Can you find me a London hotel room for £120 or less?

Simon Calder answers your questions on trips to Theatreland, breaks in Spain and Corfu, and rail strikes

Green green grass of home: the view from Greenwich Observatory (Getty/iStock)

Q Can you help me? I need a London hotel for a visit to the theatre in May. I normally stay at the Ibis Earls Court but their prices have doubled to £195. I’ve searched on booking.com but can’t find anything decent under £100 and the majority are more than £200. I am happy with a three-star property and don’t really want to pay more than £120.

Gordon W

A London hoteliers of my acquaintance can hardly believe how strongly travel has bounced back after the coronavirus pandemic. Demand for decent city centre properties has soared. Rates at the cluster of Premier Inns in London SE1, stretching from Waterloo to London Bridge, are typically £180 even for a Tuesday night in mid-March – when £120 would be the kind of price I would have expected before Covid. Therefore I propose you choose a Premier Inn (the epitome of three-star properties) in an easy-to-access location by public transport for the West End. The cheapest I could find was just under £100 at the Hogarth Roundabout in west London – a location I would not wish upon anyone. But looking in the opposite direction, I found the Greenwich Premier Inn at exactly £120. The Premier Inn boasts its location is “minutes from the Royal Observatory, Cutty Sark and the panoramic views from Greenwich Park”. Don’t assume you are in the centre of Greenwich: it’s a brisk walk of 15 or 20 minutes to these highlights.