HOME | LAST 100 POSTS | CONTACT ME

Category: Accor

  • The Dangers of Booking Directly with Accor – the Saga of Mercure Heathrow

    The Dangers of Booking Directly with Accor – the Saga of Mercure Heathrow

    As an update, the Mercure hotel themselves have resolved the matter to my satisfaction, but I remain disappointed that Accor managed to ignore the issue for three months.

    And here’s another saga and a story that I didn’t much want to write as I was hoping Accor would come through. What’s below is a mix of rant, annoyance and a reminder I want my money back   🙂   I wish I had the words of Jay Rayner, who completely destroyed a failing Dorchester Hotel. His description of a dish as “it tastes mostly of tomato ketchup and profit” is glorious. I rely on quotes from the Inbetweeners, but I’ve limited myself to just one below.

    I alerted some other hotel companies about the situation over the last couple of weeks (Accor have spurned my loving advances, so I’ll have to find a replacement), who seem to be bemused at what on earth Accor are doing. Although they would say that….. Anyway, that allowed me to get some quotes that I’ll be using over the next few weeks as this debacle unfolds and I throw my affections elsewhere. I’ve also merrily told some Accor hotels about this situation (not many, primarily as I don’t know many) and it’s clear there are some tensions between Accor and their franchisees, which all adds to the excitement. But, let’s not get distracted as this is extra drama for future posts.

    Before I go any further, I’d mention that I’m very aware that there are problems in the hospitality industry, but this situation was meant to be resolved on 2 June 2021 and Accor have ignored every message to their customer support since. Given that we’re now 10 weeks after that date and there has been no request for more time from Accor, I’ve run out of options.

    I think it’s fair to say now that the lovely representative at Accor communications has been helpful (and they likely think I’m an idiot and they wouldn’t be the first…..), but that’s the only part of Accor that isn’t ignoring me. Which isn’t ideal since I’ve got a section on this blog about them and mentioned tens of times about why they’re a pretty good hotel chain (especially in Poland).

    But let’s set the scene and I will accept this isn’t one of the most urgent problems in the world. But it’s annoyed me and it’s my blog, so I feel it’s fair to air my general annoyance.

    On 15 March 2021, I booked three nights at the Mercure Heathrow for £98 from 1 to 4 June 2021. All really rather reasonable and Accor confirms by e-mail that payment has been taken successfully. This is going well…..

    I think nothing more of this as Accor bookings are usually problem-free and on 27 May 2021 I get the pre-stay email from Mercure Heathrow saying they’re looking forwards to me staying. All rather lovely.

    Then, I turn up on 1 June 2021 and the hotel is a bit shut, it’s become a quarantine hotel. I approach a team member who tells me that this is why it’s best to book with Accor directly rather than a third party agent. I explain I booked with Accor. There’s then confusion and the team member confirms the hotel has indeed got a live booking for me and says it’s best to get in touch with Accor so they can fix the problem. They apologise profusely and look very confused.

    So, whilst standing at the outer perimeter of what is now a quarantine area, I phone the Accor Platinum support team, who answer immediately. After some confusion about how this has happened, they confirmed that I have a live booking at a closed hotel and take responsibility. They apologise numerous times, saying that they will fix the issue. The very helpful operator goes to check which hotels they can put me in and she says it’s best for them to replicate the booking for three nights at a nearby Accor hotel, rather than me find one night myself. I comment that I’m happy with the cheapest (secretly I want to be put in the Savoy, but I was expecting an Ibis Budget), but the staff member says that the Novotel Heathrow is the nearest and that this is the best option.

    The Platinum team then phone the Novotel Heathrow who don’t answer, which we agree isn’t ideal. The Platinum team member then says she’s sure it’s fine to book the hotel, but I’ll need to pay for the room and get a refund from Accor. Now, at this point, Expedia and booking.com state they wouldn’t do this, they would take the hit for the new booking themselves. Ironically, if I had booked this Accor hotel with Expedia or booking.com, then I would have had the matter resolved immediately. By booking with Accor, I’m now lumbered with paying for two hotels and making a claim back. But it seems clear, I’ll pay the £255.55 to Heathrow Novotel and Accor will refund that to me, so that I only pay the £98 I was originally meant to.

