Accommodation in London: Compare Hotels, Chains and Prices

Most people searching for accommodation in London want to know what a night will cost and whether cheap listings are a fair comparison. Guide-to-London.net says it does not quote room prices at all, because rates change daily and no official source publishes them. This article works from the dated price signals that sources do publish, compares them across budget chains, hostels, luxury hotels and holiday rentals, and marks where the sources stay silent, including on parking.

Last checked: 2026-10-31

Lowest nightly rate shown (Skyscanner teaser): from £43/night · Lowest rate shown (Trivago teaser): from £76 · Hotels claimed by Trivago listing: 46,342 hotels in London, United Kingdom · Nightly rate shown for The City neighbourhood listing: from A$27

By the hoteloz.org editorial team | Data snapshot dated 29 October 2026

How we researched this

Key facts at a glance

Cheap accommodation in London for tourists

The lowest figure in the sources reviewed is for a hostel bed, not a hotel room. Momondo reports the cheapest room it found in the last seven days at $28 per night at Nx London Hostel, a 2-star property. Hostel and dorm prices in the other sources sit in a similar range, but they are quoted in pounds.

Option-by-option comparison

Lowest nightly rates shown in sampled listings

Dorm beds are the cheapest format in the guides we reviewed. OpenTravelGuide lists Generator London at £20 to £95 per night with dorms from £20, St Christopher’s Inn Borough at £18 to £80, and YHA London Central at £22 to £90. Hostelz.com gives entry prices of £19 for a hotel room and £3 for a dorm bed, which is well below OpenTravelGuide’s dorm floor.

That gap matters for budget planning. The two sources do not agree on the cheapest dorm, so treat any single floor price as a starting point rather than a fixed figure.

Student lets are a different product. MyStudentHalls.com lists 69 London properties from 18 providers, with weekly rents from £191.00 to £729.00. These are term-time contracts, not tourist stays, so they do not belong in a nightly-rate comparison.

Currency differences across listings

The sources quote in three currencies, so their figures cannot be ranked against each other without a conversion rate and a matched date. Dollar figures come from Momondo, euro figures from HotelsCombined, and pound figures from OpenTravelGuide and the budget guides.

• Booking window: Momondo’s London page puts the lowest price found one month ahead at $177 per night, against $253 per night when booking 14 days ahead.
• Currency mix: the cheapest-room figure is in US dollars, the average hotel figure is in euros, and the hostel and chain ranges are in pounds, so none of them converts cleanly onto the others.
• Mid-week timing: OpenTravelGuide estimates that Monday to Thursday arrivals run 15 to 25 percent below Friday and Saturday nights, a low-confidence figure from a single guide.

The pattern is consistent across sources: the lowest numbers come from dorm and compact formats, and each source quotes them in its own currency and on its own date.

Hotels in central London cheap

Budget chains are a main route to lower-cost hotel rooms in London. Guide-to-London.net names Premier Inn, Travelodge, ibis, easyHotel and hub by Premier Inn as the main budget chains, and describes a typical budget room as a small, clean private room with its own bathroom. The same guide notes these hotels are often near a station or outside the most expensive central districts. Readers who want a compact format beyond chain rooms can check the Capsule Hotel London prices and booking guide, which sits outside the sources reviewed here.

Location is where the price trade-off appears. OpenTravelGuide says South Bank, Shoreditch and Bethnal Green hotels are often 30 to 40 percent lower than comparable Mayfair or Knightsbridge properties. Alike.io, in a 2026 guide it presents as an estimate, puts Zone 2 hotels 40 to 60 percent below Zone 1 equivalents.

Central London landmarks near budget-range operators

The sources reviewed do not contain location details for named budget-chain branches in central London, so this article cannot list which landmarks sit near which operator. What the sources do support is the zone trade-off: lower rates tend to sit outside the core central districts, and central rates are higher.

A 2024 guide from Cabin Zero lists Premier Inn Hub rooms from around £50 per night, but it is a dated consumer guide and does not state the zone or branch for that rate.

Trade-offs of budget and central options

• Pro: Budget chain rooms are a compact private room with a bathroom, as Guide-to-London.net describes them, which is a fixed format for comparison.
• Pro: Stations and Zone 2 districts are often cheaper, per OpenTravelGuide and Alike.io.
• Con: The cheaper districts sit outside the most expensive central areas, so a lower rate can mean a longer trip to central sights.
• Con: Rates for named central branches are missing from the sources reviewed, so the saving in a central location cannot be measured here.

Location and getting there

Central London is not a single price band. The sources separate Zone 1, where the highest rates appear, from Zones 2 and 3, where the guides report lower rates. No transit-operator source is among the sources reviewed, so this article does not describe journey times.

The pattern across both H2 sections is a clear split between zones, with exact branch-level figures still missing.

Luxury accommodation in London

Premium London stays carry much higher figures. OpenTravelGuide lists The Savoy at £450 to £1,500 per night. Momondo’s five-star average is $548 per night, and HotelsCombined reports a five-star average of €975 per night. Alike.io puts five-star properties at £500 to £1,500 or more in its 2026 budget guide. Momondo also reports Westminster holiday rentals averaging £562 per night.

Readers looking for boutique options can start with the Hotel Indigo London reviews and locations page, which sits outside the sources reviewed here.

What the sources show and do not show about premium rates

The sources reviewed contain a per-night rate for only one named luxury hotel, The Savoy. No luxury rate for other named properties appears, so premium pricing has to be checked on each booking platform before any choice is made.

The catch is that averages hide the spread. A five-star average of $548 or €975 says little about what any individual hotel charges on a given night.

Hotels in London with parking

None of the sources reviewed mentions parking at a London hotel, whether in a price listing, a guide or an aggregator page. Parking cannot be confirmed for any property from this evidence.

Parking information gaps in the sampled sources

• No price listing reviewed states whether parking is available.
• No budget guide, luxury listing or holiday-rental page mentions a car park.
• Drivers are a distinct reader segment, and they face this gap at every price level.

What to watch: parking is a booking-stage check, and it belongs on each operator’s own site or with the property directly.

Travelodge London

Travelodge is named by Guide-to-London.net as one of the main budget chains in London. HotelsCombined lists a Travelodge Wembley rate from €44 per night, the only brand-level rate in the sources reviewed. No rate for a Travelodge in central London appears.

Holiday Inn London

The sources reviewed hold no nightly rate, location or parking detail for Holiday Inn London. Brand choice should be verified on the operator’s own site, where rates and facilities are confirmed directly.

Best fit by reader type

• Budget tourists: Hostel beds and budget chain rooms, with the price floors noted above.
• Central London visitors: Expect higher rates in Zone 1 and compare total cost by zone.
• Luxury seekers: The five-star averages are high, so check individual hotel rates on booking platforms.
• Drivers needing parking: Parking is unconfirmed in every source, so verify it directly with each property.

Our pick

The bottom line: the sources reviewed support price bands by zone and format, but they cannot rank named brands, because they hold one Travelodge rate and nothing for Holiday Inn.

“We do not quote room prices: there is no official source for them, and rates change daily with demand.”

– Guide-to-London.net editorial team, publisher

“Hiding unavoidable fees until later in the booking process (‘drip pricing’) is illegal.”

– Guide-to-London.net editorial team, citing the Competition and Markets Authority, publisher

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