In our quest to bring you this guide to the world's priciest hotels we've dined on mountaintops, hob-knobbed with Arab royalty, sipped champagne with leopards and been concierged to within an inch of our lives...

Name: Burj Al Arab.
Location: Dubai.
Theme: All that glitters is gold.
Price: In the region of £1,250 for a basic suite to 8,000 bad boys for the royal one.
What you're paying for: Well, seven stars, for a start. This behemoth is a thousand feet tall, made of glass and shaped like a sail, with a lobby plated in gold leaf. To get to its underwater restaurant you have to take a submarine.
Accommodation: Duplex suites with a lot of gold, glitter and marble, as well as butler service, pillow menus and 42-inch (!) plasma TVs.
Spotted: Naomi Campbell had a birthday bash there. World leaders and Bollywood stars love it too, apparently.

Be there: Dubai
Related: A-list destinations | Five luxury destinations
Search: Burj Al Arab | Dubai hotels