Hotel Review: Hilton Chicago O’Hare Airport, IL

After flying back to the US from Jordan via Istanbul, Shae and I stayed overnight at the Hilton Chicago O’Hare Airport.

Our flight wasn’t due to land until 5:40pm, so I’d been concerned about booking a flight down to Denver for that evening in case our international flights were delayed. Our flights were on time, but I was grateful that I’d booked an overnight stay anyway as it took 75 minutes for our bags to arrive on the carousel.

I chose the Hilton because it’s the only hotel at the airport itself. It’s connected to the airport, so there’s no need to take a shuttle bus to get there. That’s something I figured we’d appreciate as we’d have been up for more than 24 hours if we hadn’t managed to sleep on our flight back to the US.

The hotel had average-to-good reviews, but I figured it was worth the risk of it not being great seeing as we were only staying one night. In the end, our stay was perfectly fine, but I’m glad we arrived when we did – more on that in the ‘Check-In’ section below.

Here’s a review of our stay at the Hilton Chicago O’Hare Airport, Illinois.

Check-In

There are a couple of ways to get to the hotel. There’s an exterior entrance pictured above which is opposite one of the terminals. You can also get to the hotel by taking a pedestrian subway from a few of the airport’s terminals – just follow the signs in the airport.

If arriving from below, you’ll take an escalator or elevator up to the front desk. I don’t know if this is an issue with all suitcases, but it felt like their carpet was quite deep which made it harder to pull our suitcases along.

We got lucky when checking in as there was no line and so we got checked in straight away. I’d booked a standard king room, but they upgraded us to a room with a runway view thanks to my Hilton Diamond status.

We checked in at the right time. When walking through the lobby a couple of times later that night, there were huge lines of people waiting to check in which didn’t appear to be moving as only one person was working at the front desk. I had a bit of a fiasco with a Grubhub delivery and was waiting inside and outside the lobby for about 45 minutes. It seemed like some people were in line for much of that time, so I wouldn’t have been pleased if we’d been stuck that long waiting to check in.

The Hilton Chicago O’Hare Airport offers a digital key, so it might be worth downloading their app and using your phone as a key if you encounter similar wait times at the front desk. That way you can bypass the front desk and head straight to your room.

Bedroom

We were assigned room 9092. When entering the room, the bathroom was on our right and the bedroom was straight ahead.

Although I’d gotten some sleep on our flight over, I was very tired that night and so slept soundly. I’ve no idea if that was due to how comfortable the bed was or just because I was exhausted.

The bedside lamps had a couple of power outlets on them which was useful for charging our phones by the bed overnight.

To the left of the bed was an armchair and side table. On the opposite side of the room was a corner desk and office chair.

To the left of the desk was a unit with a couple of dresser drawers and a TV on top. Beneath the TV was a long speaker, although I don’t remember how good that was. I was surprised they had a nice speaker like that seeing as most guests will only be staying one night.

To the left of the TV was a mini fridge and coffee maker.

Back by the room’s entrance was a closet. This contained an iron, ironing board, luggage rack and safe.

We arrived in time to enjoy the sunset view over the runway thanks to our upgraded room.

Bathroom

The bathroom had a bathtub with shower; the shower was surprisingly nice as it had great water pressure.

The toiletries were Crabtree & Evelyn and were decent.

Dining

At the time of our stay, the Hilton Chicago O’Hare Airport was offering a $15 food & beverage credit per person for guests with Gold or Diamond status. That meant we had $30 we could spend during our stay which could be used towards a meal at any time, not just breakfast.

Shae and I tried ordering dinner from Grubhub (i.e. not using our two $15 credits), but the delivery driver decided to drop off the meal at a completely different Hilton in Chicago and refused to bring it to our hotel. n.b. Uber Eats doesn’t deliver to the hotel at all, so be prepared to grab food from the airport or at the hotel, as getting anything delivered is an issue.

