scubaccr

http://conradhotels3.hilton.com/en/h...OCI/index.html

("http://conradhotels3.hilton.com/en/hotels/united-kingdom/conrad-london-st-james-LONCOCI/index.html")

teemuflyer

£429 is the lowest rate per night booking for mid-December for a twin superior room! Yikes. The next most expensive option for the same dates is £279 for the Hilton London Canary Wharf.

little_dc

Also can not see and reward nights with points or points and cash

mandc2000

Found £269 for September (Friday's) did a dummy booking wants 41,000 for Exec room uprgrade !

xooz

A quick perusal of the award calendar shows that the cheapest room for the next 12+ months is over 156K points per night. The room pecking order seems to be 'Deluxe", Grand Deluxe", "Superior", "Executive Level" and Suites. This may indicate that there is not a "standard" room/award to be had.

Can't imagine staying there, but maybe eliminating my type was exactly their plan.

NickW

Looks more like Superior -> Deluxe -> Grand Deluxe -> Executive -> Suites to me?

xooz

Yea, looks like you are correct. The drop down list of room types and the sequence of rooms displayed starts with Deluxe, but Superior seems to be cheaper.

BotB

£279 to start for cash prices seems about right for London and considering this will be their flagship hotel here IMO. Park Lane or Trafalgar are usually this price as well.

Points required seems excessive though, would have thought rooms would start at 90k not 100+k

little_dc

I hope they have not got the booking system working right, and the point rates are not yet set right.

This same thing happened at the Waldorf Astoria Amsterdam when they first opened, took some time to get a room at the "normal / standard" point rate.

Many CONRADs and WA hotels never call a room "standard". If you look at the Conrad Algarve, Deluxe rooms go for standard point rates and points and cash.

This hotel just has no rooms called "standard" http://conradhotels3.hilton.com/en/h...ons/index.html

I hope / guess Hilton will pick the lowest class room at this hotel and allow for booking rooms at the standard point rates. It is showing a Cat 9 hotel so by Hilton T&C we should have some rooms without blackout dates at 50,000 to 80,000 Points..

We should email the hotel and ask - [email protected]

Land-of-Miles

This property was far from full as an IC at £250 a night. The rates being quoted seem rather optimistic. I don't see it appealing to the typical Park Lane demographic.

I would expect rates to tumble in due course, this property never commanded the same rates as the IC Park Lane despite being a much better property. That wasn't just a marketing problem it is a location problem. Hilton has many other comparable properties in close proximity too.

scubaccr

+1000 , Increase not justified by simply rebranding. Westminster owners probably not happy with the price point achieved under IHG umbrella, hence the rebrand. Personally I feel Westminster is already at the highest rate of £230-300 their entry level rooms can command.

Can anyone remember initially asked for rates as an IC? I know rate was always lower than IC-PL, and thus probably poached a few RAs looking for a some less expensive UK nights to keep RA status. After sampling Westminster, I mostly continued with my preferred IC-PL and CP-SJ hotel choice.

My early March first year booking was the reduced 30k award so I have no record of initial rates. I do know IC-Westminster were "dumping rooms" as it was relatively easy to BRG in the first 6months, and even first year. I am sure the basic rooms were nothing like £400 ever.

Although the now free lounge offering as HH-D is a good carrot to get me to book Superior/Deluxe, I gave up after ringing up for September London nights, when quoted the new price points for being a Conrad.

One major issue has to be the Westminster's isolated location, quite ok for Business use ... But ... tourists with funds for 5* £400+/night rates will want the better situated, well known locations like Mayfair, Hyde Park, Park Lane, Oxford Street, Trafalgar Square, Knightsbridge locations.

Regards Hilton Branding, I thought WA is the top of the pile, maybe Hilton would not allow Westminster to go the WA route? Just trying out the new WA Amsterdam this weekend, and the WA has a superior hard+soft product to IC Westminster, and City wise, WA is in a good location tourist wise too.

Princess fiona

Would love to try out this hotel on my visit to LHR next month but the flexible rate I'm holding is very expensive (£242 at The Trafalgar vs £402 at Conrad). No decent award rates either, so fingers crossed

turtlemichael

I'm perfectly happy for your to pay those amounts and be the guinea pig! I'm looking at a points stay next May but I can't justify the rate they want to charge me.

RAPC

The hotel say that their systems will fully integrate with Hilton on 1st September and that standard rooms should be available from then. Hopefully will happen then, but don't bank on it.

CanfordCliffs

should be interesting