Where To Stay Near Times Square: 4 NYC Hotels With No Resort Fees

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If you're trying to figure out where to stay in NYC, resort fees are one of the first things to understand. Most hotels near Times Square charge them. Some call it a "destination fee" or a "facility fee" — but it's the same thing. It's a mandatory daily charge added on top of your room rate, and it can run anywhere from $25 to $50 per night.

These four NYC hotels don't charge one. What you see is what you pay.

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Why NYC Hotels Charge Resort Fees (And What You Can Do About It)

Here's the part most people don't know — and once you understand it, you'll spot it every time you book a hotel in NYC.

When you book through a platform like Expedia, Hotels.com, or Booking.com, the hotel pays that platform a commission on the room rate. We're talking 15 to 20 percent. That's a significant cut.

But NYC resort fees are exempt from that commission structure entirely. So hotels figured out a way to game it: lower the base room rate to rank higher in search results and look more competitive, then recover that revenue — and more — through a mandatory daily fee that no platform takes a cut of. The hotel keeps 100% of it.

As of February 21, 2026, New York City now requires hotels to show you the full price — including all mandatory fees — before you complete your booking. That's a rule from the NYC Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, and it's a meaningful step forward. But here's what's important to understand: the rule doesn't eliminate resort fees. Hotels can still charge them. They just can't hide them anymore. So even with this protection in place, you need to know what you're looking at when deciding where to stay in NYC.

Here's what to watch for:

The name changes. Resort fee, destination fee, facility fee, amenity fee — these are all the same thing with different branding. If you see any of those when booking a Times Square hotel or anywhere else in Manhattan, factor it in.

The amenities listed don't have to be useful to you. Hotel gyms, in-room Wi-Fi, local phone calls, newspaper delivery — these get bundled in as justification. You're paying for them whether you use them or not.

The math adds up fast. A $35 daily fee on a five-night trip is $175 on top of your room rate. That's a flight home in some cases.

The four NYC hotels below opted out of that model entirely.

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Radio City Apartments | 4.4 on Google

142 West 49th Street has been standing since 1904. That means this building was already 20 years old when the jazz age hit New York City.

And in the 1920s, this block was exactly where you wanted to be. Broadway was booming. The theater district was pulling in actors, musicians, and stage crews from all over the country — and they all needed somewhere to live. Not a hotel room for a night. A place to stay for weeks, sometimes months, while they were working the shows. Radio City Apartments was that place. The rooms were built large. The kitchens were built functional. Because the people living here weren't tourists passing through — they were performers making a life on this block.

Fast forward to the 1970s. New York City was in freefall. Crime, bankruptcy, neighborhoods gutted. This building didn't escape that. By the early seventies it had fallen into serious disrepair — the same story you heard about most of Midtown at the time. In 1974 new owners came in, renovated top to bottom, and brought it back. That's when it became Radio City Apartments.

What's interesting is that renovation didn't erase what the building was. Walk in today and you still feel it. Twelve floors. 133 rooms spread across layouts that don't exist in most Manhattan hotels — studios, one-bedrooms, and two-bedrooms that sleep up to six people. The kitchens are still there. Still functional. Because that's what this building was designed for a century ago and nobody ever saw a reason to change it.

It's not a sleek property. It's not trying to be. It's a 120-year-old building three minutes from Rockefeller Center that has outlasted every era of this city — the roaring twenties, the near-bankruptcy of the seventies, the renovation boom, all of it. There's a character to that you can't manufacture.

For families trying to figure out where to stay in NYC during the holidays especially — you're a three minute walk from the Rockefeller Center tree and Radio City Music Hall. Ten minutes from Times Square. The location alone would cost you a premium anywhere else on this block. And no NYC resort fees means the price you booked is the price you pay.

Nearby: Los Tacos No. 1 for a fast, cheap lunch that punches well above its price. Junior's on 45th if you want a proper New York cheesecake after a show.

