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Review: ibis Styles London Heathrow Airport hotel – it’s new, cheap, funky and friendly

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This is my review of the new ibis Styles London Heathrow Airport hotel.

Whilst Rob was enjoying the sun in Italy, I got to ‘enjoy’ the Piccadilly Line sauna towards Heathrow.

ibis Styles invited Head for Points to have a look at their new hotel at Heathrow Airport and to find out more about their concept.  I was a little uncertain about what to expect – ibis hotels have a reputation for being spartan – but I was very impressed by what I found.  Here is my review.

ibis styles heathrow airport review exterior building

What is ibis Styles?

ibis Styles is Accor’s economy and design brand.

Unlike ibis Budget hotels, every Styles hotel has got their own unique interior design, reflecting the area it’s in. Located right next to Heathrow Airport on Bath Road, ibis Styles London Heathrow is all about aviation.

Room rates at ibis Styles always include breakfast and free fast wi-fi.

Where is ibis Styles Heathrow?

There are only two airport hotels connected to Heathrow Airport – the Hilton at Terminal 4 and the Sofitel at Terminal 5, plus the box-like Yotel inside T4. The other hotels are a little bit (occasionally, a lot) further out but well connected with local buses and the Heathrow Hoppa airport hotel shuttle bus.

I took the Piccadilly Line to Hatton Cross and got on the 285 bus to Nene Road. The ibis Styles Heathrow is right across the road from the bus stop.  It is worth mentioning that local buses in the Heathrow area are free of charge so don’t touch in with your Oyster card.

(Rob ran this article back in March on which bus routes serve which hotels at Heathrow.)

Reception / Check-in

The reception area is bright and airy:

ibis styles heathrow airport review reception area

Next to the entrance is an interactive screen where you can access hotel information as well as flight departure times.

My room

I stayed in one of the seven biggest rooms. Most of these are accessible for people with reduced mobility.

The bed was comfortable and the pillows weren’t too thick.

ibis styles heathrow airport review my room bed

The sofa in the corner can be turned into a bed for two which makes this room perfect for a family of four:

ibis styles heathrow airport review my room sofa

The room had no wardrobe, only some hooks and hangers, but as you are most likely to only spend one night at an airport hotel this is no problem.

ibis styles heathrow airport review my room table bathroom carpet

The bathroom was very practical with a shower, sink and toilet. The duck in the window next to the mirror is one of three designs that you can find throughout the hotel’s bathrooms.

There was a 3 in 1 shampoo / shower gel / face wash in the shower, which I only used to clean my make up brush – after my experience in Liverpool I decided to start carrying my own shampoo around.

ibis styles heathrow airport review my room bathroom shower

A kettle and complimentary bottles of water are stored in an aluminium travel case next to the bed.

ibis styles heathrow airport review my room kettle water

Other rooms

This is a standard family room at ibis Styles Heathrow with a double bed and a sofa bed. As the picture shows, the design of all the rooms is the same.

ibis styles heathrow airport review standard room

This picture shows a standard room which doesn’t have a sofa bed. The flight related artworks above the beds vary from room to room.

ibis styles heathrow airport review small room no sofa

Restaurant

The ibis Styles Heathrow restaurant is open for breakfast (free for all guests) in the morning and serves a la carte for lunch and dinner. Kids portions are 50% off.

ibis styles heathrow airport review restaurant

At the far back of the restaurant is another aviation related artwork.

ibis styles heathrow airport review restaurant corner TV

Here is the proof that I don’t always eat burgers and steaks – I actually used to be a vegetarian until I moved to London ….

I had a very pleasant tomato soup and a salad for dinner.  And some wine.

ibis styles heathrow airport review restaurant tomato soup

Breakfast

If your flight is very early, you can order a small breakfast from 4:30am.  If you’ve got more time, you can enjoy a breakfast buffet from 6:30 until around 10:30. The hotel is apparently quite flexible about this, depending on the schedule of the guests. If a large number of people are still eating at 10:30 they won’t start putting things away.

