When is an airport hotel not an airport hotel?

A simple internet search for “airport hotel” can deliver hundreds of options for any major destination. How to weed out the totally improbable ones?

Search a booking website for your next travel destination plus “airport hotel” — and be amazed. London’s Heathrow, for instance, has a grab-bag of 2838 possible places to sleep, while New York’s JFK offers 700 and Perth clocks up an impressive 227.

To be fair, the websites do say “hotels near” but, buyer beware. Most sites cast a very broad net.

A listed hotel can be anywhere from 100m to 20km from the airport, with some involving a transfer time longer than the in-flight movie you just watched.

When consulting a booking site like Wotif.com or Booking.com, go to the left-hand column, Filters. As well as indicating your price range, tick the basic options: property type (hotel, apartment, homestay), airport shuttle, 24-hour front desk and, of course, distance from the airport, and so on. Keep in mind that the website number is point-to-point kilometres, not the actual travelling distance.

Having identified a promising hotel, drill down on its home page. Normally, there is a small, expandable location map. A few mouse clicks might reveal that, rather than being almost beside the runway, the place is perhaps three suburbs, two freeways and 12km away.

At Bali’s Denpasar Ngurah Rai Airport, the closest hotels are usually in adjacent Tuban, a stone’s throw from the airport. However, try walking from the terminal to your “nearby” digs and the route becomes a steeplechase of ramps, roundabouts, flower beds, parking lots and traffic dividers. When booking a Tuban property, such as Harris Hotel, I also book its free hourly shuttle and usually arrive there well before any hardy, luggage-hauling foot-slogger who’s attempted a supposedly “quick” short cut.

Among those hotels actually located at an airport, only one or two, if any, will be “airside” — that is, after the Immigration and Customs barriers — while most are “landside”, in the terminal’s public-access areas, or close by.

Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport, for example, has no airside accommodation but probably has the shortest “check-out-to-check-in” distance of any landside hotel in the country. The 318-room Rydges Sydney Airport Hotel, with a great viewing and cocktails deck from which you can watch planes take off, sits just 18I steps (they’ve counted them) from the international Terminal 1 entrance. After a good night’s sleep and leisurely breakfast you just drop off the key, stroll across the road, and casually check-in. It’s a propitious start to any journey.

Sydney’s Terminal 1 also has a short-stay Aerotel transit hotel landside. Or, search for a “near airport” hotel and then ponder some 710 options, many of them around the Sydney CBD (10km by road) or Kings Cross (12km). Incredibly, Cockatoo Island in the middle of Sydney Harbour is suggested, at a mere 15km from the airport, plus a ferry ride or swim.

Elsewhere, Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport has several landside options. There’s an upmarket Novotel resort or, downstairs, a Quiet Zone with two short-stay budget options.

A mini room at the Boxtel or a sleep pod in the Avaguard Capsule Hotel will get you through a layover but neither one is intended for longer than half a day. If none of these extremes is your style, no problem: a quick Suvarnabhumi search gives you another 1900 options.

Convenience comes with a premium. Generally speaking, the closer a good hotel is to the airport, the higher the room rate will be. A compromise is to find a suitable hotel that’s not too far from the airport by shuttle or taxi. I recently tried the new Courtyard by Marriott Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport Hotel. Cumbersome as the name might seem, this four-star retreat in suburban Lat Krabang is slick, functional and serene.

The halls are silent, the carpets deep, and the blackout drapes live up to their description. Following a good, deep sleep, I draw the curtains to be surprised by a lush garden outside with a khlong canal running through it. There’s a huge outdoor pool, a 24-hour gym and a heroic breakfast buffet, plus a gleaming Mercedes shuttle bus for the 10-minute transfer back to the airport.

So, when is an airport hotel not an airport hotel? Short answer: usually. Longer answer: when it’s more than 5km or 30 minutes away.

fact file

Aerotel, Sydney Airport: myaerotel.com

Avaguard Capsule Hotel Suvarnabhumi Airport, seven hours from $35: booking.com

Boxtel Suvarnabhumi Airport, four hours from $62: tripadvisor.com

Courtyard by Marriott Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport, from $265 a night, free shuttle: marriott.com

Harris Hotel, Tuban, Bali, from $71 a night, free shuttle: discoverasr.com

Rydges Sydney Airport Hotel, from $379 a night. Shuttle $14.50, or walk 150m: rydges.com

Airport sleeping minus a hotel: sleepinginairports.net