London has a lot going for it, but large, affordable hotel rooms aren’t anywhere on the list. American families walk in expecting something in the neighborhood of a Residence Inn… and instead get 250 square feet, two twin-sized “doubles,” and a very confident front desk agent insisting this is, in fact, a family room.
So when I started planning our London trip, I had one goal when it came to the hotel: a standard room that actually sleeps four people booked with points, with the backup option of two reasonably priced rooms near each other.
Setting the Stage
To be honest, I found the whole process frustrating – and also illuminating. Sometimes the “family room” search filter isn’t quite accurate. You might find that the points price in the main search results is actually the price for a two-person room even though you searched for four. Often the only rooms that can sleep four are way more than double the price of a regular room. And it’s common to see kids over 12 counted as adults for purposes of room occupancy.
To help you out (and quantify some of my frustrations), I pulled real room configurations, real live points pricing, and real booking strategy across Hyatt, Hilton, IHG, and Marriott for a family of four visiting central London in June. I avoided Wimbledon dates and tried to keep the options well-located.
I can’t say I was totally surprised by what I found, though you might be! I’ve organized this article by hotel chain because each one has a different “best” way to acquire the points you need. Unfortunately there just weren’t any great options with some of the smaller programs like Choice Hotels or Wyndham. I would have included one option from the Preferred Hotels iPrefer program but a recent change to transfers from Citibank has made it a mediocre option.
Some quick notes before we dive in: hotel points pricing is generally dynamic and can change daily in some programs, and availability of specific rooms types isn’t guaranteed until you book. The numbers below are what I found while researching this article – they’re a starting point to help you understand the options, but don’t transfer points until you check options for your dates.
And ICYMI, you can listen to my detailed recap of how we planned our entire trip to London and the Azores on points on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or right here:
Quick Answer: Best London Points Redemptions for Families by Program
| Program | Best pick | Points for 5 nights (family of 4) | How to fund it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hyatt | The Standard, London | 145,000 | Chase Sapphire transfer or Hyatt card earnings |
| Hilton | 100 Queen’s Gate (two rooms) | 480,000 (as low as ~200K in Amex MR with a transfer bonus) | Amex Membership Rewards transfer |
| IHG | Holiday Inn London – Bloomsbury | ~250,000 (including 1 free night certificate) | IHG credit card |
| Marriott | London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square | ~475,000 (roughly 280-400k in transferred points, depending on bonus) | Amex MR or Chase UR with a transfer bonus |
| Capital One (any hotel) | Radisson Blu South Kensington | ~186,000 miles (1 cent/mile “erase”) | Venture X, 2x everyday spend + welcome offer |
If you only remember two things from this article, let it be these. First, the “best” program for your family isn’t universal – it depends on which points you already have or can acquire easily. And second, book early for the best availability especially if you’re going for one family room – they’re in limited supply.
Also my apologies in advance: this wasn’t supposed to be a huge, wordy article but I found some great intel and I never want to gatekeep it.
World of Hyatt
There are 9 Hyatt properties in central London, plus several Mr. & Mrs. Smith boutique properties that can be booked with Hyatt points.
Top pick: The Standard, London (King’s Cross)
This is where we actually stayed, so I have the most information and real-world experience with it. I booked The Standard London before I started looking elsewhere and ultimately it was still the best value after my extensive research.
The Standard is right across the street from King’s Cross at St. Pancras stations, so you truly can’t get more convenient on the transportation front. It’s also an easy walk to Euston station, which is the jumping-off point for visits to Harry Potter Studios.
While St. Pancras is the only truly beautiful building around, there are plenty of good restaurants in the area, the excellent (and free) British Library across the street and we had a healthy morning walk to The British Museum one day.
I want to mention that Hyatt has several stunning hotels around London that I honestly would have preferred. However, for my kids’ ages they all would have required a premium suite or family room and those can’t be booked on points without a huge cash outlay.
The room: Double Standard – two double beds in 388 square feet. I was nervous before our trip, but this room is actually quite spacious by London standards. The catch is those are American-style double beds, not queens. Thankfully everyone in our family is petite so we could make it work, but this won’t be a great choice if everyone in your family prefers a spacious bed.
