I know it’s Valentine’s Day next week, but that’s not really the angle at which I’m coming from this…
In this post:
Booking Hilton day rooms is easy
There are all kinds of situations where it can be useful to book a day room (I’ll talk more about that below), yet the major hotel groups often make it pretty hard to reserve rooms in this way. So I wanted to give Hilton a shoutout.
Among the most popular hotel groups in the United States, Hilton is the only one that consistently lets you book hotel rooms for a day use directly online, either through the website or app.
Just search the location you want to stay, and select the same check-in and check-out date, and you’ll see any options that might be available (Hyatt, IHG, and Marriott, all don’t let you search same day stays in this way).
Not all hotels will have day rates, though you’ll find that this is pretty common at airport hotels. For example, using the above search for hotels around London Heathrow, you’ll see a variety of options.
When you select a specific hotel, you’ll see the exact terms associated with this. The hours vary — at many hotels you can stay from 9AM until 6PM, while other hotels might only let you stay from 10AM until 4PM.
If inventory is managed properly, this can be a win-win. Guests can get a day room when it’s useful, while hotels can maximize revenue.
It’s worth noting that hotels belonging to other major hotel groups also sometimes sell day rooms without actually showing them online. You often need to call or email, but that’s so much less seamless than being able to book online.
Hilton Honors elite benefits & points on day room rates
Hilton Honors Gold and Hilton Honors Diamond benefits should also apply for day use rates, so this includes perks like executive lounge access, room upgrades, etc. Note, however, that you generally won’t get a restaurant breakfast or food & beverage credit for these kinds of stays.
Furthermore, you should earn points for your stays at the same rates you otherwise would. Anecdotally you also earn elite night credits for these stays, though that seems to be more of an unofficial policy than anything else, since you’re not actually staying the night.
When it’s useful to book a day room
Around the start of the pandemic, we saw some hotels trying to market day rooms as an office for the day. However, there are lots of uses beyond that. Personally I value a day room at an airport hotel if I have a long layover.
There’s nothing quite like being able to take a nap and shower, and just generally escape the hustle and bustle of the terminal.
Just as an example, I have an upcoming 10-hour daytime layover at Rome Airport, and I see that the Hilton Rome Airport has day rooms for around 100 Euro. To me that’s well worth it to be able to nap for a few hours and have a quiet place to relax.
Even with a layover that’s shorter than that, I’d personally pay a fair bit just to have four or so hours in a hotel room.
Bottom line
Hilton deserves credit for making it easy to book day rooms directly on its website. I appreciate the booking process, as other hotel groups make you call or email. I find day rooms to be super useful, especially when transiting an airport with a long layover.
Under what circumstances do you find hotel day rooms to be useful? Anyone else appreciate how easy Hilton makes it to book these?
This is useful information. Thank you! However, I have tried to book a day rate at the Hilton Downtown Faneuil Hall, Boston, MA, which advertises day rate availability on its website, but they never are. Not sure what's up with that.
I attempted to book a day rate in San Juan to ease an extensive lay over after a cruise. I am a diamond member, and all the properties either showed, sold out, or diamond guarantee at an excessive rate. Double the normal rate. I checked other dates to compare and git the same results. The curious part was when I checked availability for the day prior, or the current day, as staying overnight. All properties...
I attempted to book a day rate in San Juan to ease an extensive lay over after a cruise. I am a diamond member, and all the properties either showed, sold out, or diamond guarantee at an excessive rate. Double the normal rate. I checked other dates to compare and git the same results. The curious part was when I checked availability for the day prior, or the current day, as staying overnight. All properties showed availability. Not sure why the Hilton properties in San Juan discourage day rates with excessive prices, or by showing sold out, when they obviously are not. Thoughts?
There is an app called Dayuse is exactly for booking this type of rooms.
Just did two day rates in January. Hilton Heathrow T4 and HGI JFK. Heathrow with breakfast in the lounge and restaurant was nice.
Thanks Ben for highlighting this, and to Yosef_S for doing the same for Hyatt (using the OFFICE offer code to surface them).
