The Smarter Way to Spend $1,000 a Night on a Hotel Room

If you’ve planned a vacation of late, you’ll have no trouble believing the eye-watering figure from Virtuoso—a consortia of some 20,000 luxury travel agents—that luxury hotels are 85% more expensive this summer than they were in 2019. In Paris alone, prices have gone stratospheric, up 300 percent over last summer’s rates, as hoteliers try to capitalize on the Olympic Games.

This new world order has normalized spending $1,000 a night for an entry-level room in most major cities—never mind the cost of a five-star stay in a seasonal resort destination like the Amalfi Coast or the south of France. At the former, iconic spots such as Belmond’s Caruso can command last-minute rates of $3,250 for a standard, 452-square-foot room.