    On another aside, the IHG comms team have now sent me a message about their refund policy. It’s a bit more nuanced and I’ll return to the details, but, in short, they wouldn’t have double charged like this either. To add some excitement, Travelodge and Premier Inn also told me that they wouldn’t have charged again, they would have found me another hotel within their estate. Accor’s policy is clearly already unusual and perhaps really not fair on their customers.

    I don’t normally take taxis anywhere, but the phone support suggest getting them and sending in the bills. I just walked, I didn’t want to run up anyone’s bills unnecessarily as I don’t normally take taxis anywhere. I was at that stage very pleased with Accor and I wrote about that at the time. I was told this was a substantial mistake for Accor and the Mercure Heathrow hotel and they treated this very seriously, so I would receive a phone call the following day, 2 June 2021.

    I receive an e-mail from Accor when getting off the phone telling me that the request is in hand and including a reference number, so all seems well. And that was that, it’s all that I’ve heard from Accor, who have now started to ignore me. Novotel Heathrow won’t help, although Mercure Heathrow sent some Rewards Points which covered my minimal extra expenses in terms of buses. Amex have also confirmed that Mercure Heathrow have returned the £98 that was taken for this booking. That means I’m still just under £160 down on this deal and I did suggest to Accor that I’d accept this in Reward Point vouchers for future bookings at Accor. They’ve ignored that request as well.

    In fairness, a communications officer for Accor has been helpful and tried to resolve the matter. I won’t name them, but it seems they’re passing on messages and the Accor senior staff are just ignoring them. I can’t stress the communications team any more, this isn’t their problem. This blog post is unlikely to get more than 2,000 views which makes it easier for Accor to ignore, which in fairness is what they’re doing without much concern.

    To quote Will from the Inbetweeners:

    “Why don’t we at least attempt to have a sophisticated conversation? I know it’s a tall order, and I’m not expecting sparkling, but let’s give it a go, eh?”

    The real difficulty here is that the legally responsible party are Mercure Heathrow, operated by Crimson Hotels. It was their hotel that was shut, the booking was with them and they gave permission for Accor to deal with the matter. That means I’ll have to take them to the small claims court, an entirely ridiculous matter given Accor could have quite easily fixed this. I hope yet that Accor decide that they will fix this little issue before I have to commence legal action against Crimson Hotels. If Accor had asked for a few more weeks to look at the matter, I would have been entirely happy, but they’re just merrily entirely ignoring me…..

    As it stands, and I really don’t think Accor could disagree with this in the circumstances, it is currently safer to book hotels using a third party aggregator site (hotels.com from Expedia or booking.com) as booking directly with Accor comes with the very real chance of being left financially worse off. I’m not a fan of Trustpilot, but Accor seem to be having problems in a similar vein from other customer, https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/all.accor.com.

    I shall update if Accor resolve the matter and I can put this down to a slight oversight….. Or indeed, I’ll update with my continued complaining at Accor, so either way, I suspect my limited blog readership will have to read about this on far more occasions than they’d want to. And I need to find a new hotel chain to pour my affections on.

  • IHG – 10,000 Points for Every 10 Stays

    IHG – 10,000 Points for Every 10 Stays

    This is a clever tactic I think from IHG, a new project they started a couple of months ago which gives 10,000 reward points (which is often enough to get a free hotel room in a Holiday Inn Express) for every ten nights stayed. On the 40th room night, they give a bonus of 30,000 reward points, all in addition to the usual earnings. I’m going to struggle to get to that total, although I’m on course to reach Platinum so I might not be far off. I have though received my first 10,000 bonus points from this campaign.

