[Carlton-Browne]

Don’t suppose your ex military? If so there’s some good deals at the victory services club near Marble Arch.

Or the Union Jack Club.

[Meesterbond]

A colleague used to stay a night or two a week in one of the Easy Hotels, I think it was near Barbican. Book far enough in advance and it was £40/£50 a night, although I don't think that price got you a window and the double bed touched 3 walls with a shower pod in the corner.
Not one for the claustrophics.

[Sinnlover]

Wait until everyone has gone home - sleeping bag on the floor, sorted!

A friend of mine had a similar thing with one of his staff, always last to leave, first in in the morning.

Turns out he had been living at the office, using the showers etc etc. Good wheeze.

There is always a fight for the medical room (has a single bed in it) in our office after a night on the town if the last train has been missed.
More than once has someone been found curled up at 10am fast asleep.
After one Xmas party we found one lad asleep on a well constructed bed of office chairs tied together.
Obviously it would have been very cruel to have booted the chairs from under him.

[Sweepinghand]

Stay outside London with a 30 min ride in you’ll save.....
A fortune


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[wileeeeeey]

Stay outside London with a 30 min ride in you’ll save.....
A fortune


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Depends, not from where I am in London. My route in to where the OP is going would require a travel card which is another £19.60 per day and easily 40 minutes each way as the overground alone wouldn't cut it.

Could Brompton the rest and go down to £13 per day but doubtful in winter.

[Christian]

Depends, not from where I am in London. My route in to where the OP is going would require a travel card which is another £19.60 per day and easily 40 minutes each way as the overground alone wouldn't cut it.

Could Brompton the rest and go down to £13 per day but doubtful in winter.

Agree. I live in Zone 5 and it would be either £19.60 travelcard (or £5.50 oyster fare each way just to the train terminal) with a 34 min train journey. Unless you are willing to stay in a private bedroom being hired out, the cheapest hotels around here seem to be £70 per night midweek. I would suspect under current circumstances, it might be better to stay central with an out of town option being the longer term solution once central hotels increase prices when international tourists come back.

[classics]

Do you work for a big company/corporation?
If you do, you could phone a branded hotel and ask for a corporate rate, previously you only had to show your company pass card to get the discount, I don't know the protocol now.

I used to work Royal Mail, one of my jobs was to book travel and accommodation for the senior management, we used https://www.capitatravelevents.co.uk/ who got us the corporate rates.
The London's cap was around £100 - £120 per night, when not in peak season or an big event in London, you could get 4 star hotels like the Hilton Kensington (Shepherd Bush), Holiday Inn Kensington, DoubleTree Hilton Chelsea and Pestana Chelsea Bridge for under £80 a night. Double rooms, free WiFi and sometimes free breakfast (promotions).
There were cheaper hotels like the Premier Inn, Travel Lodge and Ibis but they would rather stay at the Hilton's or the Holiday Inn's for the honour/loyalty points.

[Maysie]

I use Native Bankside.
A pretty decent place to stay with the added bonus of having some limited cooking facilities within the rooms and some free basic ingredients to cook with if you don't want to eat out - however unlikely that may be when staying in that area!

[RoyalVilla]

Don’t suppose your ex military? If so there’s some good deals at the victory services club near Marble Arch.


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Unfortunately not, but thanks for the suggestion

Wait until everyone has gone home - sleeping bag on the floor, sorted!

A friend of mine had a similar thing with one of his staff, always last to leave, first in in the morning.

Turns out he had been living at the office, using the showers etc etc. Good wheeze.

This appeals to my wallet, haha!!

Do you work for a big company/corporation?
If you do, you could phone a branded hotel and ask for a corporate rate, previously you only had to show your company pass card to get the discount, I don't know the protocol now.

Where I currently work I get corporate rates also, so I'll ask the question.

[Sweepinghand]

Why not ask AT work if anybody has a spare room? Offer them £50 or so?

Or... who are you pals (proper pals) with on LinkedIn? Do they know anybody or anywhere?


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[RoyalVilla]

Why not ask AT work if anybody has a spare room? Offer them £50 or so?

Or... who are you pals (proper pals) with on LinkedIn? Do they know anybody or anywhere?

I need to accept the job before I can ask anyone there. I do have some friends around London who I can speak with, but realistically I need to figure out if it's financially viable to do it independently - then I can look into ways to reduce my costs.

The feedback and suggestions here make me think that it's a goer so I should be able to accept the job 👍

[Saint-Just]

Depending on what you do there may be a London club you can can join which offers this facility…

[noTAGlove]

Travelodge is the way to go.

I put a random Fitzrovia postcode W1T 1AA into the Travelodge website and there are 24 Travelodges within a 5 mile radius, so £1.55 on the bus each way.

Book well in advance and you’ll easily get £50 rates if you are willing to stay 3 to 4 miles away in a less fashionable area.

[TaketheCannoli]

Travelodge is definitely the way to go, some excellent rates available and loads of locations. If you book far enough in advance you'll get a Super Room for the base price; TV, coffee machine and 'art' on the walls. Pre-COVID I used the one in Covent Garden regularly and it was brilliant....except for the haunted room but that's a story for another day.

Travelodge is the way to go.

I put a random Fitzrovia postcode W1T 1AA into the Travelodge website and there are 24 Travelodges within a 5 mile radius, so £1.55 on the bus each way.

Book well in advance and you’ll easily get £50 rates if you are willing to stay 3 to 4 miles away in a less fashionable area.

[Ruggertech]

Does your office have a private carpark? Probably not in central London I suppose. But if it does, a VW type campervan or even an estate car with privacy glass would be effectively free accommodation (apart from buying it if course), especially if there are loos, shower etc in the office you can use.

[GraniteQuarry]

Get a young mistress with her own pad in Mayfair, quick stroll to work.

[wotsthecrack]

I used to stay at a Premier Inn out at Boreham Wood and get the train in and out much cheaper than in town and its only 25 minutes into Farringdon/ Kings X. Book well in advance.

[bloater]

I used to stay either in or around Greenwich or Beckton and commute in on an occasional basis.
More recently I've been staying in Croydon due to it now being closer to where I need to be, the Easy hotel there has a room with no windows, which is cheaper.

As said look to strike a deal with an independent, try them a couple of times before you suggest a deal first.

Also hotels.com you can get 1:10 nights free, but it's not always the cheapest.

I've recently been mulling over a job offer in central London, so have been through the same.

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[notenoughwrists]

Get a young mistress with her own pad in Mayfair, quick stroll to work.

Ha ha!
I wish there was a Terry Thomas emoji...


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[JGJG]

Premier Inn hub Goodge St sounds perfect for what you need.