Air China Free Layover Hotel in Beijing
 

Hi all,

I am new here. Have been lurking around for a while and now decided to join.

I am going to fly Air China and both ways will have long layover in Beijing. I know AC will provide free transit hotels. Questions for anyone have experience with the partner hotels.

1. Which hotels exactly?
2. Comments on conditions of the room and service?
3. Meals provided?
4. What transportation did you have between the hotel and airport?
5. Tips and tricks (on any aspects of the layover).

Thanks!

Welcome to FT. Btw, CA is the airline code you're looking for.

1. CITIC (formerly Sino Swiss) is one of them, and they generally go down from there
2. It really depends on the hotel, but the Hilton and Langham are the only decent hotels in the airport zone (the Lido and Rosedale are pretty nice, but they aren't used so much for transit pax any more); everything else is really just a place to sleep
3. Breakfast
4. The hotels all have shuttles of some sort
5. Yeah, hold out to see if you end up with an okay hotel, but plan on taking matters into your own hands (i.e. reserve a hotel that you like)

2. If Hilton is considered one of the two decent hotels, then it will be better to lower the expectation. I stayed there one night last November. It looked nice and new, but was only OK.
3. Breakfast was included, but I left early and did not take breakfast.
4. IIRC, shuttles operated only during certain hours (for Hilton). I believed I took the first shuttle to the terminal. I forgot when exactly, but probably close to 5am. So OP may want to check on shuttle operation hours.

2. Believe it or not, the airport Hilton is often the most expensive Hilton property in all of Beijing (i.e. more than the Conrad or Wangfujing)
3. I actually have a pretty good opinion of the F&B (as well as spa) there; they clearly put a lot of love into the place (or at least a strong management team)
4. If an airline puts you up in a hotel at 5a, they will almost always arrange transportation; when they don't they tend to hand out red pieces of paper, which work even better :D

I spent the other night in Beijing in Westin on E 3rd Ring with my colleagues. It was almost 2X the Hilton rate. That was the main reason I moved to Hilton Beijing Capital Airport the next night.

Although personally I feel airport Hilton is not among the top hotels in Beijing, it is indeed a good hotel for a free layover.

I (and several others, gotta love ATC in China :mad:) had a misconnect in February 2015 at PEK traveling in business back to the USA. CA put us up at the Golden Phoenix Hotel, which I would consider just one very small step above a dump.

If this happens ever again, I'll book the Hilton on my own.

Thanks for the airline code correction. I am used to talk about Air Canada which is AC.

What's the red pieces of paper for? Vouchers for taxi?

We aren't arriving late or leaving in early hours (this is actually the reason I chose to try Air China for the very first time). For us, because we have a toddler, I am very concern about the sanitary condition in some PEK hotels I have found on reviews.

For those of you who did not take the complimentary transit hotel, did you try to have the airline reimburse you? If the assigned hotel is really terrible, we may have to go somewhere else on our own. That would be the last resort for us.

Cash.

Regarding your other post, if CA were to reimburse you for staying in a hotel that it didn't arrange, you'd be looking at around $20 (and, a lot of hassle).

I reiterate my advice to make a reservation at a decent hotel, and be pleasantly surprised if CA comes through with something comparable (doubtful).

No airline will reimburse you for the complimentary transit hotel you decline, it is a take it or leave it situation. It is like if the airline provide you lounge access, but you don't want to go because it is not up to your standard, you decided to eat somewhere instead and ask the airline to pay you back, no such thing ever exist !

Many airlines these days had eliminated free transit hotel due to long layovers, consider yourself lucky that CA would provide one, keep your standard to the minimum since it is free afterall.

Hilton Capital Airport is an excellent hotel for what it is. Compared to Beijing city Hilton Group Properties, I would say it's light years better than Wangfujing in terms of facility and service IMO. It and Langham are basically two of the best airport hotels I've used, almost as good as CP @ SIN.

I find Langham even better than Hilton and been staying there for the past year whenever I go through PEK and stay over a day.

Regarding breakfast, last time we were there and had to take an early flight we informed the front desk at check in and they actually packed us a couple of breakfast 2 go items like yogurt, juice and some pastry which I found a nice touch.

I didn't know they had this in place, is this policy for an extended layover? I want to arrive in PEK at 16:25 on a Thursday and depart PEK at 20:00 on a Friday. So it's just over 24 hours, which I'm assuming is a stopover, not a layover and that they wouldn't do anything for me. But I figured I'd ask you guys if anyone knew.

It is a stopover.

Solves that :) now I just have to figure out if I wanna spend a little more and spend a night in Tokyo (which I've done once) or spend an entire night/day in Beijing (which I've never been to).