After waiting more than an hour for our Grubhub order to not arrive, we ended up ordering room service. We decided to get a BBQ Brisket sandwich with a side of fries to share. This ended up being plenty of food despite how ravenous we were.

The hotel has a couple of other eateries, one of which is Caffe Mercato.

Similar to the front desk, this had a line most of the evening which moved fairly slowly. The food and drink is fairly expensive, so if you have a $15 per person dining credit from having Hilton status, it might just about cover dinner, but not a drink to go with it unless you get something from their Grab & Go menu.

There’s also Andiamo restaurant which seemed to have the same menu (and same pricing) as the room service menu.

There’s also apparently a Sports Edition Bar, but I’m not sure if that was open during our stay (I might’ve just missed it). Here are the opening hours for the various dining options.

Amenities

Seeing as the Hilton Chicago O’Hare is an airport hotel, it doesn’t have a ton of amenities as most guests will only be staying one night. They had an unexpectedly large fitness room with lots of equipment and weights.

Next to the fitness room was an indoor swimming pool that was long enough to do laps.

There was also a sauna and massage room; I don’t know if other spa treatments were offered as I didn’t see an actual spa.

If you’re flying with American Airlines, there’s a kiosk where you can check in if you’re traveling without any checked bags.

Parking

The Hilton Chicago O’Hare Airport doesn’t offer self-parking, so you’d need to park at the airport or another lot nearby. The hotel does offer valet parking, but that costs $75 per night.

Service

We had minimal need for service during our stay beyond checking in and ordering room service. For us the service was fine, although if we’d been stuck in the long line at the front desk I would’ve had different feelings.

Wi-Fi

I’m not too sure how good the hotel’s Wi-Fi service was. My laptop died shortly after we checked in, so I wasn’t able to work on stuff that night.

Check-In & Check-Out Times

The check-in time at the Hilton Chicago O’Hare Airport is 3pm and check-out is at 12pm.

Location

If you’ll be flying in or out of O’Hare airport, the Hilton’s location is great seeing as it’s right at the airport and so doesn’t require a shuttle to get there unlike other nearby airport hotels. It’s even better if you get a view of the runway.

The downside of its location is that it seems nigh-on-impossible to get food delivered to the hotel.

Cost

Our room was $149 before tax and $174.93 once tax was included. That’s a bit more expensive than some other airport hotels were charging, but I was happy to pay a little extra for the convenience of its location.

Although our total room rate was $174.93 with tax, the total cost of our stay was $188.07 when taking into account the cost of food and drink above our food & beverage $30 credit.

Hilton uses dynamic pricing for award stays. I didn’t make a note of what the points cost was for the night we stayed, but it looks like award stays cost 34,000-50,000 points per night, with 50,000 being the more common cost; Friday and Saturday nights seem to require the fewest number of points on most dates I checked.

Points Earned

We earned 6,763 points for the stay which is broken down as follows:

• Base points – 1,921
• Bonus points for having Diamond status – 1,921
• Bonus points from double points promotion – 1,921
• Bonus points as Diamond MyWay bonus – 1,000

We paid for the stay with my Hilton Aspire credit card which earns 14 points per dollar when paying for Hilton stays. That means we’ll earn an additional 2,633 points for a total of 9,396 points.

Final Thoughts

Our stay at the Hilton Chicago O’Hare Airport was perfectly fine. Our room was comfortable, it had a decent shower and a surprisingly good fitness room, although we didn’t make use of the gym.

I’d be reluctant to stay there for more than a night or two because the food is relatively expensive and it seemed hard getting anything delivered. However, most people staying there will be in a similar position as us – wanting somewhere to stay overnight which is quick to get to once you get off your flight and/or for a flight the next day.

Our Rating

Room = 4.1 / 5
Hotel Amenities = 3.9 / 5
Food = 3.9 / 5
Location = 4.6 / 5
Service = 4 / 5
Overall Value = 4.3 / 5

Total = 4.12

Address

Hilton Chicago O’Hare Airport, 10000 W O’Hare Ave, Chicago, IL 60666

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