    I thought that Accor would do something similar to this, as otherwise there’s not much additional incentive to stay further nights once a rewards tier has been reached (and I can’t reach any more without hitting Diamond which is their only tier which can’t be achieved by nights stayed). I’ve had a few problems with Accor this summer and none from IHG, so my loyalty is starting to waver a little. Accor do though have some excellent hotels that I really rather like…..

  • Coventry – Ibis Coventry South

    Coventry – Ibis Coventry South

    This Accor hotel is about a thirty-minute walk from Coventry and isn’t very well reviewed on-line, so I wasn’t entirely sure what I’d make of it. It’s a motel type set-up, with the office and reception separate from the main accommodation block. There’s not much that can be done about that now, but it probably wasn’t a great design when conceived twenty years ago or so. I’ve stayed in numerous motels in the United States, but I can’t recall of one which hasn’t had the reception built into the main part of the building.

    The separate accommodation block. My first impressions was that there were people playing music outside who probably should have been told to stop by the hotel staff. I’m getting ever more immune to noise and quite liked the bizarre conversations that they were having, but I can see why the hotel gets negative reviews about this entire set-up. It doesn’t give a good first impression and there’s plenty of space for the hotel to ask guests to move to if they want to sit outside and listen to music.

    The interior of the rooms surprised me, as although the exterior is very not Ibis like, the rooms have been refitted to meet the brand standard. Indeed, the rooms were clean, well presented and fully functional, which entirely satisfied my requirements. I suspect that the cost of bringing this set-up into the rooms was quite expensive, so there’s been a financial commitment here to the hotel’s future. The rooms were cool in temperature and I could open the window, but there was no air conditioning.

    The hotel’s restaurant is currently closed, although they are still doing a basic food menu. It’s one of the restaurants that in normal times does that annoying thing of having 50% off to people who use things such as the Gourmet Society and Tastecard. Lovely if you’re loyal to the Gourmet Society, but perhaps less so if you were just loyal to Accor and didn’t realise.

    I didn’t see any interesting beer options for my rewards drink, so limited myself just to a Coke. The bar area was sort of open, but it didn’t feel entirely inviting, so I just brought it back to my room.

    I’m not a driver, so the car park situation has little relevance to me, but there is some fining set-up in place for those who don’t pay the car park charge. This might have been removed now, but the hotel has a whole host of complaints going back years on how guests have received a fine through the post. Likely not ideal and I’m surprised they need to charge for car parking this far out of the city centre.

    Anyway, I slept very well and had no noise disturbances at all, which moderately surprised me. The corridor outside the room with limited glazing does drag the hotel’s reviews down, although I was nearly at the end of an external corridor so didn’t have many people needing to walk this far down. Given that the room cost under £40, which was nearly all paid for by Accor Rewards points, I thought this was actually perfectly decent value for money. For those who want something nearer to Coventry, Ibis also have another hotel in the city centre (but that was obviously more expensive, so I traipsed out here).

  • London – Redbridge (Borough of) – Ibis Styles London Seven Kings (Update 2)

    London – Redbridge (Borough of) – Ibis Styles London Seven Kings (Update 2)

    I complained quite a lot on this blog about what I considered to be the badly run Ibis Styles London Seven Kings (Post 1 | Post 2) which I thought was brand damaging to Accor Hotels. And, just ten days after opening, the hotel appears to have decided to scrap tens of bookings so that they can accept a larger block booking. The room inventory has been removed from aggregate sites for months with, if reviews are to be believed, no real attempt to deal with the number of disappointed Accor customers given just hours notice.

    Hopefully, this hotel management company won’t get the opportunity to damage Accor’s brand further and hopefully that Ibis Styles signage will soon be taken down.

  • Birmingham – Ibis Birmingham New Street Station

    Birmingham – Ibis Birmingham New Street Station

    My stay tonight is at the Ibis Birmingham New Street station hotel, part of the Accor chain. It’s centrally located and as its name suggests, is near to New Street railway station.

