Quick Hotel Report : Hilton East Midlands Airport.
Price paid: £39
Points Earned: 509 HHonors points, 1000 BMI Miles + 1000 BMI Double Double Miles.
This is part of a new series of “reports” that don’t qualify as trip reports, but stays I’ve done for various reasons. I’ll be updating these every now and again as I travel around the UK.
Last week, I had reason to be in the East Midlands area with friends. Rather than traipse all the way back to Birmingham on the last possible train (entertaining as that is knowing the drunks on-board the late trains), I decided to bed down at the Hilton East Midlands Airport.
Getting to this place would be a pain without a car – lets be up front. It’s squashed between a turn off of the A50 and the M1. So if you’re coming in there’s a van or a taxi – both chargeable. Thankfully, friends dropped me there… and near enough back to where I needed to be. Alternately, it’s taxi or shuttle bus.
The hotel itself is a 4 level airport hotel – lets be blunt and is unassuming from the outside.
Image – Hilton Hotels
I arrived at the hotel, and was greeting warmly after a short queue at check in. Even though I was a Hilton nothing, I was given my normal 2 keys, and offered the up-sell for breakfast (which I declined)
It was then a matter of finding my room
Find being the optimum word. The hotel whilst on 4 levels is itself a mini maze. Thankfully I found my room in the corner.
Room 333 – 50% of the beast. Hilton – are you trying to tell me something?
The room was advertised as a 22m²/236sq.ft room. It felt a LOT bigger as you can see from the pictures.
Night
Day
There were adequate tea/coffee facilities, with shortbread biscuits (a nice little touch), with a updated TV screen which had all the usual paid and non paid TV options. In terms of “free” channels it had a mixture of Sky products (Sky Sports etc) and Freeview Products.
Tea Making Area
More of the tea area – the lead going off screen is to the laptop
TV and Vanity area
The room itself was clean, and the bed was pretty reasonable – for a start I could sleep on it without sinking into the middle of it.
However the room suffered with the minor issues of where to plug your laptop in (like a lot of hotels I’ve been too) – where to find the power sockets. There was one near the vanity table, one near the kettle, and maybe one at the desk As I like to work on the bed, it was a case of cable madness to get the laptop on the bed (considering the laptop also charges the phone too… little things help).
As this was during one of the odd times in the country where there was a heat wave, this was a chance to test out the aircon system. And thankfully, it wasn’t as effective as a gnats breath (like the Ibis Belfast). This one had a nice effective blow – although at full power I swear it sounded like an engine that comes out of Rolls Royce in Derby.
The bathroom was reasonably appointed – whilst not the most modern, everything was findable, and the selection of smellies provided smelt reasonable and did the jobs they were required to.
Bathroom (partial)
Smellies.
Navigating my way around the hotel wasn’t impossible, but it seems the lift with was thought of with Americans in mind with it not being the normal G, 1, 2, 3, but 1, 2 , 3, 4 – it’s a small thing, but one that throws you off if you’re not used to it.
Internet was a mixed of charged for (for Hilton nothings like me), free (for Hilton Gold and above) or BT Openzone. This was an interesting wrinkle for me as I’m a Vodafone UK subscriber – theoretically – I could roam onto the hotspot and use part of my 1GB a month allocation of BT Openzone Wifi I never use normally. And I could – with the laptop. Whilst not the easiest interface to use, once clear of the BT Openzone boundary, performance seemed to be constantly fast in the hotel – good enough for checking email, reading blogs, editing and getting photos to friends.
The hotel bar itself seemed to be doing a busy trade, as was breakfast at the hotel when I was checking out. As I took advantage of no other things – it was just the prepaid charge of £39.
Overall: I’ve spent more on hotels in the past and felt ripped off. This was a good value hotel at a reasonable cost with good facilities. It’s definitely a hotel to when going somewhere – not as a resort. As such it did the job.
However – the hotel did a good job and I had a good nights sleep. That’s what you need from a hotel!
Looking at it from a points point of view, I had remembered to ensure I had signed up for the double miles or double points promo (selecting double miles) and set my earning preferences to BMI Diamond Club still.
Here’s the breakdown:
- 509 Hilton points
- 1000 BMI Miles
- + 1000 BMI Miles on the double points offer
Now let’s do another value perspective. I personally don’t value Hilton points as I don’t stay often enough in Hiltons to gain status or redeem (although the points to keep the rest alive in my Hilton account are welcome so dread the thought I can get a Cat1 redemption).
The BMI Miles are still valuable to me as they’re convertible to Avios soon. Normally if you want to buy them they’re £12 per 1000 + a £15 fee.
So £24 + £15 = £39 for 2000 miles. Which is what I’ve paid for the hotel room. So it’s cost neutral, I’ve got some BMI miles and a Hotel room for near enough peanuts. Always a good thing….