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Hotel Beacon | 4.4 on Google

November 1928. One year after Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic and aviation was the most exciting thing happening in the world. The Upper West Side is a neighborhood of low-rise brownstones, and right in the middle of it, a 24-story tower goes up. To mark the opening, the developers put a 1.2 billion candlepower beacon on the roof — and on opening night, a plane flew across the entire island of Manhattan using that light as its guide. That's how Hotel Beacon announced itself to New York City.

That's where the name comes from. Nearly 100 years later, it's still there.

But here's what most people don't know about this building. It wasn't really built as a hotel. It opened as an apartment hotel — which in 1928 meant something specific. It was designed for people who needed a real home, not a room. And if that sounds familiar, it should. Radio City Apartments, built just a few years prior a few blocks away, was built for the same reason — to house the musicians, opera stars, and touring performers flooding into New York during the roaring twenties. These two buildings share the same DNA. Same era. Same purpose. Same neighborhood instinct.

That history attracted a certain kind of guest. Over the decades Hotel Beacon became a sanctuary for performers who wanted to be in New York without feeling like they were passing through it. The most well known of those guests — His Holiness the Dalai Lama stayed here so frequently during his US tours that the staff permanently named his preferred high floor corner suite after him. It's still called the Dalai Lama Suite. 360 degree views of the Manhattan skyline. Still bookable today.

Walk in now and you feel that residential DNA immediately. Kitchenettes in the majority of rooms. Multi-room suites. Multi-bathroom penthouses that are genuinely rare to find in Manhattan without a resort fee attached. And right on the homepage — no resort fees, stated clearly. They're proud of it. They should be.

For visitors trying to decide where to stay in NYC, the Hotel Beacon's Upper West Side location is one of its quiet strengths. The 1, 2, and 3 express trains are two blocks away — one stop to Times Square. Central Park is a five minute walk. The Museum of Natural History is right there. And the Beacon Theatre, one of the great music venues in this city, is next door.

One thing to know if you're booking in the near future — the lobby lounge and some of the main public spaces are currently going through a renovation scheduled to wrap in 2027. The rooms are unaffected, but worth knowing before you arrive.

Nearby: Gray's Papaya is right down the block — one of the few iconic hot dog spots worth going to in this city. And Levain Bakery on 74th for the cookies. If you haven't had one, that's a gap worth fixing while you're here.

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LUMA Hotel Times Square | 4.6 on Google

If you're walking down West 41st Street looking for the LUMA Hotel, it's easy to blink and miss it entirely.

Look closely at the building. LUMA Hotel Times Square is what architects call a sliver building. Local architect Peter Poon designed this 28-story tower to fit into a narrow gap between two massive pre-war brick buildings that have anchored this block for over a century. There's a striking visual contrast between the old, dark masonry on either side and the sharp curtain wall of glass right in the middle.

That contrast is intentional. The designers explicitly wanted LUMA Hotel Times Square to be a reprieve — a quiet, minimalist oasis right between the neon chaos of Times Square and the green lawns of Bryant Park.

The name LUMA comes from lumen, the Latin word for light. Once you know that, you notice it everywhere. The backlit, perforated steel walls in the lobby are engineered to look like a photographic image of city lights glowing at night. Inside the rooms, massive 7-foot floor-to-ceiling glass panes pull natural daylight deep into a tight Midtown footprint.

That philosophy of transparency carries straight over to their pricing. LUMA Hotel never charges a NYC resort fee. The team treats clear pricing as a deliberate part of the hospitality experience — not a legal afterthought. What you see on day one is what you pay.

The building holds 133 rooms, six per floor, which keeps the hallways remarkably quiet. Rooms run in four tiers: Urban rooms face the back of the building, making them the most peaceful option. Metro and Park are the mid-tiers. Skyline rooms face the front with floor-to-ceiling views of Midtown. If a specific view matters to you, flag it when you book.

