Passengers trying to book a room near Heathrow Airport have been met with ‘blatant rip off’ pricing from major hotel brands as the amounts boom for one night only
Raging passengers stranded near Heathrow Airport are being faced with massive hotel prices as major brands take advantage of the situation.
After a fire at an electrical substation earlier today (March 21) shut Heathrow for 24 hours, an estimated 220,000 passengers who were set to travel through the UK’s busiest airport are now looking for alternative plans.
On X, one angry person pointed out some inflated prices of a room at the nearby Heathrow Bath Road Holiday Inn. At around 7am – just hours after the airport closure story broke – the going price of a Holiday Inn “standard” room for one night over March 21 was a whopping £541, up from £87 if booked the following day.
“Ah here we go, hotels around Heathrow jump on the rip off bandwagon!” wrote the exasperated X user. “Typical rip off Britain and they should hang their heads in shame.”
“Business has no empathy,” wrote another user, while someone else chimed: “Blatant rip off.”
The post also recorded the price of another nearby hotel brand – Staybridge Suites – which was totalled at £569 for the same time.
Intercontinental Hotel Group (IHG), the group that owns both Hotel Inn and Staybridge Suites, did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Star.
Another traveller named Louis has also accused nearby hotels of increasing its prices amid the disruption at Heathrow.
“They’ve actually doubled, if not, in some cases, tripled the prices of the rooms based on what’s going on, which is absolutely absurd. They’re profiting off of people’s misfortunes in this. I don’t know how that’s allowed,” Louis told the PA news agency.
At the time of publishing, the cost of a room at the Holiday Inn near Heathrow has been reduced to a slightly more reasonable (but still extortionate) £446 amount for this evening. The price of a room at Staybridge Suites is currently £408.
Maranda, 28, faced her travel dreams turning into a nightmare on her maiden trip overseas when her journey from Scotland to Dallas via Heathrow was suddenly scrapped. She and her sister Malarie, 22, arrived at Edinburgh Airport around 3:30 am only to be greeted by news of “problems” at Heathrow.
Despite this setback, after a long phone call with British Airways customer service, they secured a makeshift itinerary from Edinburgh to Dublin, then hopping over from Dublin to Chicago, before finally making their way to Dallas.
Maranda recalled: “It was stressful in the moment for sure. This is actually our first time travelling abroad, so to then have your flights cancelled and to get very little information other than “here’s their line, good luck,” was kind of frustrating.”