Today, the hotel has officially started to accept room reservations from the opening date which is the 6^th May

But as of this morning, you can only book as follows

• Direct with the hotel at its own website online
• Direct by telephone on 020 7234 8000
• Via a travel agent

We searched on our recommended comparison site and also Expedia.com, Hotels.com and HRS.com and the hotel did not feature on any of them.

It may be a deliberate policy of the hotel to not offer bookings via online companies.

Online rates are £450 Superior Room with south-facing rooms. NB South Facing is not exciting!

£500 gets you a Deluxe Room and £550 a Premier Room

Travel agents earn 10% commission so you may wish to contact your agent to handle the booking.

They also have access to packages which include breakfast costing £20 and tickets to the “View from the Shard” floor, for another £20

All bookings include Complimentary Wi-Fi Broadband Internet access and VAT

The Shangri-La website allowed a reservation to be made with no credit card required to hold the booking.

I checked the official website to find an answer to the question, “What date does the Shangri-La Hotel at the Shard open?”

The hotel group does not appear to want to promote the answer online as I had to telephone the direct London-based number, 020 7234 8000

They advised that the opening date will be Tuesday 6^th May 2014

Reservations are not possible until Monday 17^th March 2014

Here is the official site of the Shangri-La and from the above date, specific reservation enquiries should be possible.

For those of you who book via Travel Agents, I also asked if they would have access to reservations via their GDS systems but they were unable to say.

The Shangri-La does not yet appear in the search results of our recommended comparison site but we will monitor that.

In the meantime we suggest checking directly here.