My daughter is 12 but well under five feet tall, so we moved the (heavy) dining table aside and she ended up making up the room’s banquette with extra linens and sleeping there – it worked out great for her, but I wouldn’t count on that solution if your kid has already hit a major growth spurt. It’s an excellent option if you’re visiting London with kids who are younger (or small).
Points cost: We paid 125,000 Hyatt points for five nights, transferred over from Chase Ultimate Rewards. This is a category 6 hotel so nights can vary between 20,000 and 40,000 points per night, and for the same nights that I considered the other hotels in this article it would be 145,000 points.
Pros:
- Cheapest option on points
- No risk of being separated from your kids down the hall
- Extremely convenient transportation hub: two minutes from King’s Cross station, which means Eurostar, the Underground, and basically every train in the country is at your doorstep
- If your kids appreciate hotels, it’s a fun balance of swanky decor and cozy vibes
Cons:
- The area is convenient, but not the most picturesque part of London
- Those American double beds mean this option is much easier to recommend for younger or smaller kids than for teens (or parents who want a big bed)
How to book it cheapest: You’ll need World of Hyatt points to book this hotel. You can earn those directly from the hotel’s personal credit card or business credit card. Realistically, most travelers transfer points from their Chase Sapphire Preferred, Chase Sapphire Reserve or Chase Ink Business Preferred to Hyatt.
But be aware that some things are changing for the Chase Sapphire Preferred and Ink Business Preferred: new cardholders (and existing cardholders starting in October) will only get 3 Hyatt points for every 4 Chase points – so this booking would require 193,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points.
If you have the Chase Sapphire Reserve (either personal or business) you can still transfer to Hyatt 1:1. The Reserve comes with a much steeper annual fee but also a ton of credits to offset it, so you’ll want to evaluate which option is right for you.
And of course earnings directly on the World of Hyatt cards are all full value – with annual fees much lower than the Reserve, but a different points earning structure for each category.
If you’re only traveling with one child, you can look for standard suites at The Churchill or Hyatt Regency London Blackfriars – if they’re available you can book in directly for around 40-50k points per night.
But often you’ll need to use a workaround: book the standard room for two adults on points, then apply a suite upgrade award or inquire with Hyatt about switching to a standard suite, and only after you’re assigned the suite you can add the child. I’ve experienced this elsewhere in the Hyatt ecosystem and I think it’s just bad coding on the back end. Since the standard suites can be for three people with cash, they should be bookable with points as well.
Runner-up: Hyatt Place London City East
If you aren’t afraid of a little tube ride into the city, the cheapest Hyatt in London is Hyatt Place London City East (Category 3, ranging from 8,000 to 20,000 points per night), with a King + Sofa Bed room configuration that can work for four. But there’s a real catch: you need to pay a cash upgrade fee to actually secure the sofa bed room. A standard award redemption alone won’t guarantee it. Thankfully the price is usually in the neighborhood of £35 per night and you’re potentially saving a ton of points even compared to The Standard. Some families might even opt for two rooms since the rates are so good – for the sample dates I’m looking at, it’s just 72,000 points per room for five nights.
East London/Brick Lane is a fun, foodie neighborhood, but it’s further from the classic sightseeing core than King’s Cross or even more central neighborhoods. I’d suggest this as the pick for families chasing maximum value or short on points and willing to spend a little more time on the train – it’ll add about 15 minutes to your transportation times to get to some sites compared with The Standard, though you’ll be a reasonable walking distance to a few sites like the Tower of London and others (like Westminster Abbey) are very well-connected to the nearby Underground stations. Thankfully the Hyatt Place is a straight shot and a little walk from Heathrow on the Elizabeth Line – convenient and affordable!
Insider tip: If your children are 12 and under, some Hyatt properties offer the “family rate plan” which can save up to 50% off the cash rate. You’ll primarily want to use that at a place where the cash rate is reasonable. The adult room can be booked using cash or points. Unfortunately teens can’t be allocated to that child room, so the adult room has to allow occupancy that includes the teens.