Many airport hotels also rent rooms by the hour. Obviously there is usually a minimum. I just contact them direct and negotiate based on duration.
I just stayed at the Rome Airport Hilton. Typical Hilton but the window doesn't open and the air freshener smell was overwhelming. It ruined the stay. Obviously they were hiding cigarette smoke or something.
Yes, I should have gotten another room, but I was exhausted.
It's nice to have access to hotel amenities without requiring an overnight stay and still getting hotel points. Another way to search other available options is hotelsbyday.com
Day rates are great when you land at 7am and you can't check into your accommodations until mid-afternoon at the earliest. Solves the problem of what to do with your luggage and how to kill time especially when you haven't really slept that much.
I've done that several times arriving at LHR (as in Ben' example) especially useful last March as the arrivals lounge in T2 was still closed
I booked a Day Use rate at Hilton Newark Airport last August and got all the elite benefits, including being upgraded to a huge executive suite (first suite upgrade...
I booked a Day Use rate at Hilton Newark Airport last August and got all the elite benefits, including being upgraded to a huge executive suite (first suite upgrade as a LT Diamond) and a F&B credit ($15), though the latter might depend on when one checks in and out (I checked in at 5:33pm and checked out at 2:34pm the next day, clearly a late checkout).
How is checking in at 5:33pm and out at 2:34pm next day not an overnight?
Don't tell me it's an unpublished Lifetime Diamond benefit.
Quite cool to book a Day Use Rate and actually get a full night stay until next day, ain't it? Maybe that is the genius of Hilton that so unhinges self-anointed "travel gurus"!
After missing a ~4:45pm EWR-GVA flight and not wanting to go back to Manhattan only to...
Quite cool to book a Day Use Rate and actually get a full night stay until next day, ain't it? Maybe that is the genius of Hilton that so unhinges self-anointed "travel gurus"!
After missing a ~4:45pm EWR-GVA flight and not wanting to go back to Manhattan only to return to EWR within a few hours, I decided to search for nearby Hilton hotels using the HH App, found Hilton EWR and the App did the rest!
Specifically, the booking info that I entered in the HH app was for checking in on August 20 and checking out on August 21. However, it was late afternoon on August 20th (~5pm) when I did the booking, so that the stay was clearly going to be for much less than 24h if I checked out at the mandatory time of noon the next day. Therefore, the HH app automagically figured out what I was up to and classified the booking as a Day Use booking, and then it set the stay date to August 20-August 20, but what happened in reality is that I checked in at 5:33pm on August 20 and checked out at 2:34pm on August 21, which you can see on the screen shot of the HH App on my mobile phone and on my folio, respectively, at this link:
http://bit.ly/3jwoXGi
The evidence is incontrovertible (on the HH App):
The check-in/checkout dates/times are on the image of the folio on the right.
It is likely an unpublished feature, but if you have additional questions, I suggest you contact Hilton because all I did was is what I described above, which the provided visual evidence supports.
"Quite cool to book a Day Use Rate and actually get a full night stay until next day, ain't it?
Maybe that is the genius of Hilton that so unhinges self-anointed "travel gurus".”
Unfortunately, for those of us unwilling to just lap this all up, a quick attempt at verification reveals the truth:
Trying to replicate this type of booking fails. There is no super smart Hilton app that anticipates your every travel desire....
"Quite cool to book a Day Use Rate and actually get a full night stay until next day, ain't it?
Maybe that is the genius of Hilton that so unhinges self-anointed "travel gurus".”
Unfortunately, for those of us unwilling to just lap this all up, a quick attempt at verification reveals the truth:
Trying to replicate this type of booking fails. There is no super smart Hilton app that anticipates your every travel desire. Rather, even in the late afternoon, selecting today as check-in and tomorrow as check-out, a nightly rate appears, and it does not default to a daytime rate, with today as both check-in and check-out. Which makes sense, because….
Further, looking at the actual day rate for this property, rate rules specify “valid 10 A.M-6 P.M”, so by checking in at 5:33, one would normally expect to have to leave by 6.
