AKA Times Square Hotel New York City: Is It Worth It for Budget Travelers?
AKA Times Square Hotel New York City: My Honest Take After Staying There (and What I’d Do Differently
I’ll be real with you — when a friend first suggested I check out the AKA Times Square hotel New York City, I kind of rolled my eyes. Times Square is loud, touristy, and packed with people who stop dead in the middle of the sidewalk to take photos. Not exactly my vibe. I’m usually the one hunting down a $40/night hostel in a quieter neighborhood, you know?
But here’s the thing. I was heading to New York for almost two weeks to do some freelance consulting work, and suddenly the math started looking different. When you need a kitchen, a real desk, laundry access, and more than 200 square feet to function like a human being — the whole “budget vs. comfort” equation shifts. So I did the research, I booked it, and I’m going to tell you exactly what I found, including the parts the hotel’s website conveniently leaves vague.
What the AKA Times Square Hotel New York City Actually Is (It’s Not a Regular Hotel)
Before anything else, let’s clear something up: AKA Times Square isn’t really a traditional hotel. It’s more of an extended-stay, apartment-style property, which is a completely different experience than checking into a standard room with two queen beds and a mini fridge shaped like a shoebox. The rooms — they call them “residences” — come with full kitchens, separate living areas, and the kind of space that makes you feel like you actually live in New York rather than just surviving it.
This matters a lot, practically speaking. I cooked maybe 70% of my meals in that kitchen. Groceries from the nearby Whole Foods or the smaller market on 9th Avenue meant I wasn’t dropping $22 on avocado toast every morning. Over 11 days, that kitchen probably saved me $300 to $400 compared to eating every meal out in Manhattan, where a sit-down lunch can easily run $20–$30 before you even think about tipping.
The building itself is on West 41st Street, which puts you about a five-minute walk from the heart of Times Square — close enough to be convenient, far enough that you’re not sleeping inside a neon sign. It’s also genuinely walkable to Midtown, Hell’s Kitchen, and the Theater District, which sounds obvious but actually matters a lot when you’re trying to get around without constantly bleeding money on taxis.
The Room Experience — Honest, No Fluff
My studio residence was compact but smartly laid out. I’m not going to pretend it felt like a luxury penthouse, because it didn’t. But it had everything: a full-size refrigerator, a two-burner cooktop, a microwave, real dishes (not those plastic wrapped hotel cups), a proper desk with enough space for my two monitors, and a bed that didn’t make me feel like I was sleeping on a park bench.
The natural light situation was fine — not amazing, but not the soul-crushing windowless box I half-expected in Midtown. The bathroom was small, as it always is in New York City, which, honestly, is just a fact of life in that city. You make peace with it.
One thing I genuinely appreciated: the laundry. In-unit washer/dryer access is something you don’t fully appreciate until you’ve spent three weeks in various Airbnbs doing the “sniff test” on your clothes. Being able to throw a load in before bed and wake up to clean clothes felt almost aggressively civilized.
The AKA Times Square NYC Location — Better Than I Expected, With One Catch
Here’s where I’ll give credit where it’s due: the AKA Times Square NYC location is legitimately good, even for a non-Times Square person like me. The 42nd Street–Port Authority subway station is basically at your doorstep, which means you’ve got the A, C, E, N, Q, R, W, and S lines all within a short walk. That kind of transit access in Manhattan is actually pretty rare, and it made getting to Brooklyn, the Upper West Side, or down to the Financial District genuinely easy.
The catch? Noise. Look, you know what you’re signing up for when you book anything in that part of the city. I slept with a white noise app running every single night, and even then, there were a couple of nights where the street noise below around 1–2am was… a lot. If you’re a light sleeper, I’d either pack earplugs or specifically request a higher floor room. I was on the 8th floor and it was manageable but noticeable.
The surrounding neighborhood has good food options too, if you know where to look. Hell’s Kitchen, which is basically just a few blocks west on 9th and 10th Avenue, has a solid restaurant scene that feels genuinely local compared to the tourist-trap spots right in Times Square. I found a Colombian place on 9th Avenue where I ate lunch twice. Empanadas for $3 each, proper coffee, and absolutely no tourists inside. That’s the kind of meal that makes New York worth it.
Is the AKA Hotel New York Worth the Price? Let’s Talk Numbers
This is the question everyone actually wants answered, and the honest answer is: it depends entirely on how long you’re staying and what you’d otherwise be spending.
Nightly rates at AKA Times Square vary a lot depending on season and availability, but for extended stays you can typically find rates in the $180–$280/night range for a studio. That sounds steep if you’re thinking like a one-night hotel guest. But start doing the math for a week-plus stay and it starts looking different.
A comparable Airbnb in a decent Manhattan neighborhood for a private apartment? Often $200–$250/night, sometimes more, plus service fees that can add 20–30% on top. A traditional hotel room with no kitchen in Midtown? You might find something for $150–$180/night, but then you’re eating every single meal out in one of the most expensive cities on the planet. I’ve done that. It destroys your budget fast.
The AKA’s real value proposition is for the 7–14 day traveler who’s willing to cook some meals, treat it like a temporary apartment, and needs to actually work while they’re there. If you’re just doing a long weekend trip, you’re probably better off with a standard hotel or a well-located Airbnb.
I’ll be straight: I used a travel credit card signup bonus to offset a chunk of my stay, which dropped my effective cost significantly. If you’re not doing travel credit card hacking yet, I’ve written about it extensively on this blog, because it’s one of the few “hacks” that genuinely works as advertised. Points and miles from a good signup bonus can cover a surprising amount of a Manhattan hotel stay.
Practical Things I Wish I’d Known Before Checking In
The check-in process is smooth and fast, which I wasn’t expecting. They have a proper front desk but it doesn’t feel like you’re queuing at a DMV, which, honestly, is more than I can say for a lot of NYC hotels I’ve stayed in.
Parking is not a thing you should even think about if you’re driving to this property. This is Manhattan. Leave the car somewhere in New Jersey and take the train. I’m saying this as someone who once made the mistake of trying to drive through Midtown Manhattan at 4pm on a Friday. It took 45 minutes to go eight blocks. Never again.
The fitness center is small but functional. I used it a few times. There’s also a business center and meeting spaces, which I never touched but which clearly matter to the corporate extended-stay crowd that seems to be a big part of AKA’s clientele.
One more thing: bring a power strip. The outlet situation in my room was perfectly adequate for one laptop and a phone, but I travel with more gear than that, and the outlets weren’t distributed in the most convenient way. Minor thing, but you’ll thank me.
My Bottom Line on the AKA Times Square Hotel New York City
The AKA Times Square hotel New York City is a solid choice for a specific type of traveler — someone staying more than five or six nights, who wants to cook, needs real workspace, and values location and transit access over having a rooftop bar. It’s not a budget property in the traditional sense, but used strategically, it can absolutely be a smart financial decision for longer stays.
Would I stay there again? Yeah, probably, for the right trip. It’s not flashy, it doesn’t try to be. It just works well, and in New York City — where things constantly seem designed to be needlessly difficult — something that simply works well is genuinely underrated.
If you’re planning a longer NYC trip and you’ve been going back and forth on whether an extended-stay apartment-style hotel makes sense, run the math. Add up what you’d spend on restaurants for every meal, factor in laundry costs, think about how much you actually need a real desk to function. You might surprise yourself.
And if you do end up booking it — pack the earplugs, grab groceries on your first day, and go find those empanadas on 9th Avenue. Trust me on that last one.
