I have no idea where to stay. All the places people have recommended are booked or way out of our price range. I'd like to stay north of the city (Bloomsbury, Hampstead) a bit if possible. I'm looking at nice, clean, and quiet hotels preferrably under $130/night for a six night stay at the end of Sept. I'm leary of Priceline, but will opt for that as a last resort. I've tried the various hotel sites people have suggested, too. I find a hotel that looks nice in the pics, fits our budget, but then get negative comments at Trip Advisor. Please help as I'm at my wits end!

Try the Kensington Close Hotel. Its clean simple and in a good neighborhood. Actually Priceline gets some great deals in London. Look at the sight biddingfortravel.com and you will see what hotels Priceline offers plus what people have recently won.

Also try londontown.com for some great deals!

Try Earls Court area--I like it better than Bloomsbury and its closer Heathrow. There are lots of pubs and shops in area and the tube has 2 lines district and piccadilly. There are websites do a search--I think its www.london.world.stay.com--then look for the areas--

Plus most hotels are well under 100.00lbs you can get them for 75.00 lbs inc brkfast but most brkfast is coffee and toast and hard rolls but there are 2 coffee shops in the area that have coffee and scones -bagels etc

I recently returned from a month in europe and used priceline.com for most of my accommodation bookings. I stayed at the Royal Court Apartments at the beginning of the trip and then the Thistle Kensington Palace at the end of the trip, for each place I was paying only 50USD per night. I found that with all of my priceline reservations superior rooms had been booked for me which was fantastic. The only drawback with using priceline is that you don't know what hotel you will be booked with until your bid has been accepted and your credit card has been charged. On the plus side you pick the area of the city and the star level of hotel that you bid for.
As a point of reference the room that I was given at the Thistle went for about 200 pounds a night - I was paying 50 bucks....
If you do decide to go with priceline, please do make sure that you read through biddingfortravel.com before you place a bid - the site will give you tips and all of the ins and outs of using priceline.
I used priceline for accommodation in London, York, Edinburgh, Bath, and Barcelona and will not hesitate to use it again when I travel abroad. The amount of money I saved was astronomical.
I was leary of priceline as well but since I was travelling alone instead of the with the friend who usually goes with me I needed to save some $$ on hotels. When my first bid went through it was a great hotel in a good location so I used priceline again. I was bidding at the two star level and in each case my star rating was upgraded and I ended up staying in three, four, and even one five star hotel.
Please let me know if I can give you any more info, and have a wonderful time in London once you get there!

I should clarify - I was paying 50 USD for my hotels in London, the prices for the other cities varied from 60-75 USD...

This is a very good resource - - http://www.smoothhound.co.uk/london-central-price.html - - and you can sort it by price (descending only, the lower priced hotels will be at the bottom).

Best wishes,

Rex

The Regency in South Kensington was very nice.

I book many people into the Pembridge Palace. The location is good and the price is very affordable..rooms clean.
You can find more info on their website at www.pembridgehotel.co.uk

I've already sugested you the Academy Town House. Don't know the exact dates of your trip but I just checked and they have availability for the last eweek of September with a rate of 84,26 GBP breakfast included. It'a a very nice hotel with a tarif hard to beat. You'd better check it again in the special offers.

Tia, these are all good suggestions. As we've been saying, Priceline IS your best bet. Also, I suggested Lastminute.com & LateRooms.com yesterday. While Hampstead is lovely, it's not really IN London. Unless you're visiting friends near there, Kensington, South Kensington, Mayfair, Covent Garden & Bloomsbury are better options. If you post your exact dates, maybe we can help with specifics.

Thanks for all the help!! I'm looking into each suggestion. I am seriously considering Priceline at this point. One more night of pouring through all the info and then we'll decide one way or another tomorrow. The specific dates we need are as follows: Sept. 28 thru 10/4. Any more ideas?

... In February this year, stayed at the Rubens at the Palace in London, 39 Buckingham Place Rd. for L99 and VAT 17.5%. Booked the room for our last three nights, on line. The hotel provided an email confirmation very quickly. It was a very nice place, convenient to everything we had time to revisit. The hotel handled our transfer to the airport. Very good people.

Tia, I just plugged your dates into londontown.com and came up with some fabulous deals (all 4* hotels):

Selfridge and Thistle Victoria at 83 GBP
Millennium Gloucester and Millennium Baileys at 85 GBP
Copthorn Tara at 73 GBP

Perhaps you could do better at Priceline, but the above rates are excellent for 4* properties in London.