Villa Copenhagen, Denmark (Choice / Preferred Hotels / Amex FHR): Bottom Line Review

Last month, my wife Shae and I flew over to Denmark to go on a behind the scenes tour of Thomas Dambo’s studio in Copenhagen (he’s the artist who creates troll sculptures around the world using reclaimed wood).

We booked tickets on that tour just before Christmas last year which worked out perfectly. Shae and I each had an Amex Platinum card on which we hadn’t redeemed our $200 Fine Hotels + Resorts (FHR) credits for 2024. When researching our Copenhagen hotel options, I noticed that Villa Copenhagen was fairly reasonably priced at less than $300 per night for our dates, meaning we’d be out of pocket less than $100 per night after the credits, so I booked us a couple of nights there over the weekend we’d be visiting.

We later decided to elongate our trip a little, so we booked another night there using one of our 2025 FHR credits, as well as a night at the Clarion by the airport (I’ll publish a review of that hotel in the next week) at the end of our trip.

Villa Copenhagen Bottom Line Review

Our flight to Copenhagen landed at about 7:30am. Despite it being so early, we decided to head straight to the hotel in the hope that we could check in early. One of the benefits on FHR stays is the ability to check in from 12pm based upon availability and we hoped we might get lucky with a chance to check in even earlier than that.

That didn’t work out, so we left our bags at the front desk and went out to explore the city for a while, returning at about noon. Our room was ready by 12:30pm, so we headed up to our room to sleep off some of our jetlag.

Villa Copenhagen’s building was once the Central Post Office before being transformed into a hotel in 2020. As a result of it being a converted building in Europe, the bedrooms aren’t enormous. I’d booked a standard queen room and we apparently got upgraded to the next room type which is larger, but even so our room was quite small.

The room did have nice finishes though, as did the rest of the property. In fact, one of the hotel’s best features is its interior courtyard. Designed by Shamballa Jewels, its glass roof ensures the lobby is flooded with light throughout the day, even when it’s dreary out. The courtyard features a bar, as well as a bakery from which the hotel gets pastries at breakfast.

Speaking of breakfast, there’s a pretty good spread at its buffet which is included for free when booking through Amex Fine Hotels + Resorts. (Update: Based on a couple of comments below, breakfast is apparently included on all stays, regardless of how you book.) There’s a rooftop outdoor swimming pool, as well as a poolside bar for guests to enjoy.

Location-wise, it’s in a great area for exploring the city. It’s opposite Tivoli Gardens, although that was closed during our visit (it was due to open for the season a week or two later). The train station is also right outside, while the rest of downtown is walkable from the hotel.

We had a nice stay overall and I’d be happy to stay there again if we had FHR credits to burn, although I wouldn’t necessarily recommend getting dinner at the hotel’s courtyard bar – more about that below.

n.b. Greg stayed at this hotel a couple of years ago, so here’s his review.

• Points Price: Villa Copenhagen is bookable through a variety of methods. You can book through Choice Privileges where it costs 20,000 Choice points per night. If you have Citi ThankYou points or transferable Wells Fargo points, they transfer to Choice on a 1:2 basis, so that would be 10,000 points per night.
  Alternatively, you can book the Preferred Hotels I Prefer program where it’s 50,000 points per night. Citi ThankYou points can be transferred to I Prefer on a 1:4 basis, so that would be 12,500 Citi points. As a result, you’re best off booking via Choice if you’re planning on transferring Citi points to book it.
  Villa Copenhagen is also part of Strawberry Hotels which has a loyalty program that earns Spenn. It looks like dynamic pricing is used for hotel redemptions.
• Cash Price: When booking at the end of December for two nights in mid-March, the Amex FHR cash rate including tax was $276.84 per night. We later decided to add a third night at the start of that stay; that was booked only a couple of weeks before our visit and cost $343.52 including tax. I didn’t check the cash rate when booking directly or via Choice and Preferred Hotels.
• Points Value: Very good. If using Choice points, you’d be getting well over 1 cent per point of value. If transferring Citi ThankYou points to Choice, you’d be getting ~3 cents per point of value.
• Resort or Destination Fee: None.