    There’s a modern feel to the bar area and reception, so first impressions were positive. The staff member at reception was friendly, engaging and helpful, with everything feeling like it was well run. I got my drinks voucher without needing to ask and the hotel said they weren’t going to collect the 98p that was owing (I paid for nearly all of this stay with Accor rewards points), although I suspect it might appear on my card statement as these things tend to be automated. Either way, all nicely done and I like the personable check-in process. The staff member also mentioned that she was looking forwards to seeing me again next week, I hadn’t realised their system showed future linked bookings. I had forgotten I had booked here next week for three nights, but she was quite right.

    The bar area is comfortable, not very busy at the moment and fits in with the attempts to modernise the Ibis brand. Nice.

    There were a few beer options, none of them decadent, but the Camden Pale Ale is perfectly acceptable to me as a welcome drink. It doesn’t take much effort to offer something like this, rather than just shove a few Bud and Corona in the fridge and claim that’s a beer offering. Another engaging member of staff at the bar, there’s a welcoming feel and atmosphere to this entire hotel. In an ideal world the bar could probably ramp up its drinks offerings to be a bit more creative, but there are no problems currently with the choice.

    The room is clearly a few years old and it’s slightly smaller than Ibis rooms usually are. However, it’s a central location and it has a desk, so I’m happy. There’s an air conditioning unit under the window which seems to be disconnected (although reviews suggest they are still going in some rooms), but the window opens and there’s a fan, so that’s fine with me. This attempt to sterilise rooms by sealing them up annoys me when hotels do it, it’s nice here to actually have a window open and to hear the world outside. There are no small number of reviews complaining about the noise from the street, but I quite like that and I’m not sure what a city centre hotel is realistically meant to do about city noise. I like that they’ve given me a top floor room as well, not too near the lift.

    I’m not tempted by the breakfast which is £10, requires pre-booking and seems to allow a limited amount of each items, so no more than two sausages and two rashers of bacon I think it mentioned. Customers also had to choose which hot drink they wanted, but Ibis usually offer endless amounts of any particular item. It’s much cheaper to just go around the corner to JD Wetherspoon or a local cafe, but I imagine that these Covid limitations will be swept away soon enough.

    Anyway, I’m very pleased with my £35 per night stay, especially as it’s funded by Accor points from previous stays. The rooms probably need a refurbishment in the next few years, but they are currently clean and entirely functional, so there’s perhaps no huge urgency. Reviews are mixed, but I think most of the problem is the room pushing the scores down, the staff and location rate highly.

  • Accor – We’d Like Your Feedback Email

    Accor – We’d Like Your Feedback Email

    Probably in the best interests of everyone, there’s been a technical glitch in my feedback email following my Accor stay this weekend and it has blanked out the hotel name and corrupted the link.

    Anyway, I’ve got a positive vibe that I’m going to now get a run of excellent Accor hotels…..

  • Birmingham – ibis Styles Birmingham Centre

    Birmingham – ibis Styles Birmingham Centre

    I was a little nervous of visiting this hotel, given how much I had to complain about in the terrible Ibis Styles Seven Kings hotel in London over the weekend. Incidentally, the promised communication from the general manager from there unsurprisingly didn’t happen, but that’s no surprise. Anyway, moving on from that disaster, I was hoping not to find another problem hotel. There comes a point where it would become clear that the problem was me, not the hotel.

    As a TLDR, this hotel in Birmingham is much better. The welcome at reception was authentic, smooth and efficient, with the welcome drink proffered without my asking for it. Lots of information about the hotel and the staff member was conversational, so my first impressions were positive.

    The rooms here all appear to be the same size, but reception mistakenly gave me a room they’d made up for a family.

    I fixed that. The room has some faults, but it’s a few years old and I suspect it’ll get renovated in the next few years. The windows don’t open, which I don’t like, but there are vents which mitigate the problem somewhat. There aren’t power points by the bed, but that’s a legacy of when the hotel was designed. It was otherwise clean and it has a desk, which I consider to be an essential in a hotel room (unlike the designers of the Ibis Styles Seven Kings, which I feel I might keep mentioning).

