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Free WiFi at 45 Park Lane but not The Dorch.
At 45 Park Lane the WiFi is free - but not at its big sister The Dorchester nor several other luxury London hotels which we name and shame below
The latest eagerly-anticipated hotel offering from The Dorchester Collection, 45 Park Lane, opened last week. And with room rates starting from £395 we were pleased to see that WiFi is free throughout the hotel.
However we were not so pleased to discover that the original Dorchester Hotel in London - a 5 star hotel with similarly lofty room rates – is charging a hefty £19.50 per 24 hours of WiFi. What’s more, if you want to log on quickly for 10 minutes there is no option for a shorter cheaper tariff - you’ll still need to pay the full £19.50. It sounds like a big rip-off to us. What a pity when this grand old hotel is celebrating its 80th anniversary in style.
Even Mr Sleep at Travelodge can now get free WiFi in the bar cafes of the chain's budget London hotels: so how do expensive "name" hotels justify such extortionate charges?
This seems especially bizarre when WiFi is not only offered free by The Dorchester’s sister hotel but also most of its competitors which include free WiFi in the room rate, including Claridge’s, the top-rated Milestone Hotel, The Lanesborough (a hotel which loves to give freebies) and One Aldwych - the latter proud to say it has never charged for such a basic amenity.
Though sadly and surprisingly Firmdale Hotels – which runs the otherwise very guest-friendly Soho Hotel and Haymarket Hotel among others – is also sticking to its outdated policy of charging handsomely for WiFi. Er hello, even Travelodge is moving towards free WiFi now, so how can so-called “luxury” hotels engage in such sneaky behaviour? Of course, they usually shy away from clearly stating their WiFi charges on their websites.
A gorgeous Superior Room at 45 Park Lane: with free WiFi included too, there's no need to bother with dinosaur hotels which charge you extra, is there?
It seems free WiFi generally comes as standard in newer hotels; two recent openings - the Corinthia Hotel and Eccleston Square Hotel – both offer free WiFi to guests. But older hotels seem to be having trouble giving up their charges. For instance currently The Ritz charges a whopping £26 a day!
It breaks our heart that even the lovely historic Langham Hotel imposes a £20 daily WiFi charge for unlimited high-speed access. Although it does offer free WiFi in guest rooms for “basic browsing” (to check emails, etc.) and its business centre, in our view this dual system will only inconvenience guests and is not worthy of a 5 star luxury hotel – especially one which is as gorgeous and guest-centric in other respects as The Langham.
Equally sadly, another of this blog’s favourite 5 star hotels – the Sofitel St James – follows a similar “dual” policy to The Langham. This only muddies the waters: why force guests at an expensive hotel to figure out for themselves whether the basic access is enough? And why waste their time and have them trudge down to the lobby or business centre for the free high-speed access that much cheaper hotels include in the room rate?
If you want to make sure your hotel has free WiFi, do check out our top-rated TripAdvisor London hotels with free WiFi. And if any of the hotels named and shamed above finally see the light and change their WiFi policy, we’ll be happy to sing it from the rooftops if they contact us.
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Photo Credit: 45 Park Lane, Travelodge.
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It’s unbelievable that many expensive hotels are still charging extra for internet access, I don’t understand how they get away with it. If I paid a few hundred pounds for a night in a hotel and was expected to pay another £20 to go online I’d be furious.
Unbelievable! If many small hotels can afford to provide free wifi to their clients, why large hotels can’t?