Hilton Honors
Hilton is a much bigger chain than Hyatt – there are several dozen properties you can book with your Hilton Honors points, though as you’ll see they aren’t all created equal when it comes to family friendliness.
Unlike Hyatt, Hilton will let you book nearly any room type on points (subject to availability)… but at a price. A “family room” that is two connected standard rooms could be priced anywhere from four to ten times as much as one standard room. When I searched for my family in a single room, there were several Hiltons (including the one pictured above) offering rooms at more than one million points per night. Somebody please fetch the fainting salts!
A word of warning: making Hilton make sense for a family in Europe requires a lot of math. Feel free to check my calculations or just trust me.
Top pick: 100 Queen’s Gate (Curio Collection) – book two rooms
Here’s the you should make for most Hilton properties in Europe: instead of hunting for an official Hilton family or connecting room – which will be priced astronomically and misses a huge benefit – you’re often better off simply booking two standard rooms. The key is to find a “standard room award”. We used the two-room strategy at a Hilton property on São Miguel, Azores when we left London and it was an excellent value on points using exactly this framework.
After some digging, I spotted 100 Queen’s Gate in the lovely South Kensington neighborhood. It’s a beautiful property and gives posh London vibes – which makes sense since it’s in a Victorian townhouse.
It’s also incredibly convenient since it’s literally around the corner from the Natural History, Science and Victoria & Albert Museums. It’s also a quick walk to the fancy entrance to the South Kensington Station. I would seriously consider staying here on our next visit to enjoy a different area of London that’s more conducive to strolling.
The room: Since we’re aiming for a value option, you’ll book two of the Cosy Atrium rooms. They aren’t huge but each one comes with a queen bed. There are two caveats with this plan: first, most of these rooms are accessed by stairs rather than an elevator; second, it’s a converted historic home so don’t expect connecting rooms in this category.
The upside is that the standard pricing for this room is around 60,000 points per night all year long. And if you’re booking for teens, remember that two hotel rooms = two bathrooms!
How to book it cheapest: Ok, stick with me.
Having any Hilton status beyond just basic membership gets you an awesome benefit: for standard room awards, every fifth night is free! You can get Hilton silver status for free with the no-fee Hilton Honors credit card. But personally I’d shoot for gold status to get free breakfast for two (sometimes honored for both rooms) and potential for upgrades – that would be really nice since you’re booking the lowest category room, and it might help to drop the hotel an email before your arrival.
The cheapest way to get Hilton gold status is with the $150 Hilton Surpass card, but you can also get it with an $895 Amex Platinum card or Amex Business Platinum card… and I’ll show you in a moment why I’ve personally gone that very expensive route.
Assuming you have at least silver status, five nights runs 240,000 points per room – 480,000 total for two rooms. That’s obviously a big chunk of points.
But if you’ve been collecting Amex Membership Rewards points rather than Hilton points, every one of those can transfer to Hilton at a 1:2 ratio. So really you only need 240,000 Amex points. But usually twice per year we see a 20% transfer bonus that turns every one Amex point into 2.4 Hilton points. So if you plan ahead, you only need 200,000 Amex points!
How can you collect that many? Well, the welcome offer on the personal Amex Platinum card is regularly around 150,000 Membership Rewards points and on the Amex Business Platinum card it’s not uncommon to see 250,000 Membership Rewards points. Both versions of the card come with a variety of credits and statuses that help offset that hefty annual fee. You can check your personalized offers here:
One benefit specific to the Business Platinum card is a $50 quarterly Hilton credit. That would be perfect to offset the cost of a treat like afternoon tea at the hotel.
You’re getting two rooms at a beautiful, historic, upscale property, for five nights for roughly the welcome offer on a single credit card – and it’s an expensive card, but with a lot of great credits that balance out the fee. In my opinion nothing else in this article really comes close to balancing points versus the experience – as long as you either already have a healthy stash of Membership Rewards points or you’re willing to jump through the hoops to get them.
Any guess where we’ll be staying next time we’re in London?