    The main light was flickering, but I reported that they had a bit of a broken bulb to reception and they had it fixed by the time I came back. The air conditioning is also central, with no way for the customer to cool or heat the room, which is absolutely not ideal either, but the temperature has been OK for me.

    The drinks selection was though inadequate, a choice of Bud and Corona is not much use to me and there should be a nod towards something local. By chance, a guest asked when I was there if they had any real ale and the polite staff member sent them to the pub next door. The hotel should offer bottled real ale here, this is in my view an omission which is easily fixed.

    I like these and I wouldn’t have expected those early times to be so quiet. I don’t like a breakfast with ambience, I like one with no people, so I went down at 07:15.

    The breakfast area, which is partly served by staff and partly self-service. Now that “Freedom Day” has gone by, I wonder how long these staffed sections will remain, but it was all efficient and well managed.

    And there we go. All fine and everything at the appropriate temperature, with the environment being spotlessly clean. Those pain au chocolate are generic, but I quite liked them with the above average machine coffee that they had. Incidentally, the breakfast is included and that used to be the case at more Ibis Styles, but Accor seems to have removed that as a requirement from the brand which is a shame.

    Unfortunately, the hotel has below average reviews, which is a shame given the friendliness of the staff. The problem is evident when looking at the detailed scores on Google, the location gets 4.8/5, the service gets 4.6/5 and the rooms 2.9/5, so it’s clear that a refurbishment would be better sooner rather than later. Problems seem to be mostly be about air conditioning, a lack of openable windows and slow wi-fi (it is quite slow as I checked) which with the exception of the latter they are likely to be difficult to fix now. There are very few negative reviews about the staff, so at least customers feel welcome and that’s important.

    I’m still here for a couple more days, but I’m not expecting any debacles, which means this is a hotel that I’m perfectly happy in. I got this as part of the Accor ‘three nights for the price of two, with free breakfast’ offer at the beginning of the year, although it’s the only one that the chain didn’t ultimately cancel due to some of their hotels still being closed. Anyway, it’s a relief not to have two bad hotels in a row (not that I get many hotels that I consider bad anyway).

  • London – Redbridge (Borough of) – Ibis Styles London Seven Kings (Update)

    London – Redbridge (Borough of) – Ibis Styles London Seven Kings (Update)

    I commented, at length, about the disappointing experience I was having at the Ibis Styles London Seven Kings hotel. Anyway, I was going to leave it at that since it’s a new hotel and I wrote the post mid-way through my stay and hoped it might get better. But, whether through spite or not, they’ve now left my room door open today after cleaning it. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt about their intentions, but it’s really not ideal to leave customer rooms open all day.

    The hotel isn’t using phones in the room, instead they’re using a WhatsApp system to alert reception if customers have any questions or queries. I love these systems, it’s a great way for hotels to be able to engage with customers and have effectively real-time communications. They’re also alerting customers to this system at the reception desk. I thought this was great.

    I merrily report that my room has been left open all day to the reception desk using the WhatsApp system, just in case I later discover anything of theirs (or mine) has been stolen from the room. It transpires they haven’t bothered to look at their WhatsApp account since early evening of yesterday (26 hours ago). If someone had experienced an emergency in the room, no-one would know at Accor and there’s nothing the guest could do.

    Incidentally, I note a negative review the hotel has received today:

    “In the morning we went down for breakfast. Arrived in time, but the options what you can choose for the price, is zero. I asked for some bacon, but they not making on Sunday (???) No fruit to choose, no yoghurt, nothing… I’m really sad, but I can’t recommend this place.”

    Sounds a delightful breakfast……..

