Chain Hotels Worth a Look

They don't get much respect, but chain hotels can be good choices for travel in Europe. Many Websites recommend small, local places for the traveller hoping to save money, but the chains can also be worth checking out.
Holiday Inn, (www.holidayinn.com) for example, has a lot of hotels in Europe and many of them are reasonably priced. I have stayed at two of their hotels in Berlin and found both to be of good value. The first, back in 2000, was the one on Prenzlauer Allee in an interesting sector of the former East Berlin that has since become quite trendy. The other was the Holiday Inn Express on Stressemann strasse, near Potsdamer Platz. Checking prices for these places this month, I found both offering rooms for less than $100, and the Holiday Inn Express had singles with a very good breakfast buffet for about $78.
Holiday Inn guarantees that its Website offers the lowest prices for rooms, and if you find lower rates on other hotel sites they will match that rate. While $80 dollars or so per night isn't a huge bargain, it compares favourably with rates available at chain hotels in many large North American cities. And with Holiday Inn's loyalty program, you can build up points toward free stays.
Other hotel chains that deserve a look are Ibis, www.ibis.com, which has more than 900 properties across the world, and the relatively new Easy Hotels operated by the same company that operates EasyJet Airlines.