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While Marriott, Hilton and IHG all have multiple properties at or immediately around Heathrow Airport, Hyatt has just one – the Hyatt Place London Heathrow Airport – so if you’re a Hyatt loyalist, this is the property that you’re likely to choose if you’re not looking for anything upscale and just need a bed for a night or two.
I found myself staying here ahead of an early morning meeting at Heathrow and a flight (a few hours later) back to Los Angeles.
The admin
- Length of stay: 1 nights
- Actual cost of stay: £102/$130 inc. taxes (using the Hyatt Leverage rate)
- Cheapest cash rate for the booking (had I booked with cash): $956 (inc. taxes)
- Elite status at time of stay: Hyatt Globalist
- Points earned from the booking: 702 (540 Base Points + 162 Elite Bonus)
- Upgrade instruments used: None
- Room booked: 2 Twin Beds (this was cheaper than the 1 King option)
- Room received: 2 Twin Beds Runway View
- Upgraded: Yes – to a higher floor & better view
Getting there/location
The Hyatt Place London Heathrow sits on Bath Road just a few hundred yards from the northernmost of the two runways at Heathrow Airport.
Bath road is quite long, and it’s where you’ll also find properties like the Sheraton Heathrow, the Holiday Inn London Heathrow (Bath Road), Staybridge Suites London Heathrow (Bath Road), the Renaissance London Heathrow, and the London Heathrow Marriott.
There are two main ways of getting between the hotel and Heathrow Airport.
Option 1 – Taxi/Rideshare Service
Option 2 – The Bus
The local service bus that comes from Heathrow Terminal 5 to the hotel and then goes on to Terminals 2 and 3, stops right outside the property.
The same local service bus that comes from Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3 to the hotel and then goes on to Terminals 5, stops approximately 200 yards aways from the property and on the opposite side of the road.
Journey times to/from T5 take 10-15 minutes on average. Journey times to/from the central bus station that serves Terminals 2 & 3 takes 8 – 12 minutes on average.
Note: There is a ‘Hotel Hoppa’ service that also runs past the Hyatt Place Heathrow, but that service is no quicker than the local bus (it can be slower) and it costs considerably more.
If you’re arriving by car, the hotel offers underground parking for up to 72 cars (it gets busy very often) and the nightly rate at the time of writing is £17/$22.
The hotel also had four parking bays (at the front) where EVs can be charged.
The lobby & check-in
Once you’re through the front doors of the hotel, you’ll find the check-in desks immediately ahead of you.
To the left are the elevators and the entrance to the restaurant. And to the right, is the rest of the lobby area where you’ll find a bar, several seating options, a couple of workstations with a printer, and a small market selling snacks and drinks.
Power outlets are in short supply here so if you plan on using the lobby as a work area away from your room, make sure your devices are charged.
As seems to be usual for this property (I’ve stayed here a few times), check-in was swift and my Globalist status ensured that my entry-level room was upgraded to a room on a higher floor and with a view towards the runway (rather than a view of the industrial-looking area at the back of the property).
There are no suites or extra-large rooms at this hotel, so the best upgrade you’re likely to get is to a room on the top floor that’s looking towards the airport.
The room
Through I was staying alone, I had booked a room with twin beds because at the time of booking, that was the cheapest option.
I didn’t bother to get myself moved to a room with a king-size bed at check-in as I wanted to see what a twin bed room was like (I’ve seen king bed rooms here before).
Now that I’ve seen a twin-bed room I can say that most rooms at this property have similar layouts (there are one or two rooms where the layout is a little different), so you can assume that there’s a good chance that if you book a king-bed or twin-bed room, it will have a layout similar if not identical to the one discussed below.
Note: The blue hue that you’ll see in some of the images that follow is due to the tint on the room’s windows. The room doesn’t look blue in real life, this is just how the images have come out.
The first thing you see as you open the door to the room is a short hallway leading to the sleeping area (very standard).
To the left (in the case of this room), is the bathroom, and a little further on is a built-in minibar area with a small (empty) refrigerator, a kettle, mugs and some tea and instant coffee (no coffee maker).
Next comes the sleeping area which isn’t big but is large enough that life shouldn’t feel cramped (most rooms here are ~260 sq ft/24m²).
As this is a twin room, twin beds dominate the space, and if you need to separate the beds (as most people booking this type of room will probably want to), that’s when you’ll lose some usable space to a room with just a king bed in it.
For reference, this is what a king-size bed looks like in a similar setting.
In the twin room, there’s a small armchair beside the bed (some king rooms have a chaise longue), a small desk attached to the wall opposite the bed, and a reasonably sized flat screen TV.
The desk looks small in some of the images but it’s actually a pretty good size to work at if you’re just using a laptop.
It’s also well served by power outlets with 2 UK-style 3-pin outlets and a USB-A port built into the desk (make sure that you bring an adapter if you’re not from the UK).
