I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the new Conrad St. James Hotel in London. This hotel used to be the InterContinental Westminster, which opened in just 2012. It’s a bit surprising to see a hotel switch brands so quickly — that’s not something we often see, given that hotel management contracts often last for decades. That suggests they really weren’t reaching their projections under the InterContinental name.
As I explained at the time, the hotel is a Category 9 Hilton Honors property. With Hilton’s seasonal award pricing, that makes it 50,000-80,000 Honors points per night. Unfortunately this hotel charges 80,000 points per night year round, which isn’t surprising for London.
Anyway, I have a couple of interesting updates regarding the hotel now that they’ve actually transitioned from InterContinental to Hilton:
Conrad London has loaded Honors points availability
Last time I wrote about the hotel, they hadn’t actually loaded points availability. Instead, they just had awards loaded under the dynamic pricing model, whereby the number of points required was based on the room rate.
That has finally changed, and the hotel has now loaded points availability for their standard King Super Rooms at the rate of 80,000 Honors points per night.
Conrad has tons of Points & Money award availability
Hilton offers Points & Money awards, whereby you can redeem part points and part cash for an award stay. The catch is that they’re capacity controlled, and in bigger markets the space can be really tough to come by.
For example, Hilton has over three dozen hotels in the London area, and it’s not unusual to see no Points & Money availability at any of them, even far in advance.
The Conrad seems to be taking the opposite approach, perhaps in order to increase their occupancy without lowering their rates on revenue stays too much. I see Points & Money availability at the Conrad St. James for almost every day through the end of the schedule.
The Points & Money award rate is £98 (~$160) plus 32,000 Honors points. I value Honors points at ~0.4 cents each, so that’s like $128 worth of points. All in that’s the equivalent value of ~$290 to me, which is a good deal for what’s a really solid hotel in London.
Bottom line
I’m looking forward to checking out this hotel. Hilton points are extremely easy to come by, and I think this may be their best option in London. If nothing else, the transition from InterContinental to Hilton means that lots more guests will be receiving complimentary breakfast, given how easy Hilton Honors Gold status is to earn.
Has anyone stayed at the new Conrad London?
My wife and I were in London staying at St. Ermin's right around the corner from 8/28-9/2. I saw the Intercontinental for a few days, then poof, I saw a Conrad. I had to look to make sure we got off the correct Tube stop as I hadn't seen a Conrad in the spot. The pub (Feathers) next door helped out in reorienting ourselves, too.
Hi Lucky
I was there yesterday although not to stay just to have afternoon tea. The staff tell me that not much has changed. The setting seemed the same to me which is not surprising given they only changed last week. P.s the afternoon tea is 1st class!
Hi Ben,
I'm not seeing cash and points availability for Thanksgiving week. I did notice they lowered the points for the straight reward room to 64,000 though.
Lucky, I just tried to book this for 4 nights in late April and nada. It looks like there's no points+cash availability after around March 1, 2015.
I've stayed here many times as an IC
My last stay still as an IC last month did not go well with little to no room upgrade as an Ambassador and the hotel was far from full. The welcome amenity was stingier
I'm hoping it goes better early next month when I take my first stay as the newly minted Conrad
Lucky, how can one get HH Gold status, if one cannot apply to a US credit card? Apart from the normal stays/nights path, of course.
@ Ricardo -- Last December a Milepoint premium membership came with Hilton Gold status. Maybe it will return this year.