Early this year, I started planning a spontaneous romantic city getaway with my LD. I had originally booked the Waldorf Astoria in Chicago, the only major city anywhere near us. But then I happened to come across the soon-to-open LondonHouse Chicago, Curio Collection by Hilton (if you’re wondering what Curio Collection is, see Hilton’s detailed introduction). One look at the photos and I was blown away, so I immediately canceled the Waldorf and rebooked London House instead. Unfortunately, London House didn’t open until around September, so we had to push the stay back to our October fall break.
Here’s one of London House’s official promo photos. Gorgeous, right? (It’s the first building on the left.)
Once we decided to stay in Chicago over fall break, the next question was whether to pay cash or redeem points for one night. I checked the room rate for 10.20: paying cash, even with the Hilton member discount, would have come to about $450 after taxes. On points, though, this hotel was a Category 8 property and required 70,000 points. I value 10,000 Hilton points at roughly $50, so 70,000 points comes out to about $350. Clearly, redeeming points was the better deal, so I quickly booked a 1 king bed room with points.
Why do I say 10,000 points are worth around $50? Because Hilton often runs buy-one-get-one-style promotions on points purchases: pay $100 for 10,000 points and get another 10,000 points free. Personally, I don’t think a higher category automatically means you should pay cash. Sometimes redeeming points is the much better value. I’m ignoring cases where you’d earn a certain percentage back through a credit card, or where Hilton is running extra bonus-point promotions on paid stays. At the end of the day, points are only useful when you actually use them. If you never redeem them, they’re just numbers in your account, and having more of them doesn’t mean much. I have a friend who refuses to use his points, and now he has more than 600,000 Hilton points sitting in his account… I really don’t think that makes sense. If you leave hotel points unused for too long, they can easily keep getting devalued.
Once the hotel was booked, all that was left was to wait for fall break. The wait was torture, since I’d been looking forward to a little romantic luxury getaway so much XD
Finally, after two miserable weeks of midterms, my girlfriend and I set off for Chicago. We had yakiniku for lunch at Gyu-Kaku, then rushed straight to the hotel. The location is extremely easy to spot, right across from Trump Tower, in a somewhat classical-looking building that isn’t especially tall. The entrance itself isn’t very obvious—a small doorway, with two doormen opening the door for us. On the first floor there’s only a small front desk area with one staff member standing there. I was just thinking, wow, this is way more understated than I expected, when the staff member smiled and directed us upstairs to the second floor to check in.
You can see that London House has an excellent location overlooking the Chicago River.
Sure enough, once we got to the second floor, there was a stylish, modern, slightly luxurious lobby on the left. We checked in smoothly at the dedicated Hilton member counter and got room 1701. (The day before, when I was checking rooms on mobile via digital check-in, I noticed that London House guest rooms only go up to the 19th floor. Room 1701 was the only room left with a direct view of Trump Tower, and it was also closest to the elevator, so I asked for it at check-in the next day. Why didn’t I just complete digital check-in? Because I thought if I checked in face to face, maybe my Hilton Diamond status might get me an upgrade. Unfortunately, the hotel was fully booked, so no upgrade was possible….)
(I forgot to take a lobby photo, so I found one online to fill in here :mrgreen:)
After check-in, we headed to the elevators on the right side of the hallway, and I had a pretty funny moment there. A staff member had just stepped out of one elevator, so my LD and I rushed straight in. Then we realized there were no buttons inside, and I just froze. My LD reacted faster and started looking around for somewhere to tap the room key, but couldn’t find anything. So we had to step back out. That’s when we noticed a screen next to the elevator, along with what looked like a card sensor. I quickly tapped my room key on the sensor, and the screen showed the number 17 along with the assigned elevator letter: C. At that point, we got into elevator C and it took us directly to our floor. There’s also a display on the first floor showing which elevator is on which floor—probably to help the staff manage elevator traffic.
It looked like there were 6 elevators total for hotel guests. Once you’re on your floor, if you want to go down to the first floor or up to the 21st floor for breakfast, you just enter the number on a screen.
When we reached the 17th floor, our room was right next to the elevator. After entering, there was first a small empty entry area. On the right side of the door was a switch: press it once and the lights come on; press it again and they slowly fade out. Further inside, the bathroom was on the right. At first glance, I thought: wow, that toilet looks pretty fancy….
The toilet felt a little too awkward to photograph, so I didn’t. The bathroom door is this kind of sliding door that you can’t see through.
Further in, there was a large bed placed right in the center, a desk beside it, and a TV mounted on the opposite wall. In this 1 king bed room, the layout felt compact but not cramped. In the corner display area and above the headboard were several art pieces, which gave the room a very artistic feel.
The London House booklet included a bit of the property’s history, along with pricing and details for the hotel’s dining options and services.
When we walked in, the curtains were already open. From the 17th floor, we were facing the big “TRUMP” sign on Trump Tower directly, so compared to some of Chicago’s other high-rise hotels, London House definitely isn’t a property that wins purely on height.
After leaving the hotel, I spent the afternoon shopping with my LD along Michigan Avenue. Since we were still full from lunch and also wanted to catch some Chicago night views, we went up the John Hancock building and stopped by the 96th-floor Signature Lounge for a cocktail and some tortilla chips. Watching night fall over the city really showed off Chicago at its most vibrant.
The sign for the John Hancock building? It looked pretty cool.
This one was my favorite: classic Chicago scenery right along Lake Michigan.
After dinner, on our way back, I took a photo of the star of this post—London House—facing Trump Tower from afar.
After we got back, we were exhausted from walking around all day, so my LD and I took showers and went straight to bed. Before closing the curtains, I took one more shot of Trump Tower.
You can vaguely make out the cars parked in the lower levels across the way—basically all luxury cars.
Only after showering did I remember to take a photo of the toiletries, haha. London House used Malin+Goetz, a brand I’d never heard of before. My LD gave me a whole lecture on it, but now I’ve forgotten most of it—all I remember is that it’s supposed to be a super stylish, very cool New York skincare brand… (honestly, they all seem kind of similar to me).
The next morning, with it almost 10 o’clock already, my LD and I got up in a rush and headed straight to the 21st floor for breakfast. The staff at the entrance saw the breakfast vouchers in our hands and immediately led us to a table. After a little while, the server assigned to us came over. Not only did he introduce the breakfast options, he also enthusiastically recommended places to visit in Chicago. The service was genuinely excellent. The only downside was that the American breakfast buffet was pretty much the same as at other hotels: bread, bread, and more bread… really not my thing. So my LD and I each ordered an omelet instead. The first two fillings were free (I picked mushrooms and sausage), and we were charged only for the omelet itself, about $14. If you wanted to add more fillings, it was $4 each. We also ordered two glasses of orange juice. The omelets were quite good. Compared to all that bread, eggs were definitely the real winner for me. When it was time to settle the bill, the server saw our two free breakfast vouchers, smiled, took them, and covered the entire charge—about $44 total—with no tip required.
The hallway outside the elevators on the 17th floor.
At checkout, I asked the front-desk guy if I could keep the room key. He immediately handed me a new unused card. Such a simple little gesture, but it honestly made my day.
Even the room key had a nice feel to it XD
About five days after we got back, the detailed points posting for the stay showed up. Since I had used my AMEX Surpass card to guarantee the reservation, I still earned the AMEX bonus points even though the stay itself wasn’t charged to the card!
And with that, I’ll wrap up this review of LondonHouse Chicago, Curio Collection by Hilton with one final daytime shot of the hotel.