Runner-up: DoubleTree by Hilton London Kensington – book two rooms
Here’s something quirky: about a decade ago, 100 Queen’s Gate was called the DoubleTree by Hilton London – Kensington. But at some point it was rebranded into the current boutique version and then Hilton opened a different property nearby called DoubleTree by Hilton London Kensington (no dash). The new incarnation has a historic-looking exterior, but the interior is a contemporary, purpose-built hotel.
The new DoubleTree will run you roughly 70,000 points/night per room, or 560,000 Hilton points total for two rooms over five nights (assuming you have status to get the fifth night free). If you’re transferring from Amex, you’d need 280,000 Membership Rewards points or potentially less if you time your transfer for a bonus period.
You’re paying more points than 100 Queen’s Gate for a less distinctive property, but since it was built as a hotel you’ll have better odds of landing adjoining or same-floor rooms and having elevator access. You’re trading historic charm for modern convenience, and thankfully the choice is yours.
And naturally you’ll also get a nearly-endless supply of those warm Doubletree cookies!
IHG One Rewards
IHG – the parent company of Intercontinental, Kimpton, Holiday Inn and more – is a little different from the other three programs in an important way: you’ll almost always want to earn their points directly rather than transferring them from a bank’s program. Chase technically transfers to IHG, but I don’t recommend it because there are much higher-value uses for Chase points.
Top pick: Holiday Inn London – Bloomsbury
We walked by the Holiday Inn London – Bloomsbury on our way to The British Museum. It’s in a relatively convenient area, though the hotel itself isn’t going to win any awards for charm. But if you’re sitting on a pile of IHG points and just want a place to stay in London with your kids, it’s worth considering.
The room: You’ll book into a Double Bed + Sofa Bed, which is a true single-room configuration that (theoretically) sleeps four. I’m not gonna lie, this room looks tight – it’s about half the size of the room we had at The Standard.
How to book it cheapest: Ordinarily this room runs around 350,000 for five nights. However, just holding one of IHG’s credit cards gives you the fourth night free when you book on points! That brings the cost down to around 280,000-300,000 – IHG’s points rates are incredibly variable and you get the literal fourth night free, so some travelers who are flexible adjust their stay so that the fourth night will be the most expensive.
Another great benefit of the $99 IHG credit cards is that you’ll get an annual free night certificate worth up to 40,000 points, but you can “top off” with however many extra points you need to stay at any hotel. So if I were booking this stay, I’d price out using my certificate for either the first or fifth night (whatever is cheapest when accounting for the 4th night free benefit). Taking into account all of those tricks, you’re at 240,000-260,000 IHG points (give or take) for the whole stay.
While the standard welcome offer on the IHG personal and business credit cards is 140,000 points, a few times per year you’ll see something better – whether that’s 200,000 points or a handful of free night certificates that total close to 200,000 points. Just remember that redeeming free night certificates doesn’t get you the fourth night free, so you may not prefer that type of welcome offer.
Would I pursue this route of opening two IHG credit cards specifically to book this room at this hotel? Probably not. If I was going to stick with IHG I’d rather book something nicer with bigger rooms like Hotel Indigo in Kensington using my Capital One Venture X card (perhaps even through Capital One Travel to use my annual $300 credit) – and then cover the cost with points… but more on that strategy in a minute.
If you’re an IHG lover and you feel like I’ve misrepresented the possibilities, please let me know in the comments!
Runner-up: Crowne Plaza London – Kings Cross
If you don’t care for the Bloomsbury option, you could also book into the Crowne Plaza London – Kings Cross. You’ll get a 2 Double Premium room, which also sleeps four people and is a little bit larger.
It requires a similar number of points as the Holiday Inn (could be a little more or a little less depending on the specific dates). It’s a little further from King’s Cross than The Standard, but still basically well-connected to transit.
Marriott Bonvoy
I’ll say this honestly: for a family of four in London, Marriott is close to the worst value in this entire comparison – unless you get really really lucky.
But I know some of you out there probably have a healthy stash of Marriott points, and I can’t really exclude the world’s largest hotel chain from this comparison. And I did find a few gems to highlight.
And as you can see in the photo above, Marriott has some of the most beautiful hotels in the city like the St. Pancras London, Autograph Collection.
