Travelodge unveils its ‘budget-luxe’ upgraded hotels – are they worth a visit?

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• blenz101 says:

  26 Jan26 January 04:30

  If the idea was to compete with Premier Inn then charging for wifi is a complete fail, they know its something most guests will expect or require (and PI offers free). If potentials guest spot wifi is paid in advance it would put people off (feels very cheap, what else will be extra?) and if you discover it on arrival you will feel nickel and dimed each time you have to put in your card details.

  If ancillary revenue is so important they would have been better charging £3 for the tea/coffee tray, manned checkin, daily fresh towels, the TV remote control or just about anything else but not the wifi!

  • Dominic says:

    26 Jan26 January 04:46

    Though, personally, whilst I agree that charging for WiFi in a hotel in 2023 is a joke, I’d rather use my mobile data in a lot of places anyway..

    • blenz101 says:

      26 Jan26 January 05:12

      The issue is that it annoys almost every demographic the hotel could hope to attract. Bearing in mind at this end of the market not every guest is going to be on an unlimited 5G data contract (if such coverage is even available in your room).

      e.g.

      * Families for leisure find their kids iPads need to be paid access or attempt unreliable tethering to parents phone.

      * Business travellers find they need to pay for wifi and claim back the £3 a day to do any serious work in the room as tethering to a phone is just to unreliable and data not always unlimited. Hassle.

      * International guests will generally not have local SIM with unlimited data and will rely on hotel wifi to keep in touch / plan their trip.

      * Domestic travellers who may wish to watch some Netflix, iPlayer etc. when in the room find they need to pay up to use their own laptop / iPad.

      It annoys every group and me personally as someone who travels back to the UK and uses hotel rooms regularly has put me off trying out a refreshed Travelodge altogether, I won’t even bother to look up the room rates on the basis of this policy.

  • Tony says:

    26 Jan26 January 07:02

    Premier Inn has two levels of wifi, free and paid upgrade. Unfortunately in my experience the free version is woeful and designed to drive you to the £5/24 upgrade

    • astra19 says:

      26 Jan26 January 09:21

      It’s free for the Premier Plus rooms.

    • Mike says:

      26 Jan26 January 10:37

      I measured the speed of the free version in a couple of Premier Inns and it was approximately 750kbits/second. So the same as first cable broadband when I lived in Manchester twenty-odd years ago. The paid for version was also terrible at 6mbits/sec. Premier Inn should be ashamed at both of those, the free and paid for version.

    • Chrisasaurus says:

      26 Jan26 January 19:15

      This is very true

  • Chris W says:

    26 Jan26 January 09:36

    Agreed. I would avoid this brand completely for the wifi issues alone. Just increase the room rates by £3 and give free wifi to all if its such an expense.
    I usually click ‘free wifi’ when searching for budget places like this so it wouldn’t appear in search results anyway.

    • jjoohhnn says:

      26 Jan26 January 10:17

      Ah but it would show in your searches because they give you free wifi for 30mins! Clearly designed to make sure they fit in to those systems!

• Will says:

  26 Jan26 January 05:24

  The Hexham hotel is built on the old nuclear bunker site, which the great and the good would have decamped to in the event of a nuclear attack. Maybe that’s why there is a new LIDL, Waitrose and Tesco all together close too. So that there is plenty of food. Some say the site was demolished in the late 1990s. Rumours are the Travelodge has six underground floors. 🙂

• Philondon says:

  26 Jan26 January 05:43

  I clicked the link and there is a drop down of hotels, strangely not in alphabetical order. I randomly clicked on the Ealing Hotel. It has standard rooms and Super Rooms which are around £20 more expensive.

  It also has packages which includes breakfast and WiFi. I also agree that charging for WiFi these days is ridiculous.

  I think I’ll stick to Premier Inn if I want a budget hotel.

  • Erico1875 says:

    26 Jan26 January 06:15

    Why? Some of the Premier Inns are starting to look a bit tatty these days.
    Its just illogical to pay £20 more to save £3 on wifi

    • blenz101 says:

      26 Jan26 January 07:10

      The £20 is the upgrade to a better room within a Travelodge not the price difference with a Premier Inn.

      The success of Premier Inn is down to a consistent product which is rarely tatty (yes some motorway service station locations are older but the rooms are clean and consistent in standards). You know that a decent ‘all you can eat’ breakfast will be around £10 in the morning if you want it. You know when you are booking you buying a clean comfortable room, decent shower and all the basics covered; you leave feeling like you are getting value for money for what you paid.

      The model of headline low room rates but gouging every extra pound from guests is not one in my opinion that would engender positive sentiment.

      Remember, these hotels aren’t on comparison sites so you need customers to actively seek out the brand. When they look to book and see they can only get wifi during the booking process if they also commit to breakfast as a package you show what kind of operation you are from the outset.

• TrainDriverSparky says:

  26 Jan26 January 06:39

  Why are they putting so much emphasis on LED lighting as a selling point? Pretty much everywhere has LED lighting these days.

  • Peter K says:

    26 Jan26 January 09:40

    Probably because there’s not much else to crow about!

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:

    26 Jan26 January 11:04

    I bet they have flat screen TVs too!

• rj24 says:

  26 Jan26 January 06:45

  Travelodge lost my business years ago when money was stolen from my room.

  The car park was pay and display and only for limited amount of time, so I had pound coins on the bedside table ready to go out and top up when we got back to the room (we were attending a wedding), when I got back however, all coins (around a tenner’s worth) had gone. Front desk staff weren’t interested.

  Also, they lacked an ironing board in the whole hotel, although this was less concerning than the theft, it didn’t help matters. Not even thought to consider them since.

  • Save East Coast Rewards says:

    26 Jan26 January 09:21

    Never leave money out in a hotel room unless it’s a tip for housekeeping. I could see how housekeeping may have thought some pound coins were for them. Of course in reality you should never leave any valuables out as even if all housekeeping staff are honest (and in any company there’s always going to be some bad people who slip through the net) there’s always the small possibility that someone else can slip into your room while housekeeping have the door open.

• TS77 says:

  26 Jan26 January 07:13

  I find the charge for wifi frustrating to say the least, typically you’ll be paying £6 a day for wifi, the £3 only allows 2 distinct devices. I think they still use the Virgin Media wifi which I find difficult to connect to.

  The fact that you have to pay for wifi for the Plus rooms is a joke.

  I do like and find Travelodge a good, consistent offering – their chargeable wifi always manages to annoy me.

• Mike Hunt says:

  26 Jan26 January 07:39

  What ever travelodge do to refurbish their rooms they will still be significantly smaller than that of a premier inn room. Travelodge rooms are tiny

• Mike Hunt says:

  26 Jan26 January 07:40

  But I am delighted that as part of Levelling Up they have refurbished a northern hotel in Hexham as well as southern hotels.

  • Rob says:

    26 Jan26 January 08:37

    Hexham is a new build.

    • Mike Hunt says:

      26 Jan26 January 12:42

      Even better

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