An airport hotel room... with a fireplace?

When you book a room at an airport hotel, you’re usually looking for a convenient location – and not much else.  And in most cases, that’s what you can expect to get.  It seems that the service most often promoted to guests at airport hotels is reliable wake-up calls, but The Inn at Oyster Point in South San Francisco, California is looking to change that.

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The news is that New York City is getting its very own non-airport 669 room Yotel, and that too in Times Square, in a 25-storey tower on the corner of 42nd Street and 10th Avenue.

Yotel

Now what’s a Yotel? That would be a purplish airport hotel, offering cheap and tiny pods for stopovers.

There are Yotels already open in London, at Gatwick and Heathrow, and in Amsterdam, at Schipol. So how come it overshot JFK or Newark and crash-landed in Times Square?

THe FT informs us that the New York Yotel will be opening in 2011 as part of an $800m residential complex development.

Rather than offering brief stopover accomodations, this Yotel will be much more of a conventional hotel, charging  $200-$250 for capsules twice the size of a standard airport Yotel room.

It will also have a business lounge, bar, restaurant and outside terrace. And the trademark motorised beds and purple mood lighting. Wouldn’t be a Yotel without that.

There’s also two more non-airport Yotels about to open in Central London.

Photo courtesy Yotel Ltd. (www.yotel.com/)

Related posts:-
The Pod Skips Across the Atlantic to London
Sleep Units at San Francisco International Airport

Spending the night in a hotel before your flight might help you save money at the airport.

Airport parking is expensive.  Long term parking can cost as much as $25 per day at airports in major cities like Chicago, which would add an extra $175 to your budget for a week long vacation.

Granted, you could always ask a friend to drive you to the airport and pick you up when you return home, but that’s difficult to do if you live an hour or more away from your nearest airport.  You could find an off site lot and pay a little less, but you’re still looking at $5-$10 a day plus an extra shuttle ride back to your car after you get home.

Another option may be to check into a nearby airport hotel.  Many airport hotels offer free parking with an overnight stay and free shuttle rides to and from the airport.  If you have an early morning flight, spending the night at a conveniently located hotel the night before can also give you a couple of extra hours of sleep and reduce the risk of you missing your flight due to unexpected traffic delays.  If your return flight is scheduled to land late in the evening, you may be able to get free parking in advance of an end-of-trip overnight stay.

Of course, if you’re looking to save money on parking fees by spending the night in a hotel, you’ll want to check that the hotel doesn’t charge for guest parking.  Look around for hotels near the airport you’ll be flying out of and call to confirm their parking rates and shuttle availability.

Photo credit lrargerich on Flickr.

Hilton London Gatwick Airport Hotel

Do you live on the west coast?  Do you travel to Europe and want a better way to make that transfer to the continent? During my most recent visit to Europe, we took our standard nonstop flight from San Francisco International to London Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom. However this time, rather than the pricier route, we took a different less expensive flight out of Gatwick Airport to the coast of Spain, adding a day to each end of our trip.

In order to make our transfer smooth, we decided to take advantage of staying at the only hotel located within the South Terminal at London’s Gatwick Airport. The Hilton London Gatwick Hotel is literally on the airport property, and you can walk from within the hotel through a covered walkway into the South Terminal.  However if you are flying from the North Terminal, you have a nice hotel option as well.  Since we were traveling during November and there were thunderstorms, we loved being able to roll our luggage to check in without worry.

How could our stay get any better? We booked our room paying in advance, and saved 20% off of their best rate. And by the end of our stay, we decided to become Hilton HHonors members. Read More »