One detail worth knowing — LUMA was the first hotel in Manhattan to introduce a fully autonomous robot butler. Her name is Alina. She navigates the elevators on her own to deliver towels, toothbrushes, or room service directly to your door. It's the kind of detail that sticks with you long after checkout.

For families deciding where to stay in NYC, LUMA runs seasonal packages that don't get a lot of attention: Thanksgiving and Christmas packages with holiday dinners and keepsakes, a Macy's Parade package, a New Year's Eve package with Times Square access, and a kids' package. Worth asking about directly when you book.

Nearby: Joe's Pizza on Broadway for a quick New York slice. For dinner, Urban Hawker on 56th — a Singaporean hawker-style food hall — is one of the better finds in this part of Midtown.

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The Hotel Wallace | 4.6 on Google

There's a building on West 76th Street, just north of Lincoln Center, that most people walking past wouldn't give a second look. It's a classic Beaux-Arts brick exterior — the kind of pre-war architecture that blends into the Upper West Side so naturally you almost stop seeing it.

But what happened inside The Hotel Wallace is worth knowing.

For decades it operated as the Milburn Hotel. A neighborhood staple. Quiet, no-frills, the kind of place that just existed as part of the fabric of the block. Then 2020 hit. New York City shut down. And while the city was frozen, the owners made a decision — they gutted the entire interior. Top to bottom. What came out the other side when New York reopened was something completely different.

They kept the Beaux-Arts exterior exactly as it was. But inside, everything changed. High-end Italian bedding. Modern finishes. A 24-hour luxury gym. And right off the lobby, a cocktail lounge that hosts live jazz on weekends. In a neighborhood two blocks from Lincoln Center, that's not a gimmick. That fits.

The Hotel Wallace is the design-forward option on this list. It's the one you book when the trip has a reason behind it — an anniversary, a birthday, something worth marking. For visitors figuring out where to stay in NYC for a special occasion, The Wallace offers something most Times Square hotels don't: a sense of neighborhood, intention, and calm.

Two things to know before you book. There's a $100 security hold placed on your card at check-in — not a fee, fully refunded when you leave, but it sits as a pending charge during your stay so plan for it. And there's no full-service restaurant for daytime dining. The lounge works beautifully for evenings, but breakfast and lunch you're heading out.

Heading out for breakfast on the Upper West Side isn't a hardship. Zabar's and Barney Greengrass are right there — New York institutions. If you want to understand what this neighborhood actually is, that's where you start your morning.

Some upper floor rooms have private outdoor terraces with open neighborhood views. They're not something you can request or guarantee when booking, but if you're visiting for a special occasion it's worth mentioning at the front desk when you check in.

Nearby: Sal and Carmine's on Broadway for a classic New York thin-crust slice. And if you can get a reservation at Shukette nearby — modern Middle Eastern small plates and fresh bread — it's one of the better dining experiences in the neighborhood.

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Which NYC Hotel Is Right For You?

If you're still deciding where to stay in NYC, here's how these four break down:

For families who want space and a kitchen: Radio City Apartments. Studios, one-bedrooms, and two-bedrooms that sleep up to six — layouts that simply don't exist in most Manhattan hotels. Just know going in that it's a 120-year-old building, not a polished modern property.

For a historic base near Central Park: Hotel Beacon. Residential DNA, large rooms, kitchenettes, and a location that puts you one subway stop from Times Square. Note the lobby renovation runs through 2027.

For a tech-forward boutique near Times Square: LUMA Hotel Times Square. Sleek, quiet, and thoughtfully designed — with a robot butler and a story behind every detail.

For a special occasion: The Hotel Wallace. A COVID-era transformation of a century-old building, with a jazz lounge, luxury finishes, and a neighborhood that rewards slow mornings.

One reminder across all four: no NYC resort fee doesn't mean no card holds. Properties like The Hotel Wallace place a standard security hold at check-in. It's returned when you leave — but plan for it in your travel budget.

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