But heads up: from an IT perspective, something is amiss at Marriott. When you search for four people it returns all of the hotels that can accommodate four in a room but the prices are not transparent. For example, the lovely Sheraton Grand Park Lane shows 393,000 points for the whole stay in the search results… but omits the £2,500 cash component of the price. If you see a high-end brand like Autograph Collection with shockingly low points listed, that’s probably the issue. Not helpful at all.
But one nice thing about Marriott is that they do let you book a variety of room types on points (at different rates, naturally). Some brands like IHG don’t make their larger rooms available on points at all, so I’ll give credit where it’s due.
Top pick: London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square
I almost didn’t look at London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square since Mayfair felt like it’d be out of budget on points, but it turned out to be a little better than I thought – and it just finished a full renovation last year (unlike many of the more dated Marriott properties around town). It’s not the cheapest Marriott for families in London, but it may be the best value given the area and the quality of the hotel.
It’s also a prime location: you’re smack in the middle of the city, just minutes from Oxford Street, Hyde Park, and Buckingham Palace. And the hotel sits on the Elizabeth, Central, and Jubilee lines with a direct Elizabeth Line run to Heathrow.
The room: You’ll book a Superior Room with two double beds and a view onto Grosvenor Square. The rooms are mid-sized by London standards and they have doubles rather than queens, but they look lovely and should work very well with younger or smaller kids.
How to book it cheapest: Five nights runs around 476,000 points – like IHG, the points prices move around a lot depending on cash rates. Similar to Hilton and IHG you’re getting a night for free, but the difference is that anyone booking with Marriott points can take advantage of that promotion!
But if you aren’t already sitting on a big pile of Marriott points, here’s the problem across this whole section: Amex Membership Rewards and Chase Ultimate Rewards both transfer to Marriott at a base 1:1 ratio – half of Hilton’s ratio from Amex. If you’re prepared to burn a half-million transferable points on a five night stay in London you might as well just book two rooms at the Park Hyatt and you’d still have points left over.
The redeeming factor is that a few times per year both banks offer Marriott transfer bonuses, and they can be very generous: over the past year we’ve seen bonuses as high as 70% from Chase and 30% from Amex, though neither is guaranteed. More recent offers have been 55% (Chase) and 20% (Amex). Even using those more realistic recent numbers, you’re looking at roughly 307,000 Chase points or 397,000 Amex points for this one room setup.
In theory you could open Marriott credit cards to fund a stay like this, but even the biggest welcome offer will only get you halfway there – and with a sizable annual fee.
As a reminder, you would need to spend roughly 200,000–240,000 Amex points to cover the same family across two Hilton rooms. Even at the best bonus levels we’ve seen (70% Chase, 30% Amex), London Marriott Hotel Grosvenor Square needs around 280,000 Chase points or 366,000 Amex points – still more than Hilton’s worst case. Those transfer bonuses help, but as with IHG I don’t find the Marriott options to be especially compelling.
If you like this hotel or another Marriott, often you’re better off booking through the Chase Travel portal if there’s a “points boost” available and you hold a Chase Sapphire/Ink Preferred or Chase Sapphire Reserve (personal or business).
Runner-up: London Marriott Hotel Kensington
If South Kensington’s museum-heavy location suits your family better than Mayfair’s shopping-and-landmarks focus, the London Marriott Hotel Kensington is a good bet. It’s an easy walk to the Natural History Museum, the V&A, and Hyde Park — the same neighborhood as several other picks in this article, though a little further from the action.
The room: You’ll book a Deluxe Family Room, which offers two queen beds in a single room. That feels like a rare find in central London! It’s the trade-off for being a little further out in a more contemporary, standalone hotel.
It’ll cost you about 470,000 Marriott points for five nights with the 5th night free. It’s basically the same price as Grosvenor Square, but you’re trading in the fancier location for a bigger room with bigger beds. As above, with a recent-strength transfer bonus you’re looking at roughly 303,000 Chase points or 392,000 Amex points – or as low as 276,000 Chase / 362,000 Amex if you catch one of the better bonuses we’ve seen this past year.