If you prefer a cooked english breakfast, you can order it for an additional charge of £5 but as I was happy with the buffet selection I didn’t order hot food.

ibis styles heathrow airport review restaurant breakfast_2

Bar

Here is a picture of the bar which is in between reception and the restaurant.

ibis styles heathrow airport review bar

You can get free coffee and tea all day.

ibis styles heathrow airport review all day free coffee and tea

Conclusion

I was very impressed by the ibis Styles Heathrow. Bearing in mind that this is a 3* property, there is nothing to complain about. On the contrary I found the service to be excellent, the design fun and really enjoyed my stay.  I would happily stay there again.

Breakfast and fast wi-fi are included in the room rate and there is free coffee and tea all day. The only thing you could be spending money on when staying at the ibis Styles Heathrow is lunch, dinner or a drink.

If we’re honest, the overall standard of hotels at Heathrow – as with many major airports – is not great, irrespective of brand or star level.  I think you’ll find the new ibis Styles to be a lot better than many higher star-rated properties and if you give it a try, you won’t be disappointed.

You can read our full series of London airport hotel reviews here.

The hotel website is here if you want to know more.


Accor Live Limitless update – December 2024:

Earn bonus Accor points: Accor is not currently running a global promotion

New to Accor Live Limitless?  Read our review of Accor Live Limitless here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our analysis of what Accor Live Limitless points are worth is here.

Want to earn more hotel points?  Click here to see our complete list of promotions from Accor and the other major hotel chains or use the ‘Hotel Offers’ link in the menu bar at the top of the page.

Comments (46)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • zsalya says:

    What is Ibis definition of child for the half-price food?

  • Tommy says:

    Also worth considering uber when staying at the hotels on Bath Road- we always do that it’s about £5-£6 to T3 which is the same as one ticket on the hoppa.

    • Brian says:

      Yes, but the bus stops to the terminal are outside this particular hotel. So there is definitely zero point in getting a hoppa – so you need to compare an Uber to the free, frequent buses. Worth it if you have a lot of luggage, perhaps.

      • Uber Driver says:

        Just in case, you’re not already aware:

        UberX (Toyota Prius, or equivalent) prices from the Heathrow Terminals have a minimum fare of £14+parking.

        On the other hand, UberExec (Mercedes E-class, or equivalent), minimum fare from the airport is £10+parking.

        Generally, the minimum fare covers about a couple of miles + ten minutes, so getting an UberExec to the Ibis Styles makes more sense, especially as you’ll definitely be getting a bigger car, which is handy for luggage.

        • Hugo says:

          but remember this higher price only applies from the airport terminals and the price from the hotels are the normal uber rates.

    • John says:

      I took an uber from the Crowne Plaza at Heathrow to T5 at around 7am a couple of months ago. I think the uber came from one of those taxi car park things and took around 20mins to show up, followed by about a 10min drive. It seemed to take at least 10 minutes to leave where it was parked, so you might want to allow extra time for taxi to arrive..

  • Helen says:

    I stayed on Friday night using the Happy Monday deal. I thought it was a great deal for £25 b&b. Would definitely stay there again.

    There are now signs for rooms in the annex. It’s a bit of a faff but the rooms are very quiet.

    • Brusselsprout says:

      Good to hear the rooms are quiet. That is my main concern with Bath Road hotels – it can be very noisy when planes are taking off next to the hotels. Would also like to know if there is an iron in the rooms…

      • Peter K says:

        To iron your dresses, skirts and blouses of course. We need to avoid being male oriented! 🙂

  • nw1309 says:

    I have stayed at a few hotels at T5 for convenience. The Hilton T5 is my favourite – the in-house indian restaurant’s taster menu and the pool area are a great start to any trip. Due to the comments section on the airport parking in early august I decided to try the Thistle with its linked POD transfer. I am away for 23 nights which made parking fairly expensive, and I could not book a night+parking anywhere online as most allow up to 21 days, however I emailed the Thistle and they were more than happy to allow e to park for 23 nights at no added cost.

  • Billy says:

    I was really impressed by the Ibis Styles too.

    Really friendly staff and a cut about your Hilton and Premier Inn.

