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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 Airways 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 (77)

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

  • Michael C says:
    26 Sep26 September 07:42

    Went to the brand new Isle of Man Premier Inn this summer, fabulous. Views out to sea, right in the town centre, excellent free wifi, and the usual 1 b/fast = 1 free child b/fast set-up.

  • Kris says:
    26 Sep26 September 08:04

    I can’t find it on Rocketmiles. How should I be searching for it?

    • Matt B says:
      26 Sep26 September 08:27

      Took me a while on mobile, not easy at all! Location box couldn’t recognise Heathrow and searching London almost broke the website. Eventually got it by using Hounslow as location then filtering on Premier for hotel name.

      Looks like the pricing is based off flexi rates so $62 (£50ish) vs the £30 saver rate, and offered 183 Avios. Probably only useful if its a late booking.

  • DaveP says:
    26 Sep26 September 08:10

    From my experience Premier Inn provides a consistently good quality product across its hotels around the country, and at generally very competitive prices. The only downside is not having any loyalty scheme for regular users, but worth knowing now about Rocketmiles.

    • pauldb says:
      26 Sep26 September 11:22

      Other useful factor is they have a good value offering for families, as long as you can manage a night with 4 in a room: these rooms come at a small or no premium.

      Travelodge is not so far behind really. Often cheaper, often not the same premium locations (same a Gatwick), and more older properties in the chain.

      Of course the lack of a loyalty scheme, and the direct booking requirement (since OTAs want c20%) are the very reasons they can be so competitve … and capture the market thanks to brand recognition where a hotel like Atrium can’t.

  • Matt B says:
    26 Sep26 September 08:14

    We’ve stayed here a few times over the past 18 months and never flown from T4, always T3 or T5. Each time we’ve used different transport options. Don’t think I’ve ever paid more than £40 in advance.

    T3 by train – a fair bit of walking involved either side of the train, not too bad but the wife didn’t appreciate it.

    T5 by bus – bus stop right outside and free but was a bit crowded bag wise with only us and another couple. Also drops you off the wrong end for the first wing.

    T3 by taxi – booked late the night before through consierge in the Premier Inn. £14 in a nice car that took us to the virgin DTCI. So still 1/3 of the price all in compared to other closer hotels. Will be out preferred option moving forward if no parking needed.

    For our Easter trip next year its only £30 but I need parking so will probably go for the Thistle hotel and parking with Pod to T5 all in for £145

    • Chris M says:
      26 Sep26 September 08:58

      The Heathrow Express/Heathrow Connect transfer is the least attractive transfer option IMHO. Negotiating 2 ticket barriers (entry and exit) plus a train change and 4 platform barriers with luggage is a right pain. Couple that with a trainload of tourists all doing the same, then you have to do it all again in the morning……..

    • memesweeper says:
      26 Sep26 September 14:57

      I’m sure when they were planning the Premier Inn T4 they weren’t considering convenient access to the First wing in T5 … I’d guess the customer overlap is minuscule! 🙂

    • Nate1309 says:
      26 Sep26 September 15:54

      I have done the thistle/pod a few times, very convenient, but that hotel seriously needs updating!

  • Pup irving says:
    26 Sep26 September 09:04

    The beefeater is awful in Great Yarmouth.

    The best restaurant is called Pamela, should have a Mitchell in star!!!

    • The Savage Squirrel says:
      26 Sep26 September 09:21

      Is Mitchell Inn a bit like Berni Inn but posher? Actually didn’t Berni Inns become Beefeaters? It all makes sense now!

  • The Savage Squirrel says:
    26 Sep26 September 09:28

    One of the main points of a brand (in hotels anyway) is to provide a consistent experience at every outlet so the consumer knows what they are getting and will be attracted to booking as a result. Premier Inn to be fair achieves this really well with a near-identical experience at most locations and the quality is correctly pitched at “not bad for the price”. Contrast to – for example – Hilton in the UK – the ultimate non-brand with its mixed bag of pleasant properties and ropey regional sh1tholes. No wonder PI has dominated in the UK.

    • RussellH says:
      26 Sep26 September 10:18

      Not my, admittedly limited, experience of Premier Inns.
      We recently stayed at the Dover one at the top of Jubilee Way, next to the Shell garage.It was cheap, but not very cheerful – similar to Travelodge or Days Inn. Single glazing, no air con, only one member of staff in sight. I doubt if it was a Hypnos bed too.
      By contrast the new Premier Inn 6 miles up the road is completely different, and does, pretty much match Rob’s description.

      • Russ says:
        26 Sep26 September 12:56

        Actually I think some of the Travelodges are coming on now and deserve a second look. Yes they used to be a standing joke but there’s been a revamp of the brand and the meals and drinks are well priced for a business stop over IMHO.

        • Rob says:
          26 Sep26 September 13:25

          We reviewed the new upmarket one in the City last year.

        • Anna says:
          26 Sep26 September 14:47

          The best thing about Travelodges is that the family rooms have a double and 2 single beds. If you’re travelling with 2 kids this is a very welcome change from the “double bed plus sofa bed” option offered by so many hotels. You really don’t want to spend the night being woken up by children kicking each other and calling each other names all night! And even more sensibly, the singles are on either side of the double so a parent is within reach of each little darling!

        • RussellH says:
          26 Sep26 September 15:01

          So I have read, not just here.
          But I was thinking old school Travelodge!

          • Russ says:
            26 Sep26 September 18:22

            I understand 😉

            Just logged on to United .com’s new UK shop and they’ve Travelodge listed as a spending partner. Earning zero points at the moment, just discounts, but just being there’s interesting.

          • Shoestring says:
            26 Sep26 September 18:27

            worth googling discount codes for Travelodge, 5-10% usually somewhere kicking around

          • Lady London says:
            26 Sep26 September 19:50

            Travelodge now has a business club with same discount as Accor (5% Accor really gives, not the 10% Accor claim to give and give once in a blue moon) and the odd decent promo. Particularly interesting if you want to stay away from London 🙂

  • Vaughan says:
    26 Sep26 September 09:34

    I’ve stayed here several times and can’t fault it. Very quiet, friendly and helpful staff, clean and well maintained rooms and the breakfast is one of the better Premier Inn offerings. If you intend using your car the onsite car park is very small so they use a valet parking service which is about £15. Highly recommended for the price.

  • Cookie says:
    26 Sep26 September 09:37

    I am going to be trying my first Premiere Inn in Chelmsford soon.. I am looking forward to it a little more now!

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

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