On this page (5 sections)
Which of the three ibis hotels this is
Heathrow has three ibis hotels, they are all on the Bath Road, and they are easy to book by mistake. Settle which one you are booking before anything else: the two furthest apart are 1.7 miles from each other, which is a different taxi and a different morning.
| Hotel | Where | Brand position |
|---|---|---|
| ibis Styles London Heathrow Airport | 272 Bath Road, Harlington, UB3 5AY | Design-led, brighter rooms |
| ibis London Heathrow Airport | 112 Bath Road, Harlington, UB3 5AL | The standard ibis, restaurant and bar |
| ibis budget London Heathrow Central | 700 Bath Road, Cranford, TW5 9TW | The cheapest, stripped back |
The number on the address is the quickest way to tell them apart. This hotel is 272 Bath Road and the standard ibis is 112, both in Harlington and about three quarters of a mile apart. The ibis budget is 700 Bath Road at Cranford, 1.7 miles away towards Hounslow and genuinely the odd one out. Booking the wrong one is a real risk on a late arrival, because a taxi driver given "the ibis on Bath Road" has three plausible answers. Quote the number and the brand together. The standard ibis and the comparison between all three are on the ibis Heathrow page.
Where it is, and getting to the terminals
Accor puts the hotel 1.4 miles from Terminals 2 and 3. That is a short drive and not a walk: the Bath Road is a fast dual carriageway with the airport perimeter on one side, and there is no pedestrian route into the terminals worth attempting with luggage. Nobody at Heathrow outside the six walkway hotels walks to a terminal, and this is not one of them.
Three ways across, and the price gap between them is wide. The Hotel Hoppa is the branded shared shuttle that serves the Bath Road corridor, at £7.00 single and £13.00 return per adult, with a group ticket for up to four at £20.00 single. For a family that group ticket is the one to look at. The local Transport for London buses, routes 105 and 111, run the same road into the central bus station between Terminals 2 and 3 at £1.75 a journey with contactless, which makes them roughly a quarter of the Hoppa price for a solo traveller carrying one bag. A taxi is a few minutes and the most sensible option at 04:00 with a family and hold bags.
Terminal 5 is better served than most Bath Road hotels manage: the Hotel Hoppa H5C route runs from the stop outside direct to Terminal 5, so there is no inter-terminal leg if you take the Hoppa. The buses are the awkward option for T5, because the 105 and 111 reach the central bus station between Terminals 2 and 3 and you transfer from there. Terminal 4 needs a transfer either way, since the Hoppa's only stop on that side of the airport is a hotel rather than the terminal. The full comparison is on the Heathrow hotels overview.
Rooms, runway views and families
ibis Styles is Accor's design-led budget brand, which in practice means brighter, more colourful rooms than the plain standard ibis rather than more space or better fittings. Rooms have a flat-screen television, air conditioning and tea and coffee making, with en-suite bathrooms and walk-in showers. It is a functional airport hotel with a bit more personality, not a step up in class.
Two room types are worth knowing about before you book. The hotel leans into an aviation theme (the bar is themed around aviation history on Accor's own page), and guests and booking sites consistently report rooms with direct runway views, which is a real attraction if you like aircraft and a real problem if you sleep lightly. Accor does not list a runway-view room type, so treat it as something to request rather than something to book, and ask for the other side of the building if you want quiet. Family rooms take up to four, with a double bed and a sofa bed, and usually price better than two rooms for a family on an early departure.
The recurring note in guest reviews is a fair one for the price point: the location and the staff draw praise, the decor draws the word dated, and there is aircraft and road noise if you are on the wrong side. That is the Bath Road in general rather than this hotel in particular, and it is the trade you accept for being three minutes from the airport instead of forty.
Parking and breakfast: the two supplements
The headline room rate is not what you pay here, and both add-ons are worth pricing before you book.
Parking is £14.00 per night on site. Read that as a hotel rate for the nights you are in the room, not as park-and-fly. If you want to leave the car for a week while you are away, this is the wrong product: price a hotel-and-parking bundle or a pre-booked airport car park instead, both of which work out cheaper per day than a nightly hotel rate. There is no coach parking on site, which matters if you are travelling as a group. The bundle maths is on hotels with parking.
The hotel does have an on-site restaurant and bar, which is worth knowing on a late arrival: the restaurant serves snacks through the day and an a la carte menu in the evening, and the bar carries the aviation theme (Accor describes a lobby designed to emulate the wing of a plane). Reception is staffed 24 hours, and there is EV charging on site, which Accor asks you to request rather than book.
Breakfast is a £14.00 per person supplement for the hot English buffet, not included in the rate. For two people that is £28 on top of the night, which is enough to change which hotel wins on price. It is also worth checking your departure time before you buy it, because on an early flight you may be leaving before service starts, and the terminal has plenty of options once you are through security.
For two people that is £28 of breakfast plus £14 of parking, so £42 of extras before the room, and £68 if you skip the car and buy two Hotel Hoppa returns instead. None of that makes it a bad choice, but it does mean the cheapest headline rate on the Bath Road is often not the cheapest night.
Who it suits, honestly
Book it if you are flying from Terminal 2 or Terminal 3, you want a cheap bed close to the airport with slightly more character than a standard budget room, and you are driving in for one night. The 1.4 miles to T2 and T3 makes it one of the better-placed Bath Road hotels for those terminals, and the £14 parking is reasonable for a single night.
Look elsewhere if you are flying from Terminal 5, where the Sofitel's covered walkway or a Pod-connected hotel will beat it comfortably on convenience. Look elsewhere too if you are leaving the car for a week, because the nightly parking rate is the wrong shape for that, and if you want the cheapest possible bed, where the ibis budget undercuts it at the cost of being further out.
The honest summary is that this is a solid, unremarkable airport hotel with a good address for T2 and T3 and two supplements that need adding before you compare it with anything. Its real advantage over its two siblings is position, not product.