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Review: the Premier Inn Heathrow Terminal 4 hotel – quite a lot of room for not a lot of money

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This is a brief review of the Premier Inn hotel at Heathrow Terminal 4.

On Tuesday morning I caught the 8am Qatar Airways flight to Doha for a meeting with Qatar Privilege Club and to take a look at Qsuite.  That story is coming up next week.

I had planned to get up around 4am and head out to the airport.  However, a broken night on Sunday due to a sick child meant that my wife was keen for a good sleep, so on Monday morning I thought I’d take a look at the Terminal 4 hotel prices for same-day check-in.

Review Premier Inn London Heathrow Terminal 4

To be honest, I was 90% certain that the best deal was going to be 20,000 IHG Rewards Club points for the Holiday Inn Express Terminal 4.  What I actually found was:

If you don’t know Heathrow Terminal 4, all four hotels are attached to the same fully enclosed walkway that runs directly into the departures hall.  The Crowne Plaza / Holiday Inn Express building is around a three minute walk whilst the Premier Inn and Hilton take five minutes.

£52, booked at 11am on the same day as I was checking in, was a no-brainer.  I was planning to arrive around 10pm and leave at 5.30am, so I didn’t need anything except a comfy bed and good soundproofing.

I like Premier Inn.  Whilst I kept it quiet at the time, I spent the weekend at the brand new one on Great Yarmouth seafront recently, for a golfing trip.  You really can’t complain – the quality is surprisingly high and it is almost certainly the best hotel in Great Yarmouth.  It seems the Beefeater restaurant attached is also the best restaurant in Great Yarmouth.

Anika did a full review of Premier Inn Heathrow Terminal 4 a couple of years ago – click here – on one of her more glamorous HfP assignments.  She claims it is a 7-minute walk down the walkway but my legs are longer – I timed it and it took me 5 minutes.

I won’t repeat her coverage so here are a few quick pointers.  The room is perfectly acceptable – I ended up with an accessible room so it was a little bigger than average:

Review Premier Inn London Heathrow Terminal 4

Premier Inn uses Hypnos beds which are great.  You get a tea and coffee tray for free and basic wi-fi is free.  The wardrobe is ‘open’ but this isn’t an issue for an airport hotel aimed at one-night stays.

I should warn you that Vodafone reception on my wing (the building is triangular) varied from one bar of 3G to none at all:

Review Premier Inn London Heathrow Terminal 4

The free wi-fi is also exceptionally slow, although perfectly fine for email and HfP WordPress work.

The pleasant and bustling lobby area has a 24/7 Costa Coffee:

Review Premier Inn London Heathrow Terminal 4

…. a bar (usurprisingly quiet at 5.30am) and a restaurant, not pictured:

Review Premier Inn London Heathrow Terminal 4

Breakfast is £10.50 for the full hot and cold menu, or £8.50 for the ‘continental’ cold menu.  As I was leaving at 5.30am I didn’t try it.  There are plenty of vending machines in the building as well.

It is crazy that this hotel was less than half the price of any of the alternatives.  Even factoring in the free breakfast at the Holiday Inn Express Terminal 4, the Premier Inn is still exceptional value.  If you need a hotel at Terminal 4, you don’t need to have any concerns about taking the ‘bargain’ option.

How to book the Premier Inn Heathrow Terminal 4

I booked on the Premier Inn website here.  I was under the impression that you couldn’t book Premier Inn hotels via any third party site with a loyalty scheme, so that means you cannot benefit from Hotels.com Rewards or anything similar.  Premier Inn itself does not have a loyalty scheme.

However, on Tuesday a HfP reader mentioned in the comments that this hotel can often be found on hotel booking site Rocketmiles – and it is, albeit only at ‘flexible’ rates.  This lets you earn Avios, Virgin Flying Club miles, Heathrow Rewards points or various other rewards with your booking.  It seems I missed a trick.

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

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Category

Airport Hotel Reviews (London)

Comments (79)

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

  • Kris says:
    26 Sep26 September 09:43

    Rob,
    I’m guessing you value 20000 IHG Rewards Club points more highly than the £52 cash? Should I cancel my reward booking and book the Premier Inn (still can’t find it on Rocketmiles, even using Hounslow as location)?

    • RussellH says:
      26 Sep26 September 10:21

      I would certainly value 20 000 IHG Rewards Club points more highly than £52 cash. Rob’s own estimate of value for those points is £80, and I have had 20 000 rooms that were well over £100 at cash prices.

      • Yuff says:
        26 Sep26 September 10:26

        I spent 70k points yesterday for £736 of holiday inn rooms ( 2 rooms) at LGW…
        Long story and only hotel I could find for a 2am check in.