Just because the hotel opted not to automatically change you to the nightly rate (or they simply didn’t realize it when you checked in), that is certainly not grounds to suggest that it's an unpublished “feature”.
But maybe this is the reality that causes the self-anointed Hilton guru to become unhinged.
Cheerio.
I provided the RAW data.
Check in and then out after just 27 minutes? Maybe I did hit the "perfect storm" as a very top HH elite and, as @Eskimo wondered, got an "an unpublished Lifetime Diamond benefit", which would still unhinge you since you do not believe LT Diamond is...
I provided the RAW data.
Check in and then out after just 27 minutes? Maybe I did hit the "perfect storm" as a very top HH elite and, as @Eskimo wondered, got an "an unpublished Lifetime Diamond benefit", which would still unhinge you since you do not believe LT Diamond is legitimately HH's highest elite status.
Deal with it or call Hilton, instead of accusing me of lying while I looking at the raw data. Look.at.the.evidence.
Last word from me to you on the subject, if not ever.
Oh you're lying.
Think a Good Samaritan OMAAT reader might alert Hilton Corporate of DCS’ flagrant disregard of the T and Cs. Might get his precious LT Diamond (lol) cancelled and thus have to rely on the annual free credit card for basically the same benefits.
Stupid even for a certified troll, aka, Village Idiot:
1. Hilton disregarded their own T&C to benefit one of their very top elites, so good luck to the "Good Samaritan".
2. For the precious LT Diamond (lol) to be 'cancelled' it would have to be real, right? Oops!
These late comments are so drunkenly idiotic there is little doubt that the writer is "on the sauce."
I was able to book a day rate at the Grand Hyatt (or Hyatt Regency, they're the same thing in my mind) at ICN back in 2015 during a long layover (we were flying JFK-ICN, and then ICN-CGK much later that day, and hanging out in the KAL first class lounge was too depressing for words).
That said, it would be nice if more airport hotels would offer guaranteed late checkout for a price. The...
I was able to book a day rate at the Grand Hyatt (or Hyatt Regency, they're the same thing in my mind) at ICN back in 2015 during a long layover (we were flying JFK-ICN, and then ICN-CGK much later that day, and hanging out in the KAL first class lounge was too depressing for words).
That said, it would be nice if more airport hotels would offer guaranteed late checkout for a price. The Hilton LAX offers this for $20/hour after 12 p.m., but *only* on a space available basis - which is GREAT, don't get me wrong, but if the hotel is full, one is stuck hanging out in the lobby for hours. NOT a great option when hopping on a Europe-bound flight.
Airport hotels are unlikely to deny elites (very) early check-in given most people only stay in airport hotels because they have an early flight the next morning and are checking out early (I think the latest I have ever checked out of an airport hotel would be 6am).
Most times you could just book a normal night and check in as early as you want.
You are correct to a point.
Booking a day rate pretty much guarantees the room will be ready for you, no luck or courtesy needed. I have often booked a room in FRA after a TATL morning arrival. The check-in process always involved their first allotting rooms for day rate bookings before affording me early check-in.
Please bear in mind that airports like FRA often have a widebody flight cancelled or mechanical and...
You are correct to a point.
Booking a day rate pretty much guarantees the room will be ready for you, no luck or courtesy needed. I have often booked a room in FRA after a TATL morning arrival. The check-in process always involved their first allotting rooms for day rate bookings before affording me early check-in.
Please bear in mind that airports like FRA often have a widebody flight cancelled or mechanical and rooms that were likely to go empty suddenly are full. This might be more of an issue in the EU where all flights scheduled are subject to lodging rules for affected pax.
Booking directly is good for points, but I find this site very useful for comparing options:
https://www.dayuse.com/
that is what I use
Hyatt allows you to book these online also since the start of the pandemic. Search a one night stay beginning on the day you want to use the room, and use offer code: OFFICE, and it will give you the 'Office for a Day' rate.
Amazing. Thank you!
I find less and less Hilton hotels in my area offering day use rates. Plus the rates are sometimes very uncompetitive, only $10 or $20 less than a full night, defeating the purpose of a staycation.