The Wildcard Option: Capital One Venture X
Everything above requires playing within a specific hotel program’s rules – their room types, their availability, their brand footprint in London, their transfer partners. The Capital One Venture X sidesteps all of that. It earns a flat 2 miles per dollar on everything, and Capital One will let you redeem those miles for a statement credit against any travel purchase made in the last 90 days – any hotel, any Airbnb, any flight, any tour, at a flat rate of 1 cent per mile. (Capital One renamed this from “Purchase Eraser” to “Cover Travel Purchases” a while ago, but the mechanism is the same.)
Like every option, there’s a trade-off: you’ll get exactly 1 cent per point in value. In general I try to redeem those transferable points for closer to 1.5 cents in value, and almost never less than 1.2 cents. But what you’re buying with that lower value is total flexibility – you pick the exact hotel, the exact room, the exact neighborhood, with zero regard for which loyalty program it belongs to (if it belongs to one at all). Especially as kids get bigger and everyone needs more space, it can be a good time to transition into vacation rentals so you aren’t on top of each other and this could be the perfect solution.
There are two ways to do it:
- Charge the stay to your Venture X, then use miles from the welcome offer and everyday spend to erase as much of the balance as you want at 1 cent per mile; or…
- Book directly through the Capital One Travel portal instead, which lets you use the card’s $300 annual travel credit against the booking, and earns 10 points per dollar on hotels or 5 points per dollar on vacation rentals – then erase whatever’s left the same way
Personally I’d lean toward option 2 if you feel confident that you want to redeem your Capital One miles to “erase” your hotel stay – and there’s no shame in that. The Capital One Travel hotel rates are generally solid, and if they’re higher than you see elsewhere you can call in for a price match within 24 hours of booking. I’ve done that several times and received an additional travel credit for the difference (with no expiration!).
Another thing that’s nice is that you can cover as much or as little of the stay with points as you want.
If you’re considering this route, definitely listen to my podcast episode comparing the Venture X and the Sapphire Preferred – a few things have changed since then about the Sapphire Preferred, but the value proposition of the Venture X remains the same. You can listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or right here:
Time for math: The typical welcome offer on the Venture X is a flat 75,000 point bonus after you hit a spending minimum – but don’t forget you’re also earning 2x miles on that same spend as you go. Add the two together and you’ll usually land around 83,000 total miles once you’ve cleared the requirement (sometimes more, up to 120,000, when Capital One runs an elevated offer).
If you find a hotel in the portal that’s $1800, you’ll use your travel credit to cover $300 and charge the remaining $1500 to your card. That’ll earn another 15,000 points, giving you at least 98,000 points that you can use to cover $980 of your hotel charge.
Again, it’s not the highest value you can possibly squeeze out of your points but it’s definitely better than paying full price and can make the high hotel rates in a city like London slightly more palatable. And while the Venture X has a $395 annual fee, that travel credit, the anniversary 10,000 points you get every year, lounge access, rental car status and more easily make up for the cost.
Here are a few properties where you could make this sort of technique pencil out when you need a London hotel for a family of four:
Top pick: Radisson Blu Hotel, London South Kensington (~$1,900 for 5 nights)
At the Radisson Blu Hotel in South Kensington you’ll get 4-star Family Room in a good location, complete with a king bed and a double sofa bed – perfect for younger kids. The rooms are 323 square feet in a restored Grade II-listed townhouse just a few minutes from the Natural History Museum, Hyde Park and more (it’s a half-block from the DoubleTree). At $1,864 charged to the Venture X, that’s 186,400 miles to fully erase the stay – even less if you apply your travel credit by booking through Capital One Travel.
Runner-up: Gem Strathmore Hotel (~$1,800 all-in for 5 nights)
Gem Strathmore Hotel is literally around the corner on the same block as the Radisson Blu and is also a 4-star hotel. There’s Quadruple Room that draws glowing family reviews, especially since it offers a king and two twins! If you have teens or older kids who want their own sleeping spaces (but can still share a bathroom with you), it’s a great pick. Interestingly, this property is bookable on Airbnb for several hundred dollars less than the hotel sites.
