£75 deal at The Tower Hotel in London – with breakfast, parking and 4pm check-out

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• gareth says:

  29 Oct29 October 06:09

  Am I right in saying that with this hotel I would need to pay £15 per day congestion charge and then a further 12.50 per day ultra low emission area charge?!

  • tony says:

    29 Oct29 October 06:53

    There’s also apparently a nifty driving route out of the hotel car park across St Catherine’s dock that puts you on The Highway. The main route off Tower Bridge Road looks like a nightmare to drive.

    Just to add, I found the parking at the hotel available on a stand alone basis for a mere £9 a day midweek via justpark or similar. Also the last time I stayed, the hotel was, to be polite, ‘disappointing’. Think (threadbare) dressing gowns with security tags in the pockets and department store-style security ‘arches’ at the front door!

    • BP says:

      29 Oct29 October 10:12

      Yeah it’s not a great hotel. Rooms are getting tired, especially the bathrooms. Unfortunately I’ve had to stay here quite a number of times as it’s often the only OK hotel below £200 in the area. I much prefer Indigo Tower when it’s within the budget.

  • Lady London says:

    29 Oct29 October 12:34

    yes. on both checkin and checkout dates

    • Lady London says:

      29 Oct29 October 12:37

      *if your hotelbis in the zone. but luckily someone below says this hotel is not….quite.

      Better know your roads though as it’s very very close. If you get roadworks forcing a detour that lands you in the zone…… fines are absolutely outrageous and you might not know till too late you had strayed into the zone.

• John says:

  29 Oct29 October 06:35

  It’s just outside the zone.

• Andy says:

  29 Oct29 October 07:00

  Agree the Tower hotel is to be avoided even if it’s cheap. Very tired rooms, long queues at reception. Has been trading on location and views for way too long in my opinion.

• TGLoyalty says:

  29 Oct29 October 07:25

  Who in their right mind granted this planning permission!!!

  • tony says:

    29 Oct29 October 08:32

    You have to remember it would have been designed in the late 1960s when monstrous carbuncles were all the rage and the City was a very different place to what it is today. There’s some interesting history here https://www.kzwp.com/lyons2/tower.htm

    • TGLoyalty says:

      29 Oct29 October 08:45

      Yeah we have a few of those locally!

      I don’t actually have much issue with the design. It’s the dirty grimy grey or beige they all seem to have and the poor upkeep

      I’m sure it would look much better with some exterior cleaning/painting/resurfacing? and mood lighting. Sounds like it could do with the same inside from comments above.

      • tony says:

        29 Oct29 October 08:57

        The photo above actually looks incredibly flattering. I think from the North side of the river it really does dominate. Also wonder what the expected life of the building was when it was constructed? Seem to recall that my old high school was from the 60’s and had been built with a 25 year life. I’m told they are to move into a new site next year….

    • Rob says:

      29 Oct29 October 09:05

      True. When I started in the City in 1994, the Tower was the ONLY hotel anywhere near the Square Mile. I ended up staying there a few times, both whilst interviewing and – in later years – helping with graduate recruitment. Obviously there have been massive changes in the hotel supply since then. The Andaz – which was originally a Conran hotel – was a revelation when it opened.

      • Lady London says:

        30 Oct30 October 16:50

        Isn’t there that nice one in Tooley Street posters have mentioned a few times? That’s not far away at all

        • Rob says:

          30 Oct30 October 18:38

          Tooley Street has the Hilton, which isn’t that old. It’s a totally different world to 20 years ago though.

• Sandgrounder says:

  29 Oct29 October 09:41

  I think for working I’d rather go for the Residence Inn Tower Bridge on the Marriott ‘Work Anywhere Stay Pass’ rate. 115 at this hotel with a tenner food and beverage spend, 6am check in, 6pm check out for two full days work and a nights’ stay if you choose is not bad. I don’t know if this offer has been covered on here before? Probably has and I missed it.

  • Rhys says:

    29 Oct29 October 09:57

    No, but it will be in the next few days 🙂

• Brian says:

  29 Oct29 October 10:11

  How much of an actual “trend” is this working from hotel stuff? “My mate Dave and his mate Geoff did it” doesn’t count as evidence of a trend by the way.

  • ChrisC says:

    29 Oct29 October 10:28

    The fact that more and more hotels are offering it surely shows it’s an actual trend?