    Anyway, I move to another Accor hotel today, let’s hope it’s a more positive engagement   🙂

    [as an aside, the hotel did notice their WhatsApp message at 3am and mentioned the general manager would get in touch when they got in. They haven’t, but I think it’s best that my stay at this hotel is best forgotten for them and for me……]

  • London – Redbridge (Borough of) – Ibis Styles London Seven Kings

    London – Redbridge (Borough of) – Ibis Styles London Seven Kings

    [NB, I wrote this post mid-stay, and it got a little worse…..]

    I was very excited to hear about the opening of this new Ibis hotel in Seven Kings, near Ilford. Ibis Styles is my favourite brand within Accor, I like the quirky, informal and innovative design approach which often has some intriguing and brave themes. It’s also located next to a railway station and some rooms have views over the new Elizabeth Line trains (not yet officially called that, but they’re running into Liverpool Street and being tested through the central zone).

    I was eyeing this up to be my new favourite hotel given that it’s this side of London, especially as I’ve stayed at Ibis Styles Kensington 15 or so times over the last year. The omens were positive that Accor could pull something off here. I e-mailed the hotel asking if I could take photos of the public areas, as other hotels have said to ask them that and they can ensure I see everything that they want to show off. This hotel didn’t reply, but since it only opened on Monday, I thought that they might be busy. Although as a side issue, hotels ignoring e-mails does irritate me, it normally shows up wider problems.

    I had good cause to be hopeful, as the Ibis Budget Whitechapel have had a sensationally good renovation and they are absolutely on it. The management there replied to e-mails nearly instantly, they’ve got a cool design theme and they use Instagram to promote their hotel. I really rather love that hotel and will have to stay there more often.

    And before I start writing about this hotel, I know that nearly no-one will care and this post will never get more than 2,000 or so accesses, but there we go….. And I am also aware that the hotel has different rooms which might have led to me writing a very different post.

    The check-in process was torturous, although the team members here are enthused, friendly and clearly trying their best. Three asked if I had been having a good day, so I assume that’s part of the training. Unfortunately, the management here have skipped the rest of the training, with the knowledgeable and personable team member at reception not knowing much about Accor’s loyalty programme. That isn’t ideal for a new hotel opening, but these things happen and I didn’t view it negatively. It did mean I had to request a drinks voucher, which the hotel don’t have yet, but after consulting with a manager, they agreed they would provide a free drink.

    I paid for the room, after some confusion about whether the hotel accepted Amex (they thought they did, but it transpired that they don’t). I then realised that I had already paid for the room in advance, leading to a quick refund being issued. Anyway, I was still quite content at this stage as the team members were really engaging and so it would be unnecessarily harsh not to expect some mistakes here. To reinforce that point, the team members were as friendly as realistically could be possible, they were really doing their best.

    Back to the design, I’m not sure what the hotel’s theme is, I think it’s just an environmental one. I still like some of the mainland Europe themes, like Romans or space, something very different.

    The view from the hotel bar and reception, they’ve got a really good location here. It’s a fast rail route into London Liverpool Street, all really convenient. There’s also free car parking available for those who want to drive in.

    The room is dreadful and entirely inadequate as far as I’m concerned. The room photos for this room type had photos of a desk, but this small room didn’t have one. This sort of room size is in Ibis Budget territory (and Ibis Budget provide a desk) and it’s only marginally bigger than the deliberately designed small rooms of Hub by Premier Inn.

    I’ve on five different hotel advisory panels (including two from Accor, although I suspect with posts like this I’ll be purged) and they come up with some brilliant and innovative ideas. Premier Inn’s Hub concept is really thought through, they’ve made great use of the space, they’ve built in a desk, air conditioning and all I could want in a very small room. Other hotels have put forward for advance feedback some intriguing room concepts. The room designers here haven’t burdened themselves with any design attempt, they’ve shoved a bed in and some clunky lumpy thing in the corner. That green wall might look fine in a larger room, but in a small room it’s made the thing feel really quite drab.

