What an Evening in London Actually Costs

People budget for the booking and then get caught by everything around it. The rate is the part written down; the rest of a London evening is not, and it adds up faster than most people expect. Here is the whole figure, with the awkward bits included.

The booking

In central London most hourly rates sit between £200 and £400, and the number on the profile is the number. No booking fee, nothing to settle with the agency, no card on file.

What moves it: area, how long, and whether you want her to come to you. Outcall generally runs thirty to fifty pounds above incall to cover travel, though for a central hotel that gap is often nil. Our guide on what a London escort costs breaks it down properly.

Longer bookings cost less per hour. A two hour booking is rarely double a one hour one, and an overnight is a long way from eight times an hour.

Dinner, if there is dinner

The part people underestimate by the widest margin.

A decent central London restaurant for two, with wine, lands between £120 and £250. Somewhere with a name attached and you are past £300 before anybody orders a second bottle. Add service.

Two practical notes. Book the table yourself rather than leaving it to the evening, because the good ones are gone by Wednesday for a Friday. And a dinner date is usually quoted as a three hour booking rather than by the hour, which is worth knowing before you do the arithmetic the wrong way.

The hotel, if there is a hotel

A room in Mayfair or Knightsbridge on a weekday runs £250 to £500. Marylebone or Paddington will do the same job for £150 to £250 and nobody will think less of the evening.

The thing worth paying for is not the marble. It is a hotel with a proper lobby, a lift that does not open into a corridor of four rooms, and staff who deal with people arriving in the evening as a matter of routine. Our guide on hotel bookings covers which kinds work.

If the room is only for the booking, an incall removes the line from the budget entirely.

Drinks before

Cocktails in a central hotel bar are £18 to £24 each. Two rounds for two people and you are at £80 without noticing.

Not an argument against it. The half hour before is one of the better parts of the evening. Just count it.

Getting about

Cabs across central London are £15 to £30 a hop and considerably more after midnight or when it rains. Three moves in an evening is £60 to £90.

The cheapest fix is geography: pick a part of town where the whole evening happens within a short walk. Mayfair, Marylebone and Knightsbridge each hold the bar, the restaurant and the hotel inside ten minutes.

What it comes to

Three honest shapes rather than one number.

A straightforward evening. Two hour incall, nothing else. £350 to £600 all in, and no other line items.

Dinner and after. Three hour dinner date, restaurant, drinks, cabs. £800 to £1,200, with the restaurant the most variable part.

The full evening. Overnight, hotel, dinner, drinks, travel. £1,500 to £2,500.

The gaps are wide because the restaurant and the hotel move far more than the booking does. The booking is the one figure you know in advance.

Where people go wrong

Booking an hour when the evening wants two. The commonest and the most expensive mistake, because you pay for an evening that never quite starts.

Not counting the restaurant. It is regularly the largest single line and the one nobody budgets.

Chasing a rate well under the going one. Under two hundred an hour in central London is worth a second look, and not usually a bargain.

Paying by anything other than cash. A statement entry costs nothing on the night and a great deal later. See how to pay.

Trimming it sensibly

Incall instead of a hotel. One area instead of three. A longer booking instead of two shorter ones. Midweek instead of Friday, which moves the restaurant and the room but not the rate.

What not to trim is the length. An hour with a table booked at eight is not an evening, it is a schedule.

Browse the roster with rates on every profile, or ring +44 20 7846 3480 and describe the evening you have in mind.