There are a myriad of highly rated hotels and guest houses in the UK, and a plethora of ways to find them.  Easiest is finding a site designed to search all of the outstanding vacancies and unfilled rooms in the top UK hotels and use it to find the best UK hotels, at a price to suit you.

What should I know?

Most people don’t realise but when rooms of all kinds are provided to hotel search engines at a large percentage off the price, it’s because the hotel is ‘overstocked’  on empty rooms, and selling them at the minimum price is better than not selling them at all.  This late room arbitrage goes into search engines and allows you, the end user to find a bargain, if you’re willing to take a bit of a risk. 
It’s a risk because you may not get the room at such a last minute time, but on the other hand, if you’re sure there are no events or other things happening near the hotel, it’s likely they MAY have a room available on last minute hotel booking sites.

It’s very rare to see the best rooms on these sites, as hotels and other sites frequently offer upgrades to their already booked customers, either free or at a small surcharge, giving them a loyal, interested customer base that will return again and again.  But you can get some very good rooms via last minute sites, especially if you’re not entirely set on where you’d like to stay.

In a crisis

It may seem like a strange thing to do, but if you’re stranded, late room sites represent about the best opportunity to get a hotel or room that’s more appropriate to you.  You can book from your mobile phone browser in most cases, so being stranded doesn’t always need to be a hardship.   It can also allow you to take back a little bit of control, which will make you feel much better.  When booking, be sure to read all of the fine print, including check in times, and if in doubt, before booking, try to contact the hotel – they’ll usually happily answer any questions you have, such as whether you need to be there before a certain time.

Whether you’re looking for the best UK hotels by searching chains, or by using a site that amalgamates and collates searches, you’ll almost always find something to suit your budgets, with a high star rating when booking last minute.