Secret Hotels - Lastminute.com

[mouseymousey]

Anyone ever booked a 'secret hotel' in London through LastMinute.com?

I'm not sure whether to risk it or not.

[cwoodsie2]

Yeah - was fine - was one of the 5 star one's just behind Park Lane.

Only problem was the hotel wasn't actually that nice and felt robbed i'd paid the discounted rate, never mind the normal rate!

[Hoppy2008]

cwoodsie2 said:

Yeah - was fine - was one of the 5 star one's just behind Park Lane.

Only problem was the hotel wasn't actually that nice and felt robbed i'd paid the discounted rate, never mind the normal rate!

so, it wasnt fine then?

[LadyHayles]

I know people that have booked a "secret hotel" and found them to be excellent. I don't know what the cancellation policy is like - obviously they email you the name of the hotel straight after booking so if you weren't impressed maybe you could cancel???

[merc_man]

Thought about it then decided it was just some ste marketing ploy. Stayed here instead.

Excellent hotel.

[Zeek]

Take the description of the 'secret hotel' from the website, which will be the stock description supplied by the hotel, and bang it into google. Most likely, you'll see the hotel name appear

[V8mate]

It's a lottery - have had great secrets at great discounts and lousy ones.

Have stopped using lastminute completely now though as you often can't claim the VAT back because they buy up rooms themselves on the travel agents' margin scheme. Obviously, irrelevant if you're booking a room for personal use.

[Neil_H]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Well I don't know why there's confusion, it's pretty clear to me.

The hotel was fine, except for the stuff that wasn't fine - the hotel. Apart from that it was fine. Except that it wasn't.

[chris_w666]

I booked one for an overnight stop at heathrow, that had an identical description to the sheraton skyline. I got the same hotel for 30% less so not a bad deal especially as it was offering parking that allowed me to keep my keys and not have it stored by a pikey in a yellow jacket.

[Motorrad]

Took one in Amsterdam last week. The hotel wasn't the best but it was 35 percent cheaper than anyone else including their own website was offering.

A guarded recommendation then. Do your research, in this case they stated clearly it would be one of 4 hotels. I checked them out, figured I'd get the worse of the bunch and was proved correct.

[ThunderSpook]

We got a 4 star hotel in Rome for £50 a night. Bargain!

[rich1231]

Have one for this weekend as I couldnt decide which to book.

Have got a great hotel out of it, so no complaints.

Edited by rich1231 on Friday 17th October 16:55

[hornetrider]

rich1231 said:

Have god a great hotel out of it, so no complaints.

So, a church then?

[rich1231]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I know your game sonny Jim.

[Rollin]

mouseymousey said:

Anyone ever booked a 'secret hotel' in London through LastMinute.com?

I'm not sure whether to risk it or not.

I did this and got the Radisson Edwardian on Tottenham Court Road. In the descriptions on lastminute.com, it's the one next to the Warren street tube. As said above, if you do a bit of research you can work out which hotel it is. Saved enough for me to pay for emptying the mini bar.

[andy400]

It's a bit of a gamble from what I hear, but both my brother and I have only had significant success with this method of booking!

[jmorgan]

Had a good one last year, few doors down from the theater we had tickets for. Nothing wrong with it. But, there were clues to work out which it was before we took the plunge.

[mouseymousey]

Having read further comments about these hotels it seems that even if you guess the hotel there's no guarantee that you'll get anything other than a shoe box sized room.

So I've decided to cough up another 50 notes and make sure I'm in a decent room in a decent hotel.

Thanks for all the responses anyway.

[mr_fibuli]

I went for this and ended up with a decent enough room in the Paddington Hilton. Don't think it is a con, more a case of fancy hotels not wanting to advertise how cheaply they are offering their last minute rooms.

[rich1231]

mouseymousey said:

Having read further comments about these hotels it seems that even if you guess the hotel there's no guarantee that you'll get anything other than a shoe box sized room.

So I've decided to cough up another 50 notes and make sure I'm in a decent room in a decent hotel.

Thanks for all the responses anyway.

I booked a Junior Suite at the hotel im typing from now, and have been upgraded to an even larger one. Eithe would have een easily worth the money spent.

Some hotls do have very small rooms though. Boutique usually translates as "pretentious with tiny rooms but we are cool so dont complain"