The short answer: hub by Premier Inn, Z Hotels and easyHotel put air conditioning in every room and are the ones to book in July; Premier Inn gives you the largest bed and a restaurant; Travelodge is cheapest and charges £3.50 a day for Wi-Fi unless you book an upgraded room; and ibis is three separate brands, not one. All of them are purpose-built, so all of them are quiet enough to sleep in.
A handful of chains own a large share of the London rooms a visitor can afford, and their advantage is that the room in one branch is the room in the next. Our guide to budget hotels in London explains the category. What follows is brand by brand, using what each company publishes about itself, with prices given as the chains' own "from" figures read in September 2026.
The cooling question, answered brand by brand
- hub by Premier Inn
- Every room has a touchscreen controlling lighting and temperature (Whitbread)
- Z Hotels
- Individually and digitally controlled temperature in every room; "aircon" listed as a room feature
- easyHotel
- Air conditioning in every room, stated in its own FAQ
- Travelodge
- Only in some hotels: air conditioning is a filter on the chain's own hotel search, not a standard
- Premier Inn
- Not part of the room description its owner publishes; ask the individual hotel
- ibis, ibis Styles, ibis budget
- Not stated on Accor's brand pages; check the room type
Premier Inn: the biggest, and the one with a restaurant
Premier Inn is the largest hotel brand in the United Kingdom: its owner, Whitbread, publishes about 850 hotels and more than 86,000 rooms open. What the brand promises, in Whitbread's own words, is a comfy king-size bed, an en-suite bathroom with a power shower, Freeview television and Wi-Fi in every room, self check-in kiosks, and a bar and restaurant inside the hotel or next door. Premier Plus rooms add enhanced furniture plus a coffee machine and what Whitbread calls "ultimate Wi-Fi".
The bed is the real differentiator at this price, because king-size as standard is unusual in London, where a "double" in a converted house is often a small double. The breakfast is the other one: Whitbread describes "eat-as-much-as-you-like full English and continental breakfasts", which for two adults and a teenager is a different proposition from a pastry in a bag.
Two notes. Air conditioning does not appear in Whitbread's own description of a standard Premier Inn room, so treat it as a hotel-by-hotel question, as our guide to air conditioning in London hotels explains. And Zip by Premier Inn, the stripped-down brand advertised at "as little as £21 a night", is open in Cardiff and not in London.
hub by Premier Inn: small rooms, central addresses
hub is the same company's compact brand: "smaller rooms, big locations", with 19 hotels and about 3,000 rooms across London and Edinburgh. The rooms have a touchscreen panel controlling the lighting and the temperature, completely free superfast Wi-Fi, 40-inch smart televisions and monsoon showers, in small, large, twin and wheelchair-accessible layouts, with hot and cold breakfast options rather than a restaurant.
hub solves one problem well: a cool, quiet, modern room in Zone 1 at a price the period hotels in the same postcode cannot match, provided you accept you will not spend the afternoon in it. Our guide to pod and capsule hotels covers the rest of that category.
Travelodge: the cheapest, and the Wi-Fi trap
Travelodge runs over 625 hotels across the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain, and in London it usually carries the lowest headline rate of the big names. Its standard room, on the chain's own page, has a king-size bed with a duvet and four pillows, an en-suite shower room, a desk, a Freeview television, complimentary hair and body wash and tea and coffee making facilities.
Then there is the footnote on the same page, and it is the most useful thing on this article: Wi-Fi in a standard Travelodge room carries a charge. The published tariff is free for 30 minutes every 24 hours, then £3.50 for 24 hours, £7 for 48 hours, £10.50 for 72 hours, £15 for a week and £25 for a fortnight, for up to two devices per purchase. Premium Wi-Fi is included only with a SuperRoom or a Standard Room Plus. Visitors assume British hotel Wi-Fi is free, and it usually is; here it is not, and for a family with four devices the difference is real.
| Travelodge room type | What it adds |
|---|---|
| Standard room | King-size bed, en-suite shower, desk, Freeview television, tea and coffee. Wi-Fi charged |
| New look standard room | Blackout curtains, LED lighting, USB charging. In over 370 hotels |
| Standard Room Plus | A quieter part of the hotel, Wi-Fi throughout, a coffee pod machine. In over 275 hotels |
| SuperRoom | Premium Wi-Fi, adjustable shower, coffee machine, choice of pillows, iron and hairdryer; the newer version adds a drinks fridge and a larger television |
The breakfast is the other detail. Travelodge's "Unlimited Breakfast" exists only at hotels with a Bar Café inside them, which a good number of London branches do not have; elsewhere the alternative is a £6.95 Breakfast to Go box. Ask which kind your hotel is, and read our guide to British food words if the menu is unfamiliar.
