Best cheap hotels for under £100

Our undercover inspectors stay at hundreds of UK hotels to bring you honest and impartial reviews you can trust.

And we’ve experienced enough terrible budget hotels in our time (we’re looking at you, Britannia) to know when we’re getting real value for money. Our best cheap hotels for less than £100 prove that cheap can also mean cheerful. All hotels listed here got three stars or more from our reviewers. 

We completed stays at the hotels included within the past two years. Prices are for a Saturday night (peak price) and correct at the time of publication. All scores are out of five.

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The Bell Inn, Essex, England

Peak price £85

Check rates at the Bell Inn with booking.com

Score 3.5

A blue plaque proclaims that a gentleman was burned at the stake in the courtyard of The Bell Inn. Now, that same paved terrace is festooned with fairy lights. Set in the quaint village of Horndon on the Hill, this family-run 15th-century coaching inn, with its open fire and half-timbered walls, is as olde worlde as it gets. More rooms can be found in the Georgian annexe up the street; there’s a picnic lawn backing on to scenic green fields, with the jarringly industrial Thames Estuary cranes just visible in the distance. 

Rooms: Cheap Snug rooms still have room for a king-size bed. Or splurge on a Super Comfy: ours had a glass-tiled open-plan bathroom. The (mercifully more discreet) separate toilet is tucked under the eaves (watch your head if you’re long-legged). Elsewhere, there are bags of room and character. We especially loved the back-lit beams and original cast-iron fireplace.

Food and drink: There are ales on pump, an extensive wine list and a creative locally sourced menu. Breakfast is served in the Ostlers – a separate brasserie-style restaurant – with continental options right up to the classic full English. 

Our verdict: Innovative food in a frozen-in-time setting and the price is right, too.

Reviewed May 2023.

Revolver, Glasgow 

Peak price £86 

Check rates at Revolver with booking.com

Score 3

On first impression, Revolver – located in Glasgow’s fashionable Merchant City – looks and sounds less like a hotel and more like a nightclub. Disco music pumps out of the door and the entrance hall is brightly lit with a Run Away With Me neon sign. Newly opened in 2023, it’s next door to the lively LGBTQ+ Polo Lounge. 

Rooms: Thankfully, our en-suite double was a calmer space with simple Scandi furniture, geometric soft furnishings and cheeky drag queen artwork. We could have done without the overpowering essential oil diffuser, though. Ear plugs were provided, but we had no need for them on our Monday night stay. Shared accommodation is also available in bunk bed dormitories (£32) or Japanese-style pods (£49). 

Food and drink: Breakfast options include granola and yoghurt or a bacon roll with coffee. A juice and salad bar serves street food throughout the day, such as nasi goreng, with disposable wooden cutlery. Despite an impressive collection of designer lighting, the eating and relaxing area – with its sumptuous velvet and leather sofas – is too dark to read a newspaper. And be aware that the loud music resumes at 8am.

Our verdict: The party atmosphere of Revolver won’t be for everyone, but this great-value city centre hotel is worth considering for the excellent price.

Reviewed January 2023.

The Boathouse, Norfolk, England

Peak price £100

Check rates at the Boathouse with booking.com

Score 3

Hidden down a dead-end track, this revamped old boozer – offering rooms and woodland lodges on the banks of serene Ormesby Broad – is a great base for exploring the waterways and the wild Norfolk coast. There’s more than a nod to the nautical, with mounted wooden paddles and sepia Broadland art. The knockout view is best enjoyed from the picnic tables out front. Or gravitate towards the large bay windows in the cosily mismatched pub/restaurant.

Rooms: Four of the six guest rooms in the main building have views over the water (ours, styled with teak lattice and cream vintage furniture, overlooked fields). Despite the dingy lighting, we couldn’t ignore the dust lodged in the headboard – or the heat set to stifling, the competing air-con spluttering in defeat. But the king-size bed was comfy and the bathtub enticingly deep.

Food and drink: It has its own locally brewed beers on tap and a large menu of British classics, including gastro choices. Breakfast is cooked to order – the eggs royale and glossy hollandaise are better executed than the washed-out scrambled eggs. It doesn’t serve food (except breakfast) on Mondays.

Our verdict: A good-value and surprisingly down-to-earth bolthole given the ostentatious view.

Reviewed March 2023.

The George Hotel, Inveraray, Scotland

Peak price £103 

Check rates at the George Hotel with booking.com

Score 4

It’s a bit cheeky to include the George Hotel in our round-up, as it's £3 over our £100 budget, but those £3 go a long way. Near Loch Fyne, this convivial hostelry has been owned by the Clark family since 1860. And on our visit, Kris, who’s currently at the helm, chatted with locals, overnight guests and four Austrians who had travelled to Inveraray to tour the neo-Gothic castle. A former coaching inn, the George has an atmospheric cocktail bar, which is the main dining area – it still has its original 18th-century stone walls and flagstone floor, as well as settle benches and a crackling open fire. Meals are also served in the modern, light conservatory. 

Rooms: Access to the main building’s 18 bedrooms is up a winding, tartan-carpeted staircase and along creaky corridors filled with antiques and oil paintings. Our standard room had a spacious en suite bathroom with a walk-in shower, and two love seats in a ‘chit chat corner’. Book the Merchant’s Suite for a raised spa bath, double rainfall shower and wood-burning stove. 

Food and drink: Food is served from midday and includes the likes of haggis, neeps and tatties (£12), a seafood selection featuring Loch Fyne salmon (£16) and pan-fried scallops (£18). Do enjoy a nightcap, too – if you’re unsure which whisky to order (there are 400 to choose from), knowledgeable bar staff are only too happy to help you find your favourite.

Our verdict: A friendly, good-value haunt that’s full of character – one visit won’t be enough.

Reviewed November 2022.

If you want to see more hotels, check out our list of the best hotels under £200, or our hotel review section. 

How we review hotels

Unlike all other national UK travel magazines and newspaper travel sections, Which? Travel never accepts freebies. We pay wherever we stay.

All our hotel inspections take place anonymously. We book a standard double room online, just as you would, and we sample the hotel’s facilities, just as you would.

That means no special treatment, no reviewer upgrades and no opportunity for the hotel to influence our verdict.

And no matter how badly the hotel fares, we always publish the review, warts and all. 

Our ratings

We use an overall star rating for the hotel based on what we think you should expect for the type of accommodation (B&B, luxury hotel, etc) and price.

All our ratings strictly adhere to the following criteria:

• 0 stars A dreadful hotel. We wouldn't recommend staying here.
• 1 star A sub-standard hotel that we think is well below average in its category.
• 2 stars An adequate hotel that we think has room for improvement.
• 3 stars A solid hotel that meets our expectations.
• 4 stars An excellent hotel that we think is above average in its category.
• 5 stars An exceptional hotel that we think is among the best of its type.