Hotel Review: Radisson Blu Edwardian Grafton Hotel, London

These hotels tend to occupy notable buildings with protected facades and interiors that have been redone to Radisson Blu’s contemporary standards.

Whether you are paying for a room night or redeeming Radisson Rewards points, this hotel offers plenty of value compared to properties closer to the tourist center. With public transportation around London so easy, this hotel proves to be a great option.

In Fitzrovia, on Grafton Street and just a short walk from Euston and King’s Cross stations, this hotel is about an hour or so from London Heathrow Airport via the Tube. It can be reached even faster (40-50 minutes) when taking the Heathrow Express.

It is a pleasant walk to shopping centers like Oxford and Regent Streets, or to tourist spots like the British Museum or Big Ben.

Being a historic 19th century building, the design is atmospheric yet compact. For example, the lobby is quite small. As guests enter the building, there is not much more than the reception desk and a small seating area.

As you move through the hotel, you will discover the restaurant and meeting areas are on different floors. In all, there is not much public space.

Guest rooms, too, are down winding hallways that are common in older buildings that were converted to a hotel. While the hallways, building façade and interiors prove a few decades old, the guest rooms have been substantially updated.

Guests have one main restaurant and bar to tend to their needs. This is where breakfast is served each morning, which may be included in some rates. Lunch and dinner draw in locals.

Though there’s no famous touristy view, the service and menu are both lovely enough to earn repeat business. And passersby on the street provide plenty of entertainment during the meal on their own, proving that this is, indeed, a neighborhood bistro.

In fact, during our visit, many customers proffered that they were repeat customers who entertain clients or visit here often. The restaurant is a former Aston Martin showroom, having exchanged luxury cars for top-notch cuts of beef and seafood.

Guest rooms vary in size and bed type based on their position in the building. Given its history, the layout varies door by door, with some king rooms being larger than others. All have beds with soft duvets, 350-thread count linens, pillowtop Vispring mattresses produced in Britain and standard storage space.

Bathrooms have combination tubs and vanities with scented REN Clean Skincare toiletries dispensed by wall-mounted pump bottles. Heated towel racks warm the terrycloth after a bath or shower. Robes and slippers are also in place.

In addition to the standard meeting space (the largest in the neighborhood, with 11 distinct spaces that can hold as many as 150 people), the hotel offers a 24-hour fitness center with Technogym equipment, but there is no spa.

Most guests here are in and out for work or exploring the area. This is not the kind of place you tuck into for a dip in the pool or some luxuriation in the spa.

London Heathrow Airport is one of the busiest airports in the world and easy to reach via public transportation. For many, this is the best way to get to the hotel, as traffic can slow down a private car.

When it comes to redeeming Radisson Rewards points for a stay here, the Radisson Blu brand also uses dynamic pricing. This means that the price in points will be tied to the cash cost. On the dates we checked, the lowest cost in points was just over 100,000 points per night.

Many major North American carriers service London Heathrow, giving flyers ample opportunity to book flights with points and miles. Similar to the hotel loyalty program’s use of dynamic pricing, the amount of miles you need for an award flight will be tied in some way to the cash cost of the ticket.

For example, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines use dynamic pricing instead of award charts. This makes it tough to know how many miles you will need to save up unless you know the specific dates of your trip.

On the dates we checked, you could get an economy ticket using American AAdvantage miles from New York to London for as low as 22,500 miles in economy one-way or 57,500 miles in business class one-way. Just beware of the high taxes and fees that some carriers charge.

Delta SkyMiles charges significantly more; one-way tickets start at 33,000 miles for a basic economy award ticket and 170,000 miles for a ticket in Delta One (first class).