Premier Inn Questions

We just stayed at 2 Premier Inns London and Edinburgh. Both were fine, great locations. I booked on line . You do have to check site for ways to communicate. Small print at the bottom for email site. We didn't have a phone in the room but all else was fine.

We needed to confirm a room arrangement type so used Skype to call the specific hotel ahead of time for a very low price. Granddaughter forgot her new Quip travel battery operated toothbrush at the London airport PI on our 2019 trip. She emailed them and they were very responsive. They answered several of her questions in a timely fashion. I was impressed.

We simply book online and then show up on the appointed day. If you need to amend or cancel your booking dates, there is a procedure for that if you go to the "contact us" at the bottom of their web page. Otherwise, they list their phone numbers. We've not had any reason to contact them after booking, but before arriving. Didn't even notice if there was a phone in the room, but that isn't one of the listed amenities.

I would recommend that you arrange for an inexpensive calling plan, or an international sim/esim before your trip. Or perhaps you could use email or wifi messaging to contact your friends/relatives.

We stayed at the London Victoria Premier Inn in June and had a great experience. We booked directly online through them and the confirmation included a general email contact. We just showed up with our confirmation number and it was fine. We also canceled a Premier Inn reservation in Portsmouth using their online email and it was very easy. I do not recall a phone in our London Premier Plus room. However, we had our cell phones and were able to purchase an international plan at a reasonable daily rate only on the days we actually used phone data. It would have been no problem to make a local call. Honestly, we use our cell phones so much when traveling (for tickets, maps, etc.) that we never even bother with a landline. Hope this helps!

I have used them numerous times, but I have never needed to contact them. They send you a confirmation email with a booking reference. We usually just give our names and don’t show anything when checking in.

There haven’t been phones in the last few rooms I have stayed in.

"And one more question. Are there any phones in any P I rooms? I may not have an international plan on my cell phone and may need to reach an old friend outside of London and a distant cousin in London."

Not responding to your PI question but in one of your previous threads you mentioned having a worry about getting lost. For this reason I highly recommend you check to see if your phone provider has a reasonably priced international phone/data program. Sometimes a daily charge is good because you only use it on the days you take your phone off airplane mode. So, for your cruise you may not use the phone on those days but may want it for some or all of your days in London.

IF you have data on your phone when you are out and around and feel like you are turned around, you can turn on your phone, go into your free CityMapper app and get a route back to your hotel OR on to your next point of interest without having to worry. I will tell you I have always been a paper map gal but Kim in Paris talked me in to Citymapper app and I have not looked back. It will even tell you which way to walk to get to a Tube stop and which car to get on based on where you want to get off.

I'll add that I was in Italy for 22 days in Sept/Oct. I was on a Rick tour for 17 days and knew I would not need it every day. My Verizon plan has either a monthly $100 fee OR a $10/day fee. I went with the $10/day and wound up turning my phone on 8 out of the 22 days so that worked out well for me.

Please consider this even if you don't use your phone much at home.

Like the others, we booked online, got a confirmation e-mail, and showed up. We paid at check in.

For a phone, if you don’t have an international plan, you could use Skype, Zoom, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and I’m sure there are others. I have T-Mobile and calls are 25 cents a minute overseas and data is free, but only at 2G speeds. Texts are free, so that’s what we use. We seldom need to make an overseas call that costs us.

OK, here's the deal: Premier Inns are high-value hotels. You get a clean, not-minute, usually air-conditioned room with Wi-Fi at a very reasonable price for the area/city where the hotel is located. You do not get a lot of hand-holding.

I had occasion to cancel several PI rooms this year. That was very easy.

I've also needed to contact individual hotels to try to confirm presence of bathtubs in the rooms. (The corporate website is mediocre at best.) That did not go well, overall. Responsiveness of hotels to emails varies a lot. It would be my guess that the hotels outside of London are, on average, more responsive than the super-busy London hotels, but I'm not working with a large sample size. I did get a response from the London Holborn Premier Inn; there may have been one other PI that answered my query, which I probably sent to 5 or 6 hotels. Tip: The best place to find an email address for a specific PI seems to be Facebook. Google something like Premier Inn London Holborn Facebook and cross your fingers.

