Pretty good London packages on Priceline

[WillTravel]

I've taken a look at some London packages on Priceline for this summer, mostly out of SEA but also out of other cities to see if the deals are across the board. For at least some of the dates that I have looked at in July and August, you can get pretty good prices for the airfare/hotel combination. The best deals are with Millennium Gloucester and Millennium Bailey, both 4* hotels in the Kensington zone. I've done various calculations and I can't say exactly how these are put together, but it looks like stays of 12 days or so offer the best deal overall.

For example, for a trip from July 28 - August 10 (12 nights) you can get a package for 1 adult and 1 child (age 2-17) for $2774 USD. The cheapest conventional airfare at the moment for that route is about $965/per person. That means the hotel averages out at $70 per night, including all taxes and fees - a much better deal than you could get if you bid for the hotel. Of course it's quite likely the airfare will drop between now and July, if you keep watching sales, but probably not by more than $200.

That long a stay tends to be hard to get by bidding on Priceline, and I think the airfare + hotel combo almost certainly comes out cheaper than buying the airfare conventionally and then bidding for the hotel on Priceline. Of course it's quite possible that if you bid for the airfare and then bid for the hotel separately, you might come out ahead by a little bit. I know there are other ways of looking at it - but it does look like a good deal to me.

By comparison, the London packages on Expedia are considerably more expensive for considerably inferior hotels.

I'm not going to book this now, but it's worth looking at if you want to visit London this summer.

I would like it even better if Priceline let you combine two cities!