Runner-up: Premier Inn Blackfriars (~$1,700 all-in for 5 nights)
The Premier Inn Blackfriars is part of a large chain of mid-priced British hotels. They offer a consistent and positive experience, but nothing that’s going to stick out in the memory books. And that’s ok! Most families are coming to London for all the fun activities, not the place they lay their heads.
The nice thing is that you can get a family quadruple room here what gives each kid their own and the location is convenient for seeing the major sights. But you can also opt for the Premier Inn locations in Tower Hill or County Hall (near the London Eye) and the picture above is going to be exactly the same and prices should be similar.
What’s the best points hotel in London for families?
Honestly? It depends on your kids ages/sizes and what points you’re already sitting on – and I say that as someone who went into this research expecting a cleaner answer.
If you’re an Amex Membership Rewards hoarder, Hilton is a great choice, even before you catch a transfer bonus. The 1:2 ratio does a lot of the work, provided you stick to standard rooms at the less expensive properties. While we’re generally loyal to Hyatt, for our next trip to London I’ll probably watch for a 20% transfer bonus and move some points to Hilton to book 100 Queen’s Gate. We have tons of Amex points from my Business Platinum card and the kids are outgrowing the “one room with two doubles” configuration.
If you’re already on the Chase/Hyatt train – say, you’re chasing Globalist status the way I am – The Standard is a straightforward redemption with the most transit-friendly location on this list. Just know ahead of time about those American-double beds if your kids run tall and be aware of the new transfer ratios for Chase Sapphire Preferred card holders.
If you value choice and flexibility, opt for the Capital One Venture X. It’s definitely a worse value per point compared to a well-timed Hilton transfer or the Hyatt booking our family made, but the Capital One Venture X buys you the freedom to book literally any hotel or Airbnb in London and still turn your everyday spending into a substantial discount on the stay. It’s also a great option if all of the discussion of transfer ratios, special statuses and free night promotions makes your head spin!
Frequently Asked Questions
Several properties across Hyatt, Hilton, IHG, and Marriott have actual single-room configurations for four – look for room names like “Family Room,” “Double + Sofa Bed,” or “2 Double/2 Queen” rather than assuming you need a suite or connecting rooms. The Standard London, Holiday Inn Bloomsbury, and Gem Strathmore Hotel are three solid examples covered above.
It depends entirely on the program. At Hilton, official “family” rooms usually price at a Premium tier, so booking two standard rooms is usually the less expensive option. At Hyatt, IHG, and Marriott, you’ll find some family-friendly configurations that exist and priced below the cost of two smaller rooms.
There’s no universal answer – it depends on which points currency you’re already sitting on. Generally Hyatt requires the fewest points for redemptions that will accommodate a family, but with the recent changes to the Chase Sapphire Preferred transfer ratio you may want to earn directly on a Hyatt credit card or consider upgrading to the Chase Sapphire Reserve if you’ll transfer a lot of points. Hilton offers the strongest value if you’re transferring from Amex Membership Rewards.
Yes, both programs automatically apply a 5th night free benefit on award stays of 5+ consecutive nights. Marriott’s benefit is open to all program members, while Hilton’s requires that you have at least Silver status (available with the no-fee Hilton Honors Amex card or by completing stay/spending requirements).
Unlike Hilton and Marriott, IHG’s 4th-night-free benefit is only available to holders of a $99 IHG co-branded credit card – it isn’t automatic for all members. On a 4-night stay, this effectively gives you 25% off; on longer stays, you’re still only getting one night free for every four nights.
Amex Membership Rewards transfers to Hilton Honors at 1:2 – the strongest ratio among major hotel transfer partners. Watch for periodic transfer bonuses (commonly 20%) before moving points, since they make the value much better.
Wrapping up
Check out these other resources to help you plan your family’s trip to London and beyond:
- Our 5 Day London with Kids Itinerary: Ambitious but Doable
- Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter Tips & Tricks
- London with Kids: What We Loved, What Surprised Us, and What We’ll Do Differently Next Time (Podcast)
- London vs. Azores Recap: A Kid’s Take (Podcast)
- How We Planned London & Azores on Points (Podcast)
- Paris with kids: 5 tips for an amazing family trip to Paris
Thanks for sharing this — the ideas here lined up with what I have been trying lately.