Facebook may also yield a hotel-specific phone number. Good luck using it. In my experience, you are highly likely to get a recording that--after a very brief wait of 2 or 3 minutes--says something like "We're really busy right now" and hangs up on you. It is massively frustrating. It's sort of mind-boggling that a hotel chain of this size makes it so incredibly difficult to contact a property by either email or phone.

My travel mate ran into a problem in London and needed to make a phone call or two. Our hotel (Holborn PI) offered to let her use the hotel phone. She found the phone battery was dead, which sort of gives one the impression taking phone calls is not high on the priority list.

I will say that once you get to the hotel, the personnel are usually helpful, given the (sketchy) level of staffing at the front desk. I suspect the staffing issues were worse this year than in the past. And not just at the front desk. And not just at Premier Inns. There may be a considerable wait to check in if you're unlucky; that hasn't been that much of an issue in the past. (See Brexit, impact of--which is not to say the problems are limited to Great Britain; there are an awful lot of hotels in Europe that are servicing their rooms only every 3 or 4 days.)

Premier Inns offer clean, quiet rooms with little fanfare or service. There are no phones in their rooms. If you need something--towels, coffee, tea milks, etc--you go down to reception to get them. They don't bring them to your room. There is no one to help you with your luggage.

I have stayed in many PI's and always used their app to make and cancel reservations. No problems at all. I wouldn't hesitate to stay in another one. Their beds are very comfortable.

In many PI's you can check in via a computer rather than a person at the reception desk.

Let me also add to what Pam wrote.....you seem very nervous about this trip and need to know the details nearly a year out. Pay a little extra and get the international plan on your phone. A phone today can be a lifesaver while traveling. Then learn how to use all the extras prior to your trip.

The Premier Inns i have used have self service check ins although when i have gone to use them a member of staff has approached me to help
I have never had cause to contact them before a visit

I’m going to be honest with you. I would not consider traveling to London without an international plan or an esim on my phone. I have been there several times, but still count on my City Mapper app to make life easy when traveling on public transport.

I would include this as part of the budget for the trip.

I like Premier Inn Waterloo for location to multiple transportation options. I just make my reservation online and show up. No problems.

acraven,

I am amazed that it is so difficult to communicate with P I by email or telephone given what a huge operation it is. It is more than just a corporation. It is more like a mega corporation.

I would think that they would have toll free numbers and a very easily available email but maybe this is how they keep costs down and are able to offer value at a very good price.

It could have something to do with ongoing staffing issues after COVID just like we are having in the USA. We are trying to recover but customer service remains lacking.

Travelers, for the most part, seem very happy with booking P I as it is.

Frank and Carol as well as others

I am not well traveled as yourselves. That is among the reasons that I turn to you for help.

I go on one. cruise a year except for COVID. I do spend a year researching and planning my cruise. I dot all my i's and cross my t's and then all sorts of things go wrong anyway.

This is a really big trip for me.

I will be going to London for about 5 nights, then up to Southampton for my cruise to Lisbon. I will be spending about 4 nights in Lisbon before flying home.

I have an old friend from the 1960's who lives in Hinckley and we are going to try to meet up. In Lisbon, I have an old friend from the 1970's and we are going to try to meet up.

So here is the deal with my phone. I was trained on the Apple iPhone but when my 5c died on me, I could not afford an Apple phone any longer. I had to go with a Samsung Galaxy and one of the less expensive ones. My provider is Spectrum, formerly Time Warner.

I can call support services for information about this phone but there is no one to show me how to do things. I can not go into a Samsung store like I can go to an Apple store and ask questions about my phone..

