Originally Posted by
Peter_N-H
It's only a few years since only one hotel was regularly getting an average of US$100 per night per room, with a couple of others managing that in peak seasons. Rates at many have recently reached around US$300, but there are already many 'special' offers, and you can expect a great deal more of the same, and to see rates drop dramatically in 2009. It's not just a matter of a drop in tourism and business travel, but the fact that over a five year period 10,000 new top-end rooms have been added, several thousand of those last year alone, so as demand is dropping so inventory is growing. You may find that actually you'd be better to save your points and pay cash. Certainly feel in no rush to book.
My Beijing hotel knowledge is more limited, so I can't comment on OP's question directly, but I definitely want to agree with Peter here. Hotels right now in Beijing (likely elsewhere as well) are an absolute --STEAL--. Between the economic crunch and the saturated up-scale (read:Western-chain) hotel market, everywhere from the Pen to the Hiltons to the Holiday Inns are bending over backwards to get guests. For example: I was comped a Rolls Royce transfer to AND from PEK to the Peninsula about two weeks ago as well as given a room upgrade, despite paying about 1350RMB a/i a night. With those little guys so young, I'd imagine you have lots of ideas for vacations down the line, you might just want to go ahead and pay for these rooms and save the points... Hell, a night in New York, Chicago, London, etc, is going to cost you double what you're paying for top end in China.