        • Lady London says:
          26 Sep26 September 20:01

          Well actually Premier Inn LGW is a bit of a sore point for me. As I use the airport a lot I’ve often looked wistfully at the Hampton Inn there and the 2 Premier Inns when there’s been irrops and the usual winter arrival Sunday night for work, late at night and once again the Gatwick trains are not running properly….

          However in those circumstances every time I’ve looked, the LGW Premier Inns have been about £83-£85. Sometimes even worse. So on a par with the Hampton price there, for a regular day. (At irrops time and close-in, Hampton has been around £134). In the case of LGW PI I have heard pricing can be very reasonable but clearly booking ahead is required to achieve that.

          At 2am Yuff, unless I was unwell I’d just sit it out at LGW until the trains start running again in the morning. It’s only about 3 and a half hours.

        • Lady London says:
          26 Sep26 September 20:02

          Being a bit naughty but are you in a situation where you’re going to be claiming that under EU261? If you paid it I presume it was the only available reasonable option.

      • RussellH says:
        26 Sep26 September 10:44

        Some Premier Inns can certainly be found on Rocketmiles – there are three in Dover, and searching for Dover in the second week of November two of them (not the one we stayed at) are on Rocketmiles.
        But I have not been able to find our local Premier Inn there yet.
        Never actually booked through Rocketmiles yet, but it may well be worth giving it a look next time we need somewhere that does not earn the usual loyalty points!

        • RussellH says:
          26 Sep26 September 14:59

          I have been playing a bit further with Rocketmiles/Premier Inn around LHR – not good.
          I could get a few Premier Inns to show on Rocketmiles by adding the word “Premier” to the search. You are then taken through to booking.com to actually book.
          Rocket miles offers around 180 – 220 United miles per night for the night of Sunday 3 Nov – but the prices are are over £20 more than booking direct! Which is sometimes nearly 100% more.
          That is definitely what I call a bad deal!

          • Lady London says:
            26 Sep26 September 19:56

            some readers might care less depending on how their stay is funded especially if it’s still by far the lowest rate

      • Rob says:
        26 Sep26 September 13:29

        Exactly.

        (I am also skewed by the fact that the £52 is a HFP tax deductible expense whilst my personal points are not, but I would have made the same decision regardless. You’re mad to use IHG points for less than 0.4p.)

        • Lady London says:
          26 Sep26 September 19:54

          Until I knew better I’ve used them for less.
          That was a mistake I made. (one of many!) So far they are ok from the point of view that Hilton and, now, Marriott,, both seem to be sneaking into dynamic pricing. Bringing them much closer to Accor in that there is no point hanging on to any points you earn in that they will always only ever get the same monetary value.

        • Kris says:
          26 Sep26 September 20:52

          I’ve cancelled my reward stays and booked Premier Inn for £41!

  • Russ says:
    26 Sep26 September 10:59

    Premier Inn’s also have black pudding and bubble and squeak at breakfast. It’s a win for me!

    • RussellH says:
      26 Sep26 September 14:45

      Is that English Black Pudding (not my favourite), or Scottish or Irish Black Pudding (yes please!)??

      • Russ says:
        8 Oct8 October 12:49

        Purely in the interest of answering your pudding question RussellH I moved last night’s stay to here. Don’t know what the difference is between them to be honest but it’s slightly spicy and tasted ok. Big plus for me over the HGI is the condiments being in individual portions rather than one large jar where everyone jabs in their spoon, knife, light sabre.

  • Doug M says:
    26 Sep26 September 11:37

    Lloyds have a 10% cash-back offer on Premier Inn. So if you bank there worth checking.

  • Neil Donoghue says:
    26 Sep26 September 11:37

    Staying here next Tuesday for £31 – It’s a no brainer and I’m a Hilton Diamond & Spire Elite member. Sometimes the price always wins.

  • Mike says:
    26 Sep26 September 15:04

    I like premier inns. They’re mostly consistent and good enough for a couple of nights. That plus often cheap pricing means they’re usually a good choice.

    Also got a full refund on my last stay due to non functional ac. Pretty much zero effort to get it.

  • DF says:
    26 Sep26 September 20:40

    Loving your Premier Inn Great Yarmouth comments – as I work for Barnes Construction who build it 🏗

    • Lady London says:
      26 Sep26 September 21:22

      Hum. Wonder who built the Atrium Hotel at Heathrow, then, which has just opened but room smelled of damp?

    • Rob says:
      26 Sep26 September 22:41

      It is ugly as f*** and I doubt anywhere except Great Yarmouth would have let something that bad have a prime seafront location 🙂 Very pleasant inside though.

  • AbuCordoba says:
    1 Oct1 October 22:05

    Hey so what was the Qatar Airways news???

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