Which? magazine unveils the best – and worst – UK hotel chains

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• memesweeper says:

  13 Nov13 November 04:24

  I will predict that Delta will be competing with Mercure on the bottom of the table next year.

  • Andy says:

    13 Nov13 November 14:20

    Yeh, stayed in the Bristol one a month or so back it was old and tired with building work starting at 8am on a Sat

    Talking of old and tired stayed in the Leonardo by Brighton train station last week don’t plan on staying there again

    • Brighton Belle says:

      13 Nov13 November 17:14

      Odd, it hasn’t been there many years

• Go197 says:

  13 Nov13 November 04:41

  The opinion of 5000 Which subscribers has no relevance or meaning to me.

  Poll the HfP audience instead

  • Go197 says:

    13 Nov13 November 05:09

    Actually that would be just as irrelevant to my choice of where to stay. I need a top ten hotel chains list just as much as I need opinions from tiktok …

    • No longer Entitled says:

      13 Nov13 November 05:52

      Are you not looking forward to the forthcoming hotel dupe list?

      • Go197 says:

        13 Nov13 November 07:00

        There’s maybe something in that idea. The HfP Reader’s hotels series was quite interesting.

        Nobody needs to be told that an Indigo hotel is better than a Travelodge (although I spent a great many nights in Travelodge for work because it was £9 per night), but the well-travelled and well-heeled HfP readership no doubt has all sorts of interesting hotel stories they could tell

  • Rhys says:

    13 Nov13 November 09:03

    Michelin is about to branch out into hotels if you’re looking for top end recommendations…

  • BJ says:

    13 Nov13 November 09:49

    Meaning/relevance strikes me as a low- to mid-range price cohort. How else could Premier Inn take 2nd and 3rd places?

    A poll of HfP readers would be little more relevant, that would just reflect HfP-driven hype with votes from many readers who had not even tried airlines, hotels etc in question.

    • Andrew says:

      14 Nov14 November 18:24

      Ditto ibis Styles getting 5th…

      ibis Styles – when a standard ibis is not depressing enough

• t0m says:

  13 Nov13 November 06:11

  I can’t believe Premier Inn Hub came 2nd. I hate this concept.. most of them don’t even seem to have any windows! They also seem to have “inspired” the Yotel Shoreditch which also has a number of windowless/airless boxes for rent at crazy prices.

  Am a big fan of classic Premier Inn, but not the Hub!

  • planeconcorde says:

    13 Nov13 November 09:41

    I like the Premier Inn Hub concept. For a weekend trip in London, where I will be out of the room most of the time and just need somewhere to sleep it is great. I am single so it works for me. I can see why a couple would hate the standard rooms, but the ‘bigger’ rooms should over come many of the issues. Breakfast is very poor, I always eat out of the hotel.

• BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

  13 Nov13 November 06:42

  Since the Royal Albion in Brighton burnt down in the summer I expect this will actually help improve the Britannia rating.

  • Brighton Belle says:

    13 Nov13 November 06:54

    We have plenty of alternatives in Brighton if you’re disappointed you can’t stay in the Royal Albion and want the same or lower standards.

    • Lady London says:

      13 Nov13 November 10:34

      Why not go the whole hog and go to blackpool….

  • NA says:

    13 Nov13 November 09:47

    @BA Flyer IHG Stayer – Maybe true, but it’s the funniest comment on here in quite a long time 🙂

  • Lady London says:

    13 Nov13 November 10:33

    Oh dear can one wonder if they had it paid out on insurance?

• TimM says:

  13 Nov13 November 07:10

  My first and only experience of Britannia Hotels was at the formerly best hotel in the UK outside of London, the Adelphi in Liverpool. The royals, rich and famous have all stayed there. I had read poor reviews so I booked the best suite in the hotel. I didn’t get it. I was allocated a fairly standard room that was clearly once the living room part of a suite and it stunk – some amateur had clearly tried to clean the carpet without a carpet cleaner so it was absolutely sodden. An immediate return to reception, joining the queue of other complainers, resulted in the stock response, ‘no other rooms available, any complaints talk to HQ’. I took Britannia Hotels to court and eventually won. Never to be repeated.

  • BJ says:

    13 Nov13 November 10:01

    I stayed at the Britannia International hotel in London just after it opened. It was nice, and to this day the breakfast buffet I had there was the best ever in a hotel. I had no hesitation in returning a yer or so later only to be dismayed by the scale of deterioration.

• johnny_c-l says:

  13 Nov13 November 07:13

  This is the first time I have heard Brend hotels described as upmarket.

  • Mikeact says:

    13 Nov13 November 15:19

    I, too, wouldn’t describe them as upmarket, but generally, a good above average chain….apart from the Saunton Sands, which is their flagship, not least for the fantastic views and access to the fantastic beach.

    • Bagoly says:

      14 Nov14 November 01:59

      I remember the horror of my parents when Brend bought Saunton Sands Hotel in 1977 – he was very common.
      (We spent two weeks there every year from 1971 (when it had two red stars!) to 1986 – after the first few years we always had Table#1 in the Dining Room)
      Prior to the takeover, it was open only in the summer, and the waiting staff were students on vacation, often French.
      The very Scottish General Manager and his wife spent the winter in the south of France.
      Now the Brend founder Percy, and his son Peter, have both passed on.
      After the takeover, on one Wednesday night each year after the official entertainment had finished and well into the morning there was a Staff v Special Guests competition involving such things as blindfolded contestants on all fours with rolled-up newspapers trying to land the first blow on each other around the ballroom floor (I think I won once), yards of ale races etc.
      Actually, Guests was an extension after the first couple of years when it was just the extended family of Sir Ernest Harrison – the first chairman of Vodafone.

• _nate says:

  13 Nov13 November 07:38

  Brittania Hotels really is something special. Last time I was at one for an event, a bedroom window fell off and nearly hit someone who was standing outside. That about sets the tone.

  • BJ says:

    13 Nov13 November 10:06

    I had a broken window pane and water pouring through the ceiling at the Grosvenor Hilton in Edinburgh so such problems are not brand-specific.

  • Vasco says:

    13 Nov13 November 12:24

    That must be why the Birmingham one has metal nets below the windows.

• jj says:

  13 Nov13 November 08:07

  This is a bit of fun, but I’m hugely sceptical of Which?’s methodology here. A sample size of 4,611 people is not sufficient to create a league table: some brands probably had no more than 100-200 visitors which would give enormous error ranges on the scores. Even worse, it’s not obvious that there has been any attempt to correct for sampling bias by ensuring the sample isn’t self-selwcting, and is either representative of the UK population or the hotel-using population.

  • TGLoyalty says:

    13 Nov13 November 11:41

    Well if you do a little google search you’d find asking a sample size that big is probably pretty normal for most surveys if not much larger and actually pretty statically accurate as long as its done under the right conditions

    Now you could ask yourself is just asking a group of which subscribers a wide enough demographic?

    but Britannia hotels are class A sh*tholes so they are probably spot on and Mercure has about 3 bad UK properties for every good one

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