seanthepilot

I still see the Novotel for 4000+tax on Accor.com, but have heard that people have paid more than this with the troubles in the city.

I remember that the airlines would sometimes sell room night vouchers for cheaper too. YMMV.

lomatopo

For certain types of layovers (family, need to stay in/near Bangkok or the airport, 1 ~ 3 days) I have been recommending the Dusit Princess Srinakarin to FTers who send me PMs. It is a nice property, close to the airport and adjacent to the Seacon Square Mall. This mall has the usual assortment of anchor stores, but also has versions of Khlong Tam (toys, electronics, in Chinatown), Pratunam (clothing) and Panthip (IT). Not sure about designer stores though. Also excellent food courts (several), hundreds of restaurants (try MK or Oishi Shabu Buffet) and a ~ 14 screen movie theatre. There is cool vintage motorcycle exhibition there now, and a mobile phone show/expo.

If things have settled down in town you can hop a taxi to On Nut BTS for 70 baht; travel time varies but ~ 20 minutes even with traffic.

BangkokTraveler

Great Residence is my newest, favorite place. It is a 3-story hotel, spread in a couple of buildings. They do have a nice pool now, and a nice one too (no shade, though). The rate I got via Agoda.com earlier this month is about 600 baht per night (not incl. breakfast) and this included free pickup and drop off at BKK airport; some rates include RT transfer, some include OW transfer. The rooms are fairly new, quiet, a/c works fine, and the bed is comfortable. Just down the street 5 minutes walk are about 6 restaurants and a few laid-back Thai pubs and restaurants, some have live acoustic music - try "Lullaby", not far from the traffic light at Lat Krabang.

Link for Great Residence : http://www.greatresidencehotel.com/

Jimster

Can we update this thread? I have stayed at the Great Residence Hotel and lived to tell about it- It was more than a bit tacky- but cheap and close to the airport. It was a place to sleep and was clean-beyond that not much. I also stayed at the Miracle hotel- it was ok and definitely much nicer- it has an roof top pool and a buffet breakfast (although I was turned off when I saw a cockroach scooting down the buffet table. Anyone have any other suggestions- esp. ones with shuttles from the airport?

mongobot

In May '10 I stayed overnight at the Best Western Premier Amaranth Suvarnabhumi Airport Hotel. It's relatively new but I was disappointed.

The shower fixture fell apart while using it and it was clear it was not installed correctly.

The seal around the base toilet had a small leak.

In the early morning the regular elevators were not working I found out where the service elevator was and used that instead. When I got to the reception desk, the front staff were surprised "How did you get down here?".

The complimentary shuttle bus to the airport was running late (around 5am) so we just grabbed a cab instead.

Since I only had about 7 hours total on the premise I did not have time to worry about most of the issues. Because it was clean and new it had/has promise but they really need to get their act together.

rjh

I had forgotten about the BKK airport hotel map, which had more use when the airport was new and the overhead imagery was lower resolution.

Anyway, though you can just use Google Maps to select the airport and then search for surrounding hotels, not all of those reviewed here show up in the Google results. I added those discussed here and generally corrected locations.