Rail Baron

I hope this isn't old news but today I called HH redemption to redeem points for a stay at the Noga Hilton Cannes. While on the phone with the agent I asked her to check the London hotels again for award availability. When told the Paddington and Metropole were unavailable (as usual), the agent searched for available London Hiltons and found one that she thought had just been added to the system overnight. She called it the Waldorf London Hilton located at Aldwych in the theatre district. After getting off the phone I checked a little and I believe this is the old Le Meridien Waldorf which must now be a Hilton.

She told me it was listed as a Category 5 but it is undergoing renovation throughout 2004 during daytime hours and because of that, she could offer it to me for the category 1 price of only 10,000 points per night. Needless to say, I jumped on it and am very pleased to have four nights in London in April for a little of nothing. There will be a tradeoff with the daytime noise but it looks like a great deal anyway. I have never heard of a London Hilton for category 1 prices.

She told me that she had worked the redemption office for two years and hadn't heard of this Hilton until today. She seemed certain that this hotel was not in their system yesterday. Her system said that the hotel was built in 1908, undergoing multimillion dollar renovation and the new rooms featured plasma TVs!

I noticed that it isn't even shown on the Hilton web page this morning. I love Flyertalk and hope this is a useful scoop for everyone out there. Has anyone stayed at this hotel when it was Le Meridien and what was their experience?