    The next problem here is that the hotel windows don’t open. I don’t like this, but it’s manageable if there’s air conditioning. The hotel is boldly advertising that every room has air conditioning, but they don’t have, they have a cheap centralised air warming and cooling system (although I suspect the hotel operating company will argue they paid a lot of money for it). The rooms are simply too hot and there’s nothing that can be done. No windows, no fans, no cooling mechanism.

    The air conditioning system they’re using seems gloriously ineffective as well at pushing any fresh air into the rooms, it’s like the old aircraft that pump the same stale air around. At least Dreamliners and the like pull in fresh air to circulate, but goodness knows what system is in place here. I’ve digressed to writing about aircraft…..

    As part of the hotel’s plan to make their rooms as dingy, sterile and miserable as possible, they’ve put in sound proofing from the outside. I accept that’s likely appreciated by nearly every guest, but I like road noise, although I can’t really fault the hotel for my strange likings. Internally, the hotel doesn’t feel well built, as sound circulates around the building and I can hear neighbouring rooms.

    Nothing says “welcome” like some smashed biscuits. Although to be fair, they didn’t have to offer this.

    Anyway, rather than complain here when it was too late, I went to tell reception that I didn’t like the room and asked if they had one with a desk. Apparently they don’t, otherwise they’d have upgraded me, only the hotel’s five suites have a desk (which is not what the photos suggest). I did offer to pay more money for a better room (although Platinum guests should be upgraded anyway for free), but they apparently couldn’t help. The team member was polite, but it was clear that this was the best room the hotel had available. The Accor web-site has substantial room availability for this hotel on-line, so I’m not sure if the hotel’s room inventory system is broken (they were having technical problems with their hotel management software).

    Back to being positive, the hotel bar is much better, the designers have put some considerable effort into having a bright and airy feel to the public areas. For customers who want it, they can enjoy a drink with a view over the station for those who like people watching, it’s nice. I have no idea what the food menu is though as it’s not published on-line or in the rooms, but they serve meals.

    The beer selection is the worst I’ve seen in an Accor hotel in recent years, limited to Corona and Budweiser. Two generic beers with sod all effort made at localising the menu or offering some local beers. I’m not expecting decadent craft beer (although some hotels do make an effort in this area), but other Ibis hotels in the city do manage to have local beers from London. Accor were meant to be promoting an element of their localisation of their food and drink, but I can see no evidence that the hotel is reaching out to the community and local producers at all here.

    I think it’s clear that I don’t like this hotel and I can’t recall any Accor I’ve ever stayed at having worse rooms. For a new-build hotel where the rooms are five days old, this doesn’t bode well for the future of the hotel industry if this is the sort of rubbish that is going to be pumped out. Travelodge rooms are simply far better and I think even by their own measure, Travelodge are seen to be at the lower end of the scale in that regard. Really this hotel is operating at Ibis Budget standards, although is still someway behind locations such as Ibis Budget Whitechapel.

    Early media reports stated that this hotel would be the first UK venture for Novum Hotels, who I’ve stayed with numerous times and have been impressed with. They don’t list the hotel on their web-site, but if this mess of a hotel is anything to do with Novum I’ll be extra disappointed [I’ve checked since writing this, and I’m delighted this has transpired to be nothing to do with Novum and I’m not surprised at that. It’s actually run by Black & White Hospitality, part of the Marco Pierre White operation]. I suspect that this hotel will score fine initially in reviews, as I’m not convinced their rooms are all as basic and so I can imagine might be quite exciting with views over the railway and some seem to be more airy. But, I can only judge what they gave me, which was worse than I’d expect in an Ibis Budget.

    A five minute drive or a twenty minute walk away is the Holiday Inn Express Newbury Park, I’d recommend anyone stay there instead. The quality of the whole experience there was in a different league to this Ibis Styles. Incidentally, I should add that the prices here were low, but seem to be increasing, so they might have had lower rates initially to build up occupancy. And I have to credit this hotel with being the first one I’ve stayed in since the pandemic started which is cleaning the rooms daily, with the hotel paying for plenty of staff to be available.