Speaking of power outlets …
One side of each twin bed has access to power as well. One bed has a similar set up to the desk, while the other just has two AC outlets (one of which is taken up by the room clock/radio).
The room’s closet is built into the wall that divides the sleeping area from the bathroom.
The hanging rail is open to the room and built into one of the closet’s sidewalls are some shelves and a well-concealed ironing board.
The final area of the room left to mention is the bathroom.
What I like about the bathroom is that the sensibly designed sink area makes the room feel larger and more spacious than it actually is. Somehow, it doesn’t feel confining or tight.
What I don’t like about the bathroom is that the designers have fitted one of those pointlessly small baths that some many US properties are plagued by.
The shower that sits above the bath is fine. The water pressure is good, and you don’t need an IQ in the high 180s to work out how to alter the temperature without giving yourself third degree burns.
But I really wish that hotels with bathrooms where space is at a premium would stop fitting these types of baths and just give us nice, big, shower cubicles.
No one is going to take a look at a bath this size and think ‘great, I’ll get my book and some bubble bath and that’s me done for the evening’.
They’re going to look at it and wonder if they should have paid a little more and stayed at the Sofitel.
Ok, now that I’ve got that min-rant out of my system, the last thing to point out about the bathroom are the toiletries.
These are full-size and attached to the wall of the shower.
The good news here is that for some reason, the Hyatt Place London Heathrow is not offering the same toiletries as the Hyatt Place London City East or the Hyatt Place New York/Chelsea which, I believe, offer the brand standard.
The Hyatt Place Heathrow is offering a very nice brand of toiletries from Australia (the same brand that the Sydney Marriott Circular Quay offered when I last visited), and that’s not what I expected to find.
Finally, I should mention the view.
There are buildings between the Hyatt Place and the northerly Heathrow runway, so if you don’t have a room on one of the higher floors (and preferably away from the buildings on the other side of the road), you’re not going to get many great views of aircraft taking off and landing.
If you strike lucky, however, a room overlooking Heathrow can be a great place for an AvGeek.
Breakfast
Globalist elites get a full complimentary breakfast at the Hyatt Place Heathrow and unsurprisingly, it’s a buffet.
Guests who don’t have breakfast included in their room rate or as an elite status benefit can pay £12 for a continental breakfast or £20 for the full buffet. It’s worth noting that in the welcome email that the hotel sends out in advance of a guest’s arrival, there’s an option to add breakfast to a booking at a discounted rate.
Breakfast is served in the property’s restaurant (The Gallery) between 06:00 and 10:30 every day.
The food on offer is ok. Not great, but also not bad, and there’s enough variety to keep most people happy with all the usual hot items on offer (and a few extras to keep vegetarians happy) as well as several continental breakfast items (cheeses, cold cuts, cereals, yoghurts, pastries, toast, jam/jelly, marmalade, etc…)
The best bit of the breakfast offering is the fact that you can have your eggs cooked to order so you don’t have to make do with the buffet’s scrambled eggs (the cooks/chefs do very good poached eggs).
Other dining
The Gallery is closed at lunchtime but reopens for dinner between 18:00 and 22:30 daily.
I didn’t dine at the hotel in the evening so I can’t comment on the quality of the food or the service, but this link will take you to the latest menu that the restaurant is offering.
An all-day dining menu is also offered and served in the lobby bar which is open 10:00 to 00:00 daily.
The latest all-day dining menu can be accessed via this link, and includes everything from snacks (soups, halloumi fries, BBQ wings, etc..) to burgers, sandwiches, pies, omelettes, fish & chips, and shareable plates.
I had a Club sandwich shortly after I arrived …
…and while it was never going to win an award from a school of culinary excellence, it tasted ok, and I appreciated the fact that the fries didn’t come out of a packet.
The fitness center/gym
The hotel gym is in the basement so although it’s very well lit, it suffers from a lack of natural light.
For a hotel airport hotel, however, it seems well equipped, and most people should find that it allows them to get a good workout done.
Final thoughts
For the prices that it charges for its rooms (currently usually between £95 and £120) the Hyatt Place London Heathrow seems reasonable.
The staff are friendly, the rooms are of an acceptable size, and the location together with the local bus service makes it a good place to stay ahead of an early morning flight.
If you have Globalist elite status, don’t expect a major upgrade and don’t expect a welcome gift (it’s not that kind of hotel), but expect a pleasant greeting at the front desk and a full complimentary breakfast.
The key here is to understand what you’re booking when you choose the Hyatt Place Heathrow. This isn’t a full-service property so it’s not going to offer you a lot of extras (the pricing should give that away), but it’s also better than several other limited service properties in the area (I’d pick the Hyatt Place over any of the Holiday Inns for example) and better located than most as well.
Overall, this is a solid airport hotel and as I’ve proven a few times in the past, yes, I would happily return if a budget airport hotel is what I need.
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