Z Hotels: the numbers on the room, published
Z Hotels has twelve hotels in London, plus Bath, Glasgow and Liverpool, and it does something no other chain does: it publishes the floor area of every room type. That makes it the yardstick for what "compact" means in central London.
| Room type | Size | From | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Z Single | 8 to 9 m² | £60 | One single bed |
| Z Inside Double or Queen | 9 to 11 m² | £65 to £70 | No window. The chain's own words: "no curtains to draw" |
| Z Double | 9 to 10 m² | £75 to £90 | Double bed |
| Z Queen | 11 m² | £80 | A little more space |
| Z Accessible | 19 m² | £80 | Specialist shower, lowered basin, grab rails, minimum 1.5 m turning circle |
| Z Family | 12 to 13 m² | £100 | Sleeps four in bunk beds on two levels with separate stairs |
Rooms include free Wi-Fi, digitally controlled temperature, a television with Sky and TNT Sports, tea, coffee and water, an en-suite shower room with a glass partition and storage under the bed. Children under 16 stay free sharing with a paying adult where a suitable room exists, and under-18s must be accompanied. Free membership adds 10% off the public rate, complimentary cheese and wine, and early or late departure subject to availability.
One warning. The windowless "Inside" rooms are cheapest for a reason, and 9 square metres with no window is a different experience from 9 square metres with one.
easyHotel: what it deliberately leaves out
easyHotel has five London hotels, in Croydon, Shoreditch, Paddington, Victoria and South Kensington, and its model is to include what affects sleep and omit the rest. Its own FAQ is unusually blunt about it.
Included: a compact en-suite room, a mattress it calls four-star style, super-fast Wi-Fi, air conditioning, shower gel, bed linen and a towel. Not included: tea and coffee facilities, a hairdryer or an iron in the room, all of which reception lends or sells instead. There are no restaurants in any easyHotel, only vending machines, and the continental breakfast it advertises exists at its French hotels and in Basel, not in London.
Three rules catch families. No additional bed can be added to any room; the chain provides no cots, though you may bring your own except in a single room; and a baby under two may stay only if you supply the cot. Check-in runs from 15:00 to midnight, early check-in from 11:00 can be bought subject to availability, and the lead guest needs photo identification and a credit card.
ibis: three brands with one name
This is where visitors most often book the wrong thing, because "ibis" is not one brand but three, all owned by Accor. Its figures as at 30 June 2026 give ibis 1,211 hotels worldwide, ibis Styles 708 and ibis budget 590.
- ibis is the mainstream one: a standard room, the brand's own Sweet Bed, an open lobby with a bar, and food through much of the day.
- ibis Styles is the design-led version, where each hotel has its own visual theme. Same bed, different decoration, and breakfast is more often in the rate.
- ibis budget is the cheapest, with what Accor calls flexible rooms for one to six guests and snack corners rather than a restaurant. That means bunk arrangements and a compact shower unit, which suits a family for one night and rarely for five.
Accor's brand pages say nothing about air conditioning in any of the three, so treat it as a per-hotel question.
The hygiene register, and what it says about all of them
Every chain here except easyHotel serves food, so each hotel with a kitchen is inspected by its local council and published on the Food Standards Agency register. We checked the London-borough entries for each brand in September 2026.
| Brand | London entries on the register | Ratings |
|---|---|---|
| Premier Inn | 32 | 31 rated 5, one rated 4 |
| hub by Premier Inn | 13 | All 13 rated 5 |
| Travelodge | 28 | 23 rated 5, three rated 4, one rated 3, one exempt |
| ibis, all three brands | 31 | 24 rated 5, five rated 4, two rated 3 |
| Z Hotels | 10 | Nine rated 5, one rated 4 |
| easyHotel | None | Not on the register, consistent with having no kitchen |
Not one London branch of any of these brands was rated below 3. That is not true of the independent food businesses on the same streets, and it is the quiet argument for a chain. Ratings change at every inspection, so check the specific address before relying on it.
