Belfast is a weird place to find a hotel deal lately. A few years ago, you could roll into the city centre on a Tuesday, pay fifty quid, and get a room that didn’t smell like old gym socks. Now? It is a total gamble. I see people bragging about ‘deals’ they found on major booking sites that are actually just the standard rate with a fake strike-through price. It drives me absolutely mental.
I’m not a travel writer. I work in a boring office job and I happen to spend too much time in Belfast because half my family lives there and I refuse to sleep on my aunt’s pull-out sofa anymore. Last November—November 14th to be exact—I had my biggest failure yet. I booked a ‘last minute deal’ at a place near Great Victoria Street for £145. I thought I was being clever. When I got there, the room was so small I had to move the chair just to open the bathroom door, and the window looked out onto a brick wall covered in pigeon mess. I felt like a complete idiot. I’d paid premium prices for a glorified storage closet because I fell for the ‘only 1 room left!’ banner.
The part nobody tells you about the ‘Big’ names
Here is my genuinely unpopular opinion: I think The Merchant is a waste of money. I know, I know. It’s the pride of the city, it’s five stars, it’s ‘iconic.’ Whatever. To me, it feels stuffy and performative. I’d rather stay in a cardboard box than spend £300 to feel like I’m being judged by the furniture. People get blinded by the brand name and think they’re getting a deal if it drops by twenty quid. It’s still too much.
What I mean is—actually, let me put it differently. If you’re looking for a real deal in the city centre, you have to stop looking at the places that try too hard to be ‘cool.’ I’ve stayed at Bullitt a few times, and while the bar is great, the rooms are basically pods. If you’re over six feet tall, it’s a struggle. I’ve started telling my mates to just stick to the boring stuff like the Premier Inn on Alfred Street or the Holiday Inn. They aren’t sexy. They won’t look good on your Instagram. But they are consistent, and they don’t charge you a ‘vibe tax.’
I tracked the pricing of six different city centre hotels over 12 consecutive Tuesdays in the winter of 2023. The direct website price was lower than the major booking engines 72% of the time.
That is a real stat I kept in a spreadsheet because I am that level of petty. The booking sites take a massive cut, so the hotels are literally incentivized to give you a better rate if you just use their clunky, 2005-era websites. It’s annoying, but it works. Worth the effort.
The Sunday Night Secret
If you want a deal, stay on a Sunday. This isn’t revolutionary advice, but nobody actually does it. Belfast on a Sunday night is quiet, a bit moody, and significantly cheaper. I’ve seen the Fitzwilliam—which is actually decent, unlike the Merchant—drop its rates by nearly 40% on a Sunday compared to a Thursday.
Anyway, speaking of Sundays, if you do stay over, go to Maggie Mays and get an Ulster Fry. Don’t go to the fancy brunch places where they put avocado on soda bread. That’s a crime. Just get the grease and the potato bread and be happy. But I digress.
I used to think that staying further out, like near Queen’s University, was the best way to save money. I was completely wrong. By the time you pay for Ubers or spend forty minutes walking in the inevitable Belfast rain, you’ve spent the ‘savings’ anyway. Stay in the centre. Just be smarter about which door you walk into.
Don’t trust the ‘Cathedral Quarter’ hype
I’m going to be blunt: the Cathedral Quarter is a noisy mess if you actually want to sleep. People see ‘deals’ for hotels in that area and think they’re getting the heart of the city. What they’re getting is a front-row seat to a hen party screaming ‘Sweet Caroline’ at 2 AM. If you’re into that, cool. If not, stay closer to City Hall.
I have an irrational hatred for the ETAP hotel. I don’t care if it’s £45. It feels like staying in a plastic spaceship that hasn’t been cleaned since the 90s. I refuse to recommend it to anyone, even if they’re on a shoestring budget. There is a limit to how much ‘deal’ I can handle before it just becomes depressing.
Finding a real bargain here is like trying to find a dry spot in a rainstorm. It’s possible, but you’re probably going to get a bit wet. Look for the boring hotels. Book on their terrible websites. Stay on a Sunday.
Why is it that the most expensive hotels always have the worst Wi-Fi? I’ve never understood that. It’s like they think if you’re rich enough to stay there, you don’t need the internet. Just a thought I had while staring at a buffering screen in a ‘luxury’ lobby last month.
Check the direct sites first. Every time.