I’m going to Beijing for two nights on one of those ~$450 roundtrip business class fares from Washington DC. Usually when I travel alone I stay in hostels, but since I am going to be in the city for such a short period of time anyway, meeting people and making friends isn’t high on my priority list this time. For this reason, I have decided to spend points on a hotel, and here are the five best options I have found in terms of low points cost/good location/good hotel. Note that these are my options of the best points hotels in Beijing, without ever having stayed at any of them. If you’ve stayed at one, please let me know your thoughts! Also, if there’s something that you think should be on this list that’s not… let me know!

Park Plaza Beijing Wangfujing

44,ooo Club Carlson Points/Night (22,000/Night if you have the credit card. Only a good deal in this case.)

This was my top choice for my two-night stay, but unfortunately the points rates were sold out. This hotel has pretty good ratings, 4.2/5 on Google at time of writing, and a pretty good location. This hotel is within walking distance (imo) of The Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, and the Temple of Heaven.

DoubleTree by Hilton Beijing

10,000 Hilton Points/Night

This is a super cheap points redemption for Hilton. I can pretty much only bring myself to redeem Hilton points at category 1 and 2 hotels, since their higher category hotels are so expensive now. At time of writing, this hotel has 4.1/5 rating on Google, which I consider to be acceptable, especially for this number of points. While this hotel costs less, it is not in walking distance of as many sites. Beijing’s subway system is pretty good, assuming you can figure out where you’re going, so this isn’t necessarily a deal breaker for me.

Crowne Plaza Beijing Sun Palace

20,000 IHG Points/Night

Honestly, 20,000 IHG points/night is a little bit steep for me. I usually use my IHG points for PointBreaks hotels… like this one. I can stay four nights at a PointBreaks hotel for this same price, so spending 40,000 points for two nights when it could be eight is painful. For this reason, I will probably not stay here. However… it does have a 4.3/5 Google rating, and looks to be a very nice hotel. I find Crowne Plazas to be hit or miss sometimes, but this one I would bet is a hit. This one is also not quite as great in terms of being walking distance to many of the sites, which is something I value especially on such a short trip.

Crowne Plaza Beijing Wangfujing

20,000 IHG Points/Night

See above regarding the pricing, the same thing applies here. This hotel is rated slightly lower on Google, 4.1/5, but is in a pretty phenomenal location. Many downtown Beijing attractions are within 3km of this hotel. If I were going to choose between this hotel and the above, I would likely choose this hotel for people that plan to stay downtown, and the above hotel for people who plan to venture away from Beijing (e.g. Great Wall, Summer Palace).

Holiday Inn Express Temple of Heaven

10,000 IHG Points/Night

At only 10,000 points/night, this hotel may end up being the winner for my trip. It has a 4.3/5 rating on Google, and is walking distance to almost all of the major downtown Beijing sites. One place I am really hoping to visit is the Summer Palace, as that is something I missed on my last trip, but all of these hotels would require transit there.

 

What do you think? Did you book the mistake fare to Beijing? Where are you planning to stay? I’m flying out April 5 and back April 8, if anyone is traveling in the area at that time, please let me know!