• Parking: Yes, although it does come at a high price. They have a limited number of valet parking spots available, so they recommend booking that before your arrival in order to ensure a space. Parking costs 500 DKK per night which is ~$75.
• Bedroom: As mentioned earlier, the room we received felt quite small despite being a larger, slightly upgraded queen room. In addition to the queen bed, there was an armchair and side table, a cabinet with a closet, dressers and shelves, as well as a mini bar hidden away in a smaller unit with a marble countertop.
  The room was decorated nicely, but there were a couple of features that I wasn’t a fan of. One is that the trash can was miniature and was divided into three sections – one for trash and two for different types of recycling. Given its already small size, having it split into three sections meant there was virtually no space for anything in any of the sections.
  The other feature I didn’t like was that the bathroom had frosted windows. That meant that if you or your companion want to use the bathroom at night, turning on the light in there lights up the entire bedroom.
  The bathroom had a good-sized walk-in shower which had decent water pressure. There were large bottles of Skandinavisk toiletries.
• Housekeeping: Not much to say here. We declined housekeeping one of the days, but they came the other full day we were there and seemed to do a good job.
• Turndown service: Sort of. After getting back one night, we noticed a decanter of water and a couple of drinking glasses had been left for us, but that was it.
• Internet: The connection and speed seemed to be good.
• Dining: The hotel has several dining establishments:
  • Villa Breakfast – As the name suggests, this is where breakfast is offered. When booking via FHR, this is complimentary for two people and is buffet style where you seat yourself. There are numerous hot options, cold cuts, fruit, yogurt, cereals, bread, pastries, etc.
  • Rug Bakery – The pastries come from the hotel’s onsite bakery Rug, where you can get baked goods and all kinds of other food items from 7am through 11pm or midnight depending on the day
  • Courtyard Bar – This is in the hotel’s main courtyard and is open from 7:30am through midnight or 2am depending on the day. We got dinner there one night using our $100 FHR dining credit and were disappointed. My smorrebrod was fine, but my wife’s burger arrived cold. Service was also incredibly slow and inattentive.
  • T37 – This is a bar that’s open from 5pm-midnight from Tuesday-Thursday and 4pm-1am from Friday-Saturday (it’s closed Sunday-Monday). We didn’t grab a drink there, so I’m not sure what it’s like.
• Club Lounge: No.
• Spa: Not as such, although they do offer in-room massages upon request.
• Fitness Room: This was an OK size and had several pieces of cardio equipment and weights. There were people working out whenever I stopped by there, so I wasn’t able to get any photos of it for below.
• Pool: There’s a heated rooftop pool that’s 25 meters (82 feet) long, as well as a large sauna.
• Welcome Amenity: None
• Service: Although service at the Courtyard Bar wasn’t great, the front desk staff were always very friendly, welcoming and helpful.
• Pet Policy: Yes, dogs are allowed. DMoney shared in the comments below that the pet fee is 75 DKK (~$11.50) and there’s a limit of one pet per room, with a max weight of 20 kgs (44 lbs)
• Location: It’s in a great location opposite the train station and Tivoli Gardens. Rosenborg Castle is a 30 minute walk away, with most places in downtown Copenhagen being within that kind of walking distance.
• Elite Benefits: We booked via Amex Fine Hotels + Resorts which meant we received the following benefits:
  • Complimentary breakfast for two each morning.
  • $100 food & beverage credit per stay. We didn’t get this per night, despite booking three separate one night stays to redeem our FHR credits. The front desk staff member specified when checking in that this was the case.
  • 4pm late checkout. We did take advantage of this, then left our luggage with the hotel for a couple of hours while we went back out into the city to do a little shopping.
  • 12pm early check-in. This is another benefit we were able to utilize which we greatly appreciated seeing as this is based on availability rather than being guaranteed. Our room was ready as 12:30pm, so almost as good as we could expect.
  • Room upgrade at check-in. This was apparently provided, although it didn’t seem like a significant upgrade. Given the size of the room though, I was glad we weren’t in something smaller as we had three large suitcases with us, as well as two carry-ons and two laptop bags (we were in the process of moving some stuff to the UK, hence why we had far more stuff than we normally would when traveling internationally).
• Would I stay again? I certainly wouldn’t be against it as it can be a great option for redeeming Amex FHR credits provided the room rate is $300 or below.
  If booking with Choice points though, I might be more inclined to book the Hotel Admiral (part of the Ascend Hotel Collection) or the Comfort Hotel Vesterbro. The Hotel Admiral costs the same 20,000 points as Villa Copenhagen, but it’s on the waterfront close to Nyhavn. We didn’t make it to Nyhavn during this visit, so that would be a convenient place to stay next time.
  As for the Comfort Hotel Vesterbro, that only costs 12,000 points per night and has larger rooms that are bookable with points (such as a superior room with a double bed and a two person sofa bed).

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Location – Very convenient location for exploring the city and beyond if you want to take the train somewhere.
• Rooftop pool – Although we didn’t go swimming, the pool looked lovely.
• Breakfast – If booking through FHR, the full buffet breakfast has a good selection.
• FHR benefits – When booking through FHR, it’s great being able to take advantage of that breakfast benefit, a 4pm late checkout, $100 dining credit, etc.

Cons

• Small rooms – They’re definitely cozy.
• Bathroom windows – It’s not that there’s a lack of privacy, it’s that bathroom lights shine into the bedroom at night.

Image Gallery

General

Bedroom

Bathroom

Breakfast

Courtyard Bar

Amenities

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