Originally Posted by
RallyNavvie
Points stay question: wife and 18 month old are going to be staying in London for 4 nights this summer and wanted to stay near Mayfair or St. James'. Points stays are 80k-90k/night at the properties around there for basic rooms, but when I include our 18 month old it only lets me select rooms that are 220k/night or higher (premium room rewards). I even looked at the cash rate for the "premium" room at one of the properties and it is the same price as the basic rooms. Options?
- Suck it up and blow almost 1M points on the cheapest room for 2 adults and a 1 year old.
- Suck it up and pay cash rate for the same room from option 1.
- Get two adjoining rooms at the basic rate. This is still less points spent than option 1 but two rooms is arguably better. Would I just put myself on one room, my wife on the other, and our child with one or the other of us? Are cribs extra or should we bring our travel crib instead?
- Get a basic room by claiming only 2 adults on the reservation. We usually do this with US hotel stays as they don't seem to care about the baby as long as we have room for the crib in the room we chose.
Also would like to hear how quiet the areas are around those properties or any to avoid with small children. We chose that area as it is closes to items on our itinerary and trying to stay at a more memorable property.
As a Hilton member (no status required), you benefit from second guest stays free, therefore you can just book for 1 adult and 1 child. You can put your wife's name under "additional guest" and hopefully the hotel will understand.
Most Hiltons have a family policy where children stay free on the existing beds in the room. (When your child is 17 years old that may be a bit of a stretch, but at 18 months there won't be a problem.) If you do not require the hotel to provide a cot, there is no need to include the child on the reservation. If you do, you should speak to the hotel to find out if they charge extra.
As a Gold Hilton member, you are likely to get some sort of upgrade, which could be to a room which would be bookable for 3 people online (not that you need to book for 3 as mentioned above) - not sure why you would book 2 rooms if you only want 1 room, but if you need some reassurance you could speak to the hotel and confirm an upgrade in advance.