Revealed: The destinations where five-star hotels cost less than £200

Telegraph

19 hours ago

The cost of booking a five-star hotel is getting cheaper in Dublin, Orlando and Las Vegas, according to a new report.
Crunching year-on-year data across tens of thousands of hotels, the Hotels.com 2025 Hotel Price Index also shows that domestic five-star hotels are, on average, cheaper than international rooms.
Let's take a dive into the data, to see where your money will stretch the furthest in 2025.
Five-star hotels for under £200
The cost of a five-star hotel in Kuala Lumpur averages £108 per night, Bangkok is £123 per night, Prague £136 per night, Istanbul £137 per night and Doha is £173 per night.
Mumbai (£148.57), Sharm El Sheikh (£110.81) and New Delhi (£136.08) are also listed as destinations where luxury hotels are more affordable.
The report notes, however, that there is no universal star rating system and that travellers should be aware of a possible disparity in standards across different countries. The star rating used in the report is the one quoted on Hotels.com, rather than a legacy institution such as AA Hotel and Hospitality Services.
To cross-check this data, The Telegraph has crunched the average starting rate (according to booking.com) of the hotels ranked 8, 9 or 10 out of 10 according to our experts across the five above-listed destinations.
Where your money will stretch further
The report flags Orlando (-7 per cent), Las Vegas (-4 per cent) and Dublin (-4 per cent) as cities where the cost of overall hotel prices are coming down. Amsterdam, Brussels and Istanbul are also down 2 per cent year on year.
On the flip side, room rates are increasing in Tokyo (+15 per cent), Seville (+13 per cent) and Madrid (+13 per cent). Predictably, some of the most expensive average five-star hotel rates in the report include Paris (£505 per night), New York City (£431.70) and London (£306).
The report flags Bangkok (an average room rate of £77 per night) and Krakow (average daily rate of £90 per night) as examples of cities where the holiday pound will stretch further in 2025. However, it is worth noting that these average figures include one-star properties such as basic hostels. The average price of a room considered acceptable to most tourists will be higher than this figure.
The cheaper corners of the UK
On average, five-star room rates in the UK are cheaper than overseas, according to the report. On average, the price of a five-star stay in the UK is £177 compared to £222 per night outside of the UK.
Some of the most affordable corners of the UK include Brighton (rooms average £106 per night), Cardiff (£150), York (£170), Manchester (£171), Bath (£193) and Newcastle (£195). The more expensive five-star hotels are found in Edinburgh (average £261), St Andrews (£253) and Windermere (£251).
However, the most expensive destination in the UK for five-star hotels is London, which has recently witnessed the rise of the £1,000-per-night room. In 2024, the new Raffles at the OWO (Old War Office) opened with rooms starting from £1,100. The cost of a typical room in a luxury hotel in the capital has risen 111 per cent since 2009, according to CoStar, compared to the nationwide average rise of 61 per cent.
The cost of a star upgrade
The report shows that the cost of 'up-starring' a hotel is most effective when moving from a three-star to a four-star hotel. On average, a four-star is 41 per cent higher than a three-star room. However, five-star hotels cost, on average, 63 per cent more than four-star hotels.
How to find cheap hotel rates
Telegraph Travel listings
Telegraph Travel has more than 10,000 hotel reviews written by our expert writers. If you know which destination you would like to visit, you can filter these by price. For example, if you browse our Rome hotels page you can filter by 'low to high' to find the Mama Shelter Roma, rated 9/10, with rooms starting from just £123 per night.
Use a comparison site
Comparison sites are powerful ways to quickly find hotels in your desired price bracket. While we mostly associate it with flight comparisons, Skyscanner has a decent hotel comparison tool, as does Kayak which allows you to filter by ambience (for example, 'family' or 'eco-friendly').
Then, check direct
After finding the best price on a comparison site, it is always worth seeking out the hotel's website to see how this compares to the official room rate. Some hoteliers, particularly of independent outfits, say that it is worth contacting them directly if you find a better deal online – sometimes, they will be willing to match or better it on a one-off basis, and you may find that things like breakfast are included when booking directly.
Uncover 'secret' hotels
So-called secret hotels have been around for a while now, popularised by sites like lastminute.com. In these you will book an unknown hotel based on its rough location and star rating, which will be revealed only after booking. Historically it has been fairly easy to discover the identity of the 'secret' hotel: if you just copy and paste the description into a search engine or an AI tool, it will usually tell you the result.
Members-only sites
There are members-only websites such as Secret Escapes and TravelZoo that offer discounts on luxury hotels. The snag is that these deals usually sell out or expire quite quickly, and some subscription sites now charge for an annual membership. TravelZoo, for example, costs £30 per year, although you can join a 30-day trial for £1.
Book a package
Flight prices are exceptionally steep during peak holiday periods, particularly school holidays. It is worth checking to see if your desired hotel can be booked as part of a flight-plus-hotel or all-inclusive package deal with a reputed ATOL-protected provider: Trailfinders, Destination2, Kuoni, Hays Travel and Jet2 Holidays ranked highest in the most recent Which? survey.