Choice Privileges - Quality Paddington or Q Kensington? reward night help

Which one would you recommend to stay at - Q Paddington or Kensington?

I have never booked with choice hotels reward night before.

I saw that not every room is available - they offer 2 singles or 1 double for reward, but there is king room available for regular reservation (10 pounds higher rate from double). Is there a way to get room with king bed??

Thank you

I have not stayed at Q Kensignton.

But I did just stay at Q Paddington. Based on my experience, I doubt I'd want to stay there again for anything other than perhaps one night when I have to get to LHR the next morning (and so Paddington location is very useful for direct Heathrow Connect or Heathrow Express train).

The pluses: The internet was free (at least for me as Diamond; website says it's free in one place, says it has a charge in another!). The location (steps away from Paddington station).

The minuses: Aplenty.

I booked two single beds (jsut so I'd have room on the other bed to put some of my stuff). But they gave me a room with one double bed, with very tight fit. But beyond that, this room (407) had electricians working on the bed (the lamp switches in the heatboard), and had the bed out in the middle of the room. I had to go down to the check-in desk, and they gave me room 107 instead, saying it was simlar. (Great, similar to 407, but still not the type of room I reserved. Is this their idea of an upgrade or something?)

There was hardly room enough to put down my suitcase and open it. I realize rooms in Europe can be small, but I've stayed in other European (including other London) hotels before and it wasn't this impractical.

So when I"m ready to go to sleep, I get on the bed, and I feel major lumps from the springs! It was too late and I was too tired to go asking for a room change again, so I just found a position of sleeping (diagonalish) that minimized this.

I didn't go to take a shower until the morning. So it wasn't until then that I found that the shower was busted (it was leaking profusely from the flexi-pipe a few inches before the shower head). But I was already running late, so again I had to put up with it.

Then I go down for breakfast, and there's no sign indicating a charge, nothing in my room or key materials indicating a charge, and so I start to gather my breakfast from the buffet, and someone asks me for my voucher. Turns out the breakfast is not free. It was really getting late by this time (I would have only had a couple minutes to scarf a little breakfast), so I never found out just how much it was. But it was rather minimal: Only fruit was grapefuit, and other stuff was equally lacking in choice/variety. (Quality looked fine, though.)

(I had stayed at Comfort Inn Kings Cross a week earlier, for half the points, and had gotten a free breakfast, and although I don't remember the details, I know it wasn't as minimal!)

Oh, and Sat/Sun the breakfast doesn't start until 8, which isn't that early if you have a plane in the morning! Don't they realize they're essentially an "airport" hotel by being steps away from Heathrow Express/Connect???

Oh, I almost forgot about the buggy TV. Only 6 channels of video, followed by some radio stations. But if you go past channel 6 to the radio stations, then if you go back to the TV stations, the picture is frozen. Had to cycle power on the TV each time to fix this!

(Meanwhile, at Comfort Inn Kings Cross, which like I said at this time of year was only half the points -- 8K/night -- I had no complaints other than a snowy picture on most TV channels. But it does take 30-40 minutes longer to get to LHR from there than from Q Paddington, although Kings Cross is also direct train service, in that case via the Picadilly Line of the Underground.)

These are the only two Choice hotels I've stayed at in London.

... I don't know how to answer your question about getting a king room which is unbookable via points. I have never tried to get a room type that it wouldn't allow me to book. What Elite status level are you with Choice? (I'm Diamond but that still far from guarnatees upgrades.)

Thank you so much for such detailed response.
I am regular (lowest) level with Choice. I plan to go to London in first week of June and most hotels (choice) are available. I read responses from tripadvisor but can't decide and finalize which hotel to choose.

other possibilities is Kings Cross (you mentioned) and Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace. Points range from 16k, 20k, 25k per night.

Thank you so much for such detailed response.
I am regular (lowest) level with Choice. I plan to go to London in first week of June and most hotels (choice) are available. I read responses from tripadvisor but can't decide and finalize which hotel to choose.

other possibilities is Kings Cross (you mentioned) and Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace. Points range from 16k, 20k, 25k per night.
Well, you may want to compare the locations relative to Underground (Tube) stations and see if that tips things anyway. Kings Cross is a great cental location, and the hotel is very convenient to the station (two or three blocks) but off on a quieter street. Based on my experience there, I wouldn't mind staying there for a few days, while I would never think of staying at Paddington again except for maybe my last night there (for Heathrow Express/Heathrow Connect acccess to LHR); that's about the only big advantage to a Paddington location, and you don't need it on a week-long stay.