  • Edinburgh – Ibis Edinburgh Centre South Bridge Royal Mile

    Edinburgh – Ibis Edinburgh Centre South Bridge Royal Mile

    Accor have several hotels in Edinburgh, hence the rather long name to identify this from other nearby locations. It’s just a short walk from the central railway station and also from the heart of Edinburgh action. The city isn’t exactly quiet at the moment, but there certainly aren’t anywhere near the number of leisure visitors that would usually be expected.

    I haven’t seen a Platinum Accor envelope like this before and it’s a handy little concept, place for the welcome drink and for the room key. And I should add that I very much liked when I e-mailed this hotel about an early check-in that they responded quickly and with a really helpful answer. The staff member at check-in was helpful, engaging and welcoming, really all very personable. The lobby felt an inviting place to visit as well, so my first impressions were all positive.

    As another of my random asides, this leads me to start being annoyed at some of the London Accor hotels who are making no effort to do anything and in some cases aren’t even responding to e-mails. The quality of Ibis hotels in the UK is all over the place, not least because of all of the different operators. At least in Poland there is just one operator of Ibis hotels, Orbis, meaning that the quality is consistent. Anyway, I digress, but I’d mention that this hotel isn’t taking any short cuts (or none that I noticed anyway).

    This is an enhanced room the staff member mentioned and other than the generic bathroom that Ibis use, it doesn’t feel like the usual Ibis room layout. I thought that it was all very light and modern, with the designers making use of the architecture of the historic building that the hotel is located in. I’m not a big advocate for losing large desks in hotel rooms, as I find these useful, but I accept that it would have looked rather out of place in this room and I assume that the hotel usually gets a lot of leisure guests. For my needs, the table and chair that they had were entirely sufficient. The room was spotlessly clean, fully stocked and the temperature was easy to control with the air conditioning. The windows were entirely sealed for guests (although the hotel can open them), which is a slight shame as I’m one of those strange guests who likes to hear street noise and traffic in the background.

    The view was really lovely, that’s Arthur’s Seat and I very much enjoyed sitting there looking at that late in the evening (I had forgotten it gets dark in Scotland much later than down south…..) As another aside, shortly after check-in, a staff member offered a dressing gown, which isn’t something that I want, but I really can’t recall any other Ibis trying to offer me this, so I was suitably impressed.

    And full marks for actually producing this, which is information about the hotel and something that many locations seem to entirely neglect. I’m never sure how hotels expect guests to actually know what is available as it often seems to be something of a secret, but everything was clearly laid out here. It’s a different way of doing things in these Covid times, but nice to see that the hotel has actually thought about it.

    The menu for the hotel’s bar and restaurant is easy to find and is clearly displayed. The hotel is located across several floors and because of the nature of the building’s architecture that means the reception desk is on the fourth floor (although that’s also at street level) and the bar is on the third floor. My room was on the top floor, which was the ninth.

    The welcome drink and I chose Innis and Gunn as that’s a nod towards localism. OK, in an ideal world there would have been some decadent craft beer, but they did offer me any beer that I wanted and so there were no limits placed on me. I visited before going back out into the city and I was the only one in the bar, but it was still welcoming and laid-back, a nicely set-out environment. The staff here were again friendly, especially when I realised that I had forgotten my room number (it was written on the drinks voucher which I handed over, forgetting I had meant to take a note of it before doing that) and the poor guy had to open the till to remind me. I expect they’re usually used to more competent guests.

    All told, this was one of the best run Ibis hotels that I can remember staying in. Punching above its Ibis weight a little, the welcome was genuine, the rooms clean and the quality of the experience high. I’d be very pleased to come here again and I liked the farewell where the staff member seemed genuinely interested if I had enjoyed my stay. Really all very well managed and I appreciate their help with the early check-in after my arrival into the city on the sleeper train.