Hotel shame: Worst of the worst 12 years in a row

Imagine being named the worst hotel chain in Britain 12 years in a row.

That's what happened this week to Britannia Hotels.

Every year, consumer choice site Which? undertakes an audit of all of Britain’s major hotel providers.

It asks a panel of customer reviewers to rate each company on eight different criteria, ranging from cleanliness to quality of bathrooms to value for money, then adds in how likely people were to recommend the hotel to give each an overall score out of 100.

The best of the bunch? The Coaching Inn Group 81%; Hotel Indigo 79%, J D Wetherspoon Hotels 76%.

Britannia didn’t get more than two out of five stars in any category, achieving the loathed one-star rating for both cleanliness and bedrooms.

Overall, it had a 44% approval rating, making it the only company to have the majority of customers say they wouldn’t recommend it to a friend Cleanliness and reliability were the two most common complaints; Time Out London reported. 

One person claimed that they found chewing gum stuck in their carpet, and several people noted that their reservations were cancelled at the last minute.

Britannia Hotels is a British budget hotel group with 64 hotels across Great Britain. The company also owns Pontins Holiday Parks. A large cluster of the company's hotels are located in and around Manchester

You can find Which?’s study in full here. The serious message: Do your research before booking at any hotel you have not stayed in before.

Image: Britannia Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool 

British Airways ranked bottom of the class

It is the news no airline wants to hear: that it has been named worst in the world. 

I haven't flown British Airways for a very long time. Not since some uniformed haridan shouted "just wait!" at me when I was foolish enough to request a snack. 

And apparently things have not improved. 

British Airways has dropped to the bottom of consumer group Which?’s annual satisfaction survey for the first time, alongside the appalling Air Canada.

Which? asked nearly 8,000 UK travellers across more than 9,000 flights to rank airlines based on punctuality, customer service, seat comfort, food and value for money. 

It then merged those findings with delays and cancellation data from the Civil Aviation Authority to compile its final list.

So British Airways, which once called itself the ‘world’s favourite airline’ is hated by its own customers. 

The airline got an overall customer rating of 62% for long-haul flights. It only mustered up two out of five stars in several categories, including seat comfort, food and drink and value for money. 

But Which? says the problem isn’t necessarily that BA has got worse (it actually improved on its 2018 score of 50%), but that other airlines have got better.

Though BA got an even lower score of 57% in Which?’s short-haul ranking, it didn’t come dead last. It scored higher than Lufthansa, Wizz Air and Ryanair (which earned just one star for seat comfort and food and drink).

Here's the long-haul list, with Australia's Qantas ranking fourth: 

Singapore Airlines, Etihad Airways, Emirates, Qantas, Virgin Atlantic, Air France, Delta Airlines, KLM
United Airlines, Qatar Airways, Lufthansa, Turkish Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Tui Airways, Aer Lingus
American Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Air Canada/ British Airways. 

Rory Boland, editor of Which? Travel, said: “British Airways' poor performance in our survey shows how far it has fallen from the days when it was seen as setting the standards others should aspire to.

“There’s a clear disparity between airlines at the top and at the bottom of the rankings. The top performers show it is possible to give passengers good service at a time when delays, cancellations and terrible customer service have become almost the norm.

“Some airlines seem to think they can get away with treating their customers badly, knowing they are unlikely to face consequences in a sector with weak regulations.” 

British Airways said the research was "entirely at odds with comments from the hundreds of thousands of customers" who travel on their airline. Well they would, wouldn't they?

For short-haul airlines in Europe, Jet2 took first place for the fourth consecutive year.