Searching for basic suites for family travel?
 

Growing family, changing travel needs. For my family, ideal at this time is a bedroom with a door that closes, and a separate fold-out couch. Or two bedrooms with two doors that close, and a separate living room with a couch.

I know some national brands that often have rooms like this. But some off-brand properties also meet these requirements. Let's say we're not picky about brand or amenities. 2* just fine for basic family travel.

How to search for this? Expedia, Priceline, Hotels.com etc. have details about the types of rooms at each property, but lots of clicks required. I've found no good way to search for "lowest price for a 1br suite". What am I missing?

I was in the same situation when my family grew to 4 and 5 and haven’t found bulletproof solution yet. You either search among suite/extended brands like Embassy Suites, Homewood, Residence Inn, Staybridge etc. or filtering search for vacation clubs/villas/apart-hotels and so on. Also filter by Full Kitchen may sometimes help although overlap is not perfect - there are multi-room suites without kitchen and studios with kitchen.

I found that suites in full service hotels are probably the worst in this regard - they are disproportionately expensive compared to basic rooms and you usually find better deal at vacation clubs or at their sister “villas/casitas” properties with comparable (but different) set of amenities and overall vibe. The only exception I stayed in was Marriott Scottsdale - it is all-suite so basic room is 2 room that can booked with points, not all Residence Inns allow you to do that.

From the other hand, limited service brands often have suites (some of them are even nice) that are not 2-3 times the price of basic room - Hilton Garden Inn and Best Western Plus come to mind. You can also count on connecting rooms if you can confirm that (Hilton sort of does it automatically), so you can book on points.

I hope that AI chatbots will finally learn how to list such properties on request and it will happen before my kids grow :)

There is a website called Suiteness that can be helpful for searching options in some cities - cutting down your list of properties to look at specific rooms.

My family needs 2 BR & 2 Bathrooms these days. Hilton offers guaranteed connecting rooms at many properties now - that has opened up our options beyond the extended stay brands. Outside of that I always see what my Homewood Suites, Staybridge Suites, or Residence Inn options are. If you just need a 1 BR with a door that closes + couch, it opens up several other options like Embassy Suites, Townplace, etc.

We also use AirBnB/VRBO more often - filters are easy to specify bedrooms/bathrooms.