I have a prepaid plan and believe that I will have to upgrade in order to get an international plan. Even then, I am not certain what the international plan will cost or offers. I have to call.

I do not believe that I get the same services as T-Mobile, Verizon or even AT&T

I am considering buying an Apple S E which is similar to the 5 C that I once had.

I really hate my Galaxy but it might be that I just do not know how to make good use of it.

bostonphil7, since you have some time, see if your phone is unlocked. If you are ot paying it off, it probably can be unlocked, if it isn’t right now. Then see if it is eSim compatible. Often the company lists all compatible phones. Then you can purchase a cheap data only package and download WhatsApp to use for contacting friends.

The other option, if it is unlocked, is to just stop at the airport and buy a physical sim and have them install it for
you. It will come with a local telephone number, calling minutes and data for email, messages, and mapping (basically anything you need). It cost a little more but might be the easiest option for you.

Both of these options require your phone to be “unlocked”.

As others have said, this is a budget chain. I assume one way they save money is by not having to talk to people. I had a problem with the website not working and had to call and it cost me money. I think once you check in, you get a direct hotel phone number but there is not way to contact the hotel directly before then. If you are that concerned about reaching a customer service line, you might consider another lower cost chain like Ibis. I haven’t stayed at one in London and they might cost a little more, but I’ve decent stays at other locations and they have a toll free customer service number. Compare how much you’d save with Premier plus the cost of stress to you and see if they’re really worth it for this trip

Others have addressed you queries about PI’s.

I’m going to respond to your phone question. Prior to leaving the states email your the friends you hope to meet up with and ask them to download WhatsApp to their respective phones. If you have an iPhone its in the App Store. If Android phone its in the Play Store. Its free. Tell them thats how you want to chat, text and communicate.

Its so simple. It’s how I stay in touch with my UK friends.

Couple of other Apps to add to your phone for a London visit: TubeMap, Tfl Go, NationalTrust, and CityMapper.

Great City. Enjoy it.

You might consider switching your phone plan from Spectrum to TMobile. We have had TMobile and Galaxy phones on our last 4 trips to Europe and have had no problems with local calls, texting, calls to/from the US, and internet use - with no additional charges We have the plan for geezers - can't remember what they call it.

Estimated Prophet

My phone plan only costs me $14 a month. That includes unlimited calls and text messages plus one gig of data.

My phone is paid up.

However I was stunned to found out that Alaska was not covered and I was going to have to buy an international plan to make calls from Alaska.

Claudia

I only have one gig on my current prepaid plan but i could probably upgrade to an unlimited plan for. a month.

I am registered what what's app but had difficulty using it. I may try again. I am also registered with skype.

I am going to try looking into some of the apps that you have recommended.

Texas Travelmom

I do have to call Spectrum and find out more about my phone and an international plan.

My phone is paid off and my plan costs $14 a month. This is a prepaid plan with unlimited calls and texting. but with only one gig of data.

I have no idea if my phone is unlocked. That is something I need to find out.

And I know that there are companies that can put in a sims card for me. Can I have it taken out at the airport in Lisbon?

If using either an eSim for data or a new physical sim, it has nothing at all to do with your current plan. And to be honest, if possible, in your case I might recommend a new physical sim installed for you upon arrival.

As far as getting your U.S. one put back in as you leave, you would just have to stop and ask someone to do it. It’s not part of a regular request. But it would only take them a few seconds and people are generally nice.

Well, I called Spectrum and was told that it was just 3 cents a minute when I am in London to make phone calls. I was told to call before I travel and they would be able to switch mo over to an international plan with no trouble but i hesitate to believe anything they tell me. A couple of years ago, they told me that it was $1 a minute making calls when abroad. Before I went on my cruise in Alaska, the rep wanted to switch me to the international department. Today they tell me they have no international department. ???

I may call back during regular business hours after the holidays to clarify some of the information.

But I do feel better.

On the Spectrum site, it does say something about 3 cents a minute to make phone calls when in London. i think that it said texts were free.