    It’s really just an extension of selling rooms by the day that’s been happening for a while.

    • Brian says:

      29 Oct29 October 10:53

      Companies offered 3D TVs and Amstrad sold an email phone. Weren’t really trends that the public bought into though.

      How many of these day rooms will be actually used for “work” though? Cough cough (I should really get that checked out).

      (I’m not saying it’s not a trend by the way)

      • Lady London says:

        29 Oct29 October 12:42

        I think hotels have had to lose rules such as not accepting guests whose address is within x distance of the hotel.

        The other trend that was more advanced when Covid started was using hotel lobbies to work or other designated semi-public areas.

        • Lady London says:

          29 Oct29 October 23:54

          Isn’t Rhys a little young for Barbados?
          Miaow

    • Rob says:

      29 Oct29 October 11:00

      Hilton has a new package now which includes lunch delivered to you. I am trying it next week.

      • Lady London says:

        29 Oct29 October 12:44

        Good that we have you to try out all of these for us Rob 🙂

        • Rob says:

          29 Oct29 October 17:30

          Rhys is off to Barbados in two weeks to test out the Virgin Atlantic service. I get to go to Hilton Bankside.

  • memesweeper says:

    29 Oct29 October 10:52

    Well I’ve done it, at the Residence Inn Tower Bridge no less! My former client did it a lot, we had meetings and pop-up offices in hotel rooms near the (very overcrowded) HQ office.

  • ChrisW says:

    29 Oct29 October 11:04

    Some people who are working from home have far from ideal work set-ups, whether that is because a lack of privacy, peace, space etc. I can understand someone wanting a quiet space for the day to concentrate and get some work done. Also for people who have worked every day from home since March a day out would be quite an adventure!

    • Brian says:

      29 Oct29 October 11:11

      I can understand that but whether that translates into them wanting to pay eg £40 to sit in a hotel room on their own (human contact is one of the main things some people say they miss) is the key point.

      The fact that even companies which have opened offices are still nowhere near their new reduced capacity suggests that most people are getting on fine with working from home.

      • ChrisW says:

        29 Oct29 October 11:23

        Or people just don’t feel comfortable returning to their office, whether that is because of the commuting experience, or how their office is set up. I don’t think that many people living in Central London would have ideal at home working situations that they wouldn’t happily trade for a day in a hotel.

      • Lady London says:

        29 Oct29 October 12:48

        As and when all these hermetically sealed shiny office buildings that have caused people to have problems with sick building syndrome over the years work out a way to get fresh air in or even gasp! windows that open, then office buildings of that type might become viable again.

        Until then no one should want to be in them.

        • Lady London says:

          29 Oct29 October 12:51

          *hadnt seen your comment below before I wrote mine above and I heartily agree.

          A Flyertalk survey of pet peeves with hotels – remember their readership is like the worldwide version of HfP even though HfP readers are wealthier on average – found hotels with windows that dont open high on the complaint list.

  • tony says:

    29 Oct29 October 16:47

    It’s as good as zero cost to them, though. Gives the e-mail marketing people something else to try and be clever with, rather than banging on about staycations all the time, I suppose. Maybe there’s a small overlap of people who are cooped up in flatshares by also have the disposable income – and maybe the need – to do this?

    Have heard stories of people having to make calls from their bedroom because of the confidential nature, but at the same time these folk aren’t in the cohort who can drop £50-£100 after tax on a luxury like this.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    29 Oct29 October 17:32

    For me these rates are a way to use the extreme amount of work place flexibility we will be given to do other things in our free time.

    I hope these rates stay around long after COVID probably with a bit more premium as I’d love to login at 8am work, have lunch somewhere nice in a city, work. Go to a show/concert etc in the evening then work the next day leaving after another days “WFH”

    I’d use far less annual leave but also I’d be rushing around a lot less.

• MarkZ says:

  29 Oct29 October 11:26

  I stayed at The Tower pre-lockdown whilst on a training course around the corner. Spectacular views of the river and the bridge from the first floor bar. Bracing walks along the embankment before breakfast. Proper bath in the room. The best feature about the building and its design? You can open your room window and let in some outside air instead of being inside a hermetically sealed box.

• Dominic Barrington says:

  29 Oct29 October 14:14

  The two linked Accor pages just keep crashing for me. Does anyone know if the day-room rates/offer works in North America?

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