You can find an Underground map in several formats at:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/gettingaround/1106.aspx

Then get the hotel listings for each hotel you're considering and note the station they're near and how far they are from it. That exercise may move some hotels up or down the list purely from a location convenience standpoint.

Also, be aware that portions of some lines, and some smaller stations, can be closed on weekends for maintenance. Being close to a station that has multiple lines gives a greater chance of being able to work around that sort of stuff.

By the time I got to booking my option changed. Paddington now only has small double room. I booked Quality Kensington (not close to the tube - on Cromwell) for 16,000/night suite with 2 singles with free breakfast.

Comfort Inn Kings Cross (2-5 St. Chad's Street; not to be confused with Comfort Inn and Suites Kings Cross on Argyle st) is also available for 16,000/night 2 singles or 1 double with free breakfast.

What would you suggest? to go with larger room but further from tube or smaller room across from tube?

Thanks

By the time I got to booking my option changed. Paddington now only has small double room. I booked Quality Kensington (not close to the tube - on Cromwell) for 16,000/night suite with 2 singles with free breakfast.

Comfort Inn Kings Cross (2-5 St. Chad's Street; not to be confused with Comfort Inn and Suites Kings Cross on Argyle st) is also available for 16,000/night 2 singles or 1 double with free breakfast.

What would you suggest? to go with larger room but further from tube or smaller room across from tube?
I don't know that Quality Kensington is necessarily further from the tube, it's just perhaps a bit more complicated to the tube.

See, while Chad's Comfort Kings Court is 0.2 from Kings Court, the tube is at the far end of the train station from the hotel, so they list the tube itself as 0.3 from the hotel. Kensington lists the tube as 0.2 from the hotel. At any rate, no gigantic difference.

The difference is only that it may be a little trickier to get to the hotel from the tube the first day, because it's only nearby (from the station that you can use rollaboard luggage in) if you take diagonal streets (see the Map/Direcitons on the Quality Kensington page). If you look at the Underground map:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/gettingaround/1106.aspx

you'll see that Earl's Court is a major station that's got step-free access from the platform to the street, while Glouster Road is a minor station that doesn't. So you'll probably want to get off at Earl's Court when you have luggage.

If you look at the Quality Kensington's map carefully, you'll see that you can get from the Earl's Court station to the hotel "efficiently" diagonally but you have to zig-zag a bit on streets that change their name every block, so you want to study that map, get some good printouts, etc, so that you won't get lost on your first day there. (Or just allow the time to go the significantly longer "straightforward" route of Warwick Road NW to Cromwell Road E.)

Once you're there (until your back-to-the-airport trip on your last day), the Glouster Road station is likely to be much easier to get to, since you just go E from the hotel on Cromwell street a few blocks and you're there. So for actual getting around during your stay, it doesn't seem that much worse in distance-to-tube than King's Cross.

And you do have a benefit of being closer to the airport. In fact, I clocked it (for future reference), and going back to the airport from King's Cross took about 70 minutes, and I was at the Earl's Court station after about 20 minutes, so it would have been only about 50 minutes from Earl's Court. (I stayed at King's Court my first night, and was going back to the airport to pick up a rental car -- since the bulk of my stay on that visit was far outside London -- and so I was in no panic about how long it would take, and was just casually noting the time. :) )

Got back from London. Stayed at Quality Crown Kensington for 16,000 points/night. Such rates are gone now - redemptions are raised to 20,000 night now.

About the hotel - I liked the location, very close to the tube - few minute walk. Tube line goes directly to Heathrow, which was very convenient. Grocery store a building away. Rooms are clean, ok size (not tiny) - include teapot and comp cookies (very tasty), which was very handy. Walls are very thin indeed but we had good neighbors - from all over Europe. Stayed there for 8 nights with no noise complain. Breakfast was good and very attentative staff from Baltic states. Enjoyed my stay.

PS I was shown smaller rooms. Apparently rooms on one side of the building are small, on the other - larger. For someone skinny the rooms would be ok, for others - very difficult to move around due to small room size.

About the hotel - I liked the location, very close to the tube - few minute walk. Tube line goes directly to Heathrow, which was very convenient.
Did this closest station (Glouster Road I presume) have steps only, an escalator one way, or escalators both ways? (I presume it didn't have an elevator since it wasn't shown as "step-free" on the Tube map.)

Was I correct that you have to use Earl's Court station if you want to roll luggage? (Remember, I was "guessing" at all this info based on the Tube map; I've never been there myself yet.)

I have only used Earl's Court one - it has an elevator, not an escalator. About the other station - I don't know, I haven't seen it.
My friend and I had 3 suitcases and a box and managed to get to the hotel using tube and walking.