Check-in, check-out and cancelling
Check-in is from 15:00 at all three chains that publish it, and check-out is midday at Travelodge and 11:00 at Z Hotels. The cancellation rules are where they diverge. Travelodge's Flexible Rate is refundable until 12:00 on the arrival date, while its Semi-Flex and Lowest rates are not refundable at all. Z Hotels asks seven days' notice even on its Best Flexible Rate, 48 hours on the members' rate, and nothing is refundable on Advanced Purchase.
Two Travelodge clauses are worth having in mind. The hotel, the rate type and the guest name cannot be changed after booking, and asking to change hotel counts as a cancellation. Its relocation policy is good, though: if a room is unavailable on arrival it will put you in another Travelodge or a third-party hotel and pay the reasonable cost of getting you there, or cancel and refund. Its terms also warn that parking at many branches belongs to a third party, so you contract with that company and not the hotel, which our page on hotels with parking in London explains. Why a flexible rate is often worth the difference is in booking a London hotel you can cancel.
Which chain for which trip
Book this one when
- July or August: hub, Z or easyHotel, where the cooling is a brand standard
- With children: Premier Inn for the bed and the breakfast, or Z for a room that sleeps four
- A wheelchair user: Z publishes its accessible room at 19 m² with a 1.5 m turning circle
Think twice when
- You need to work: the Travelodge Wi-Fi charge and the small desks both get in the way
- You want a window: the cheapest compact rooms in several chains do not have one
- Plans may change: the cheapest rate in every chain here is non-refundable
For a stay of a week, compare all of this with aparthotels and serviced apartments; for a night before a flight, with staying near Heathrow and staying near Gatwick. The extras are charged the same way across all these brands, as hotel extras and hidden costs sets out.
Frequently asked questions
Which British hotel chains have air conditioning?
hub by Premier Inn, Z Hotels and easyHotel all include it in every room and say so on their own sites. Travelodge has it in some hotels only, offered as a search filter rather than a standard. Whitbread's description of a Premier Inn room does not mention it, and Accor's ibis pages do not either, so for those two ask the hotel and name your room type.
Is Premier Inn or Travelodge better?
Premier Inn for the room, Travelodge for the price. Premier Inn gives you a king-size bed, a restaurant at or next to every hotel and an eat-as-much-as-you-like breakfast; Travelodge usually has the lower headline rate and charges for Wi-Fi in a standard room. If you will use the internet or eat breakfast in the hotel, price both before assuming Travelodge is cheaper.
Do Travelodge rooms have free Wi-Fi?
Only 30 minutes every 24 hours in a standard room. After that the published tariff is £3.50 for 24 hours, £7 for 48, £10.50 for 72 and £15 for a week, covering up to two devices. Premium Wi-Fi is included with a SuperRoom or a Standard Room Plus.
What is the difference between ibis, ibis Styles and ibis budget?
They are three separate Accor brands. ibis is the mainstream one, with a bar and food through the day; ibis Styles is the design-led version where each hotel has its own theme and breakfast is more often in the rate; ibis budget is the cheapest, with rooms Accor describes as flexible for one to six guests and snack corners instead of a restaurant.
Sources
- Whitbread PLC - Our brands: Premier Inn, hub by Premier Inn and Zip (checked September 2026)
- Travelodge - Our rooms (checked September 2026)
- Travelodge - WiFi packages and prices (checked September 2026)
- Travelodge - Unlimited Breakfast and Breakfast to Go (checked September 2026)
- Travelodge - Booking terms and conditions (checked September 2026)
- Z Hotels - Terms and conditions (checked September 2026)
- easyHotel - Frequently asked questions (checked September 2026)
- Accor - ibis, ibis Styles and ibis budget brand pages (checked September 2026)
- Food Standards Agency - Food hygiene ratings, London entries for each chain (checked September 2026)