Travelodge Heathrow: two motorway hotels, and one that is now an ibis

This is the first thing to settle, because the Travelodge name at Heathrow covers two live hotels and one that has changed hands. All three still appear in search results, and one of them will not take your booking.

Two other Travelodge hotels sit about as close without carrying the airport's name, and they are worth a look if the Heston pair are full or dear: London Feltham, which Travelodge's own search puts level with the westbound Heston hotel, and London Stockley Park Hayes a little beyond it. Neither is an airport hotel either, but neither is a motorway service area, so the surroundings are better.

The distinction that matters most is not the name but the kind of hotel. Both Heathrow-named Travelodge hotels are motorway services hotels, not airport hotels. They sit in the Moto service area on the M4, they are built for a driver breaking a journey, and the airport is an incidental 5 miles away. That is a different product from the Bath Road and perimeter hotels covered on the Heathrow hotels overview, which are built around the airport and have a shuttle stop outside the door. Read the rest of this page with that difference in mind, because it drives every other decision.

The free parking has conditions the booking page does not lead with. You must register your car registration at reception or the free entitlement does not apply, and the car park is run by Moto Services (Group Nexus) on behalf of Travelodge, which is the private-enforcement setup that generates parking charge notices when a registration is missed. Spaces are first come, first served, but if the front car park is full you may park anywhere in the wider services. Travelodge states plainly that long-term park-and-fly is not permitted at these hotels, so do not leave the car here while you fly.

Travelodge runs both sides of the same service area, and its own booking page carries a warning about it: two hotels, 500 yards apart, with names that differ by one word. Booking the wrong one is easy and the consequence is real, because each is reachable only from its own carriageway. Arrive on the wrong side and you rejoin the motorway, drive to the next junction and come back.

The westbound hotel takes traffic heading out of London. Travelodge's directions say to exit the M4 between junctions 2 and 3 onto the slip road for Heston Westbound Services, and it advises using the M4 route rather than the local roads in both directions. Its address carries a postcode, TW5 9NB, and the service area food is a short walk from the hotel. One thing its own page flags and the eastbound page does not: this hotel sits inside the London Ultra Low Emission Zone, so a non-compliant vehicle pays the daily ULEZ charge to park there overnight. On a page whose whole case rests on driving, that is worth checking against your car before you book.

The eastbound hotel takes traffic heading into London, at North Hyde Lane, TW5 9NA. Travelodge tells guests not to use satnav for this one and publishes no satnav postcode, asking them to follow the written directions instead, which is a fair warning given that a postcode drops you on the wrong side of a motorway. Its food position is the reverse of its neighbour: the service area choices are described as a short car journey away rather than a walk, but the hotel has a coffeeshop open 24 hours in a separate venue on site. For a late arrival with no wish to get back in the car, that is the more useful arrangement of the two.

Two things are the same at both and are worth knowing before you pick on price. Neither building has a lift, so the accessible rooms at each are on the ground floor. And both run family rooms that sleep four, so the choice between them does not turn on party size.

Here is the honest problem with both hotels, and it is the reason a cheap rate at Heston is not the bargain it looks. Neither hotel runs an airport shuttle, and neither is served by the Hotel Hoppa. The Hoppa network covers the airport corridor hotels on the Bath Road and the perimeter, and no Travelodge appears anywhere on its route list. There is no hotel bus, no partner shuttle, and nothing to fall back on at 04:00.

That leaves two ways to a terminal. Drive, which is the intended answer: it is about 5 miles by road, the M4 runs straight to the airport spur, and you then pay to park at the airport or drop off at the forecourt, where the drop-off charge applies. Or take a taxi, which for 5 miles is not painful but is a real cost to add to the room rate, twice if you are coming back. Price both before you compare the headline rate with a Bath Road hotel where the shuttle stops outside.

Public transport from a motorway service area is the weak option it sounds like. Heston services is not a place buses serve usefully for an airport run, and the nearest Underground station is a drive away rather than a walk. If you are arriving at Heathrow without a car and looking for a cheap bed, this is the wrong pair of hotels; the budget hotels on the corridor cost more per night and less per trip.

The rooms are standard current-generation Travelodge, and both hotels are on the chain's newer room design. Every double has a king size bed, and both hotels run family rooms with up to two pull-out beds, so either will sleep four. Both carry accessible rooms on the ground floor, both take pets in designated rooms, and both are staffed 24 hours, which matters more than usual when the flight is at dawn. Snacks and soft drinks are available by reception at any hour.

Parking is free at both, and that is genuinely unusual around Heathrow, where almost every hotel charges £15 to £40 a night for a space. Travelodge describes it as limited and first come first served at each hotel, so it is free rather than guaranteed. Read it as parking for the night you are in the room, not as park-and-fly: neither hotel sells a package that lets you leave the car while you fly, and leaving one in a motorway services car park for a fortnight is not the arrangement. For that, the hotel and parking bundles or a pre-booked Park & Ride space are the right products.

On food, neither hotel has a restaurant of its own in the way a Bath Road four-star does, and neither serves a sit-down breakfast. What they sell is Breakfast to Go at £6.95 a head, added to the booking or picked up from reception, which for a 05:00 departure is more use than a buffet that opens at 07:00. Beyond that you are eating at the service area, which is a walk from the westbound hotel and a short drive from the eastbound one.

If you are looking for the Travelodge London Heathrow Central on the Bath Road, it is not a booking you can make: Accor took the property over and it trades as the ibis budget London Heathrow Central at the same address, 700 Bath Road in Cranford, TW5 9TW. Travelodge's own hotel page for it now redirects to a general search of its Heathrow-area hotels, and the chain's Heathrow list returns the two Heston hotels and nothing on the Bath Road.

The building did not move and the position did not change, so if the reason you wanted it was the Bath Road address, the hotel is still there under the new name and the ibis budget Heathrow page covers it in full: the Cranford position, the transfer costs, and how it compares with the two other ibis hotels on the same road. It was the second former Travelodge at Heathrow to move to Accor's budget brand. What changed with the badge is the product rather than the location: the ibis budget has a bar, dining and a hot breakfast buffet, and it sells Park, Sleep and Fly packages for 4, 8 and 15 days, which is the park-and-fly option neither Heston hotel offers.

Book a Heston Travelodge if you are driving, you want the cheapest bed in the area, and the free car park is doing real work for you. It is a good motorway stop: easy on, easy off, staffed all night, food next to it. If you are breaking a long drive and happen to have a flight the next day, the maths is fine.

Look elsewhere if you are flying without a car, which is the common case and the one this pair serves worst. With no shuttle and no Hoppa, every trip to a terminal is a taxi fare, and two of those wipe out the saving against a corridor hotel. Look elsewhere too if you want to walk to check-in, where the four Terminal 4 walkway hotels are the only real answer, or if you want the cheapest bed that still has a shuttle stop, where the ibis budget and a Bath Road Premier Inn both qualify.

The summary: these are motorway hotels that happen to be near Heathrow, not Heathrow hotels. Judge them as motorway hotels and they are good value. Judge them as airport hotels and the missing shuttle is the whole story.