  • where2travel says:

    I’ve also stayed here recently and really rate this as a one-night stop before or after travelling from LHR. The fact it’s new means that everything is just fresh and clean and it’s in a great location travelling to and from the Heathrow terminals by bus.

    Luckily most of my stays at hotels near LHR have been on a weekend so the Accor Mondays deals come into their own. I would definitely stay here ahead of the IBIS (although for £25 I wouldn’t knock that either and have stayed there a number of times). Although the IBIS does have the bowling alley next door which is an experience in itself (it seems it’s the local teenagers’ evening hangout), fun all the same and not a bad way to kill an evening when the area isn’t exactly overflowing with things to do.

  • Andrew says:

    I’m afraid I find this review unsatisfactory. Unfortunately you’ve been invited to stay in one of their best rooms and be wined and dined which leads me to question how objective you could ever be.
    I do appreciate you’ve made this clear in the article, but I’m sure most hotels are enjoyable with special treatment.
    I find reviews as a paying guest far more insightful and relevant when it comes to choosing and making travel plans. Sorry.

    • Leo says:

      “Wined and dined”? She had a bowl of soup and a salad!

    • Mike says:

      Andrew – feel free to cancel the direct debit paying for your HTP subscription.

      • Brian says:

        Oh come on! It’s perfectly acceptable for people to voice – politely – dissatisfaction with the articles. No need to bring out the old chestnut of cancelling the subscription. Andrew makes a fair point politely – I would agree that Anika is going to get a better experience than most members of the public since she has been invited to write a review. I still think that the review is worth reading, because it does give a good general idea of what a hotel is like, but there’s no need to get on Andrew’s back for making a fair point.

        Also, what is HTP???

        • TGLoyalty says:

          I didn’t think OP was serious otherwise you would never trust any magazine / blog post at all!

          No matter the product/industry many more are complimentary than paid for.

    • Rob says:

      Anika is in Croatia on holiday this week, but I think it is safe to say on her behalf that a night on Bath Road, on her own, is not exactly her idea of a dream night out.

      She wasn’t even flying anywhere the next day, she went back home.

      When we are offered rooms above the most basic, we accept them but still insist on seeing and photographing normal rooms as happened here. HFP readers are likely to get premium rooms anyway – huge numbers are Accor Platinum via the Amex deal (now dead).

      Organised reviews have some benefits. First, we get a full hotel tour and see various room types. 2nd, we get to try the restaurant and breakfast because it is free – on a paid stay we might skip it.

      Apart from that there is little difference in our approaches.

      You also underplay the myriad of issues at play in the media. As an example, Conde Nast Traveller claims to always pay its way but depends on advertising from airlines and hotels to survive. Would you find a review of theirs, with a 2 page Accor ad elsewhere in the same issue, more authentic?

      Would you find a short Tripadvisor review – knowing nothing of the author – more valuable? One of the issues for us when doing reviews is to filter out the sort of one-off problems that tend to dominate TA reviews and focus on the underlying pros or cons.

      Anyway, the reason we put in a lot of photos is that you can clearly see what you are getting. If you want an objective view, there are a few readers who have commented here that it is as good as we said.

      • Brian says:

        Agree – I would certainly trust Anika’s review more than your average TripAdvisor review. All reviews should only be used to get an idea for a place, since it is always going to be subjective and so every person will have a different experience.

  • Roger says:

    OT- Any experience using purple parking at LGW?
    They seem to nearly 50% cheaper compared to official airport parking but I would like to retain my keys which can’t be done with purple parking.

    What is the opinion of regular readers here? park at official LGW parking or other third party car parks?

    • Brian says:

      Check out Just Park for comparison – I found them much cheaper than PP near Heathrow last time I needed parking there – I was parked in the Marriott car park.

    • John says:

      I considered them for Heathrow but after reading reviews on a website was put off. I also don’t like the fact you have to give them your keys. Went for Heathrow long stay instead.

      I looked at parking for Gatwick too recently but train there + taxi home wasn’t significantly more than than paying for parking so did that instead.

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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