InterContinental London The O2 scraps its £30 pool fee following our coverage

Earlier this week we told you how InterContinental London The O2 was intending to make customers ‘splash the cash’ by adding a huge fee to use its swimming pool.

As I said at the time, I have a soft spot for InterContinental London The O2. It is a good quality hotel which can be excellent value on certain dates.

I took my family there for a weekend break once when it was £100 per night, even though we live across town, because it has a good pool and we thought we’d show the kids a bit of east London.

It was unlikely that I would be heading back in a hurry, however, after we exclusively reported that InterContinental London The O2 had added a swimming pool charge.

It would cost £90 for a family of four to have a dip for an hour. You literally just get a one hour slot for that price.

The actual pricing was £30 for adults and £15 for children under 18, per one hour slot.

InterContinental has now rolled back the charge

We managed to place our article in the Daily Mail (see here, there are 290 comments) and Independent (see here) which led to additional coverage.

Last night, the General Manager of the hotel dropped me a note to say:

“The hotel has reversed the decision to charge the in-house guest for the pool”

…. which is good news, although as of last night the hotel website had not changed. I hope, medium term, the hotel realises that reversing the charge is actually a positive move for bookings.

PS. If you are not a regular Head for Points visitor, why not sign up for our FREE weekly or daily newsletters? They are full of the latest Avios, airline, hotel and credit card points news and will help you travel better. To join our 65,000 free subscribers, click the button below or visit this page of the site to find out more. Thank you.

IHG One Rewards update – April 2025:

Get bonus points: IHG is not currently running a global promotion.

New to IHG One Rewards?  Read our overview of IHG One Rewards here and our article on points expiry rules here. Our article on ‘What are IHG One Rewards points worth?’ is here.

Buy points: If you need additional IHG One Rewards points, you can buy them here.

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