Today's Poll
Do you think pilots should be required to take a breathalyzer test before flying?
Free Newsletter

Interested in London?

We'll send you updates with the latest deals, reviews and articles for London each week.

London Forum: Has anyone booked a "Top Secret" hotel with lastminute?

Reading...
1,397 forum posts
 Has anyone booked a "Top Secret" hotel with lastminute? 

Hi,

I have been looking at hotels on lastminute and they have these "top secret" deals where you get a specified 4 or 5* hotel for a good rate except you don't know where you've booked until it's been confirmed?

I got a great rate for my dates for a "Deluxe, stylish hotel 5 minutes from Covent Garden - 4* - London".

Just wondered if anyone had any experience of these?

Thanks

Barbie

London
2,616 forum posts
1. Re: Has anyone booked a "Top Secret" hotel with lastminute?
Destination Expert   What's this?
for London

They are very good value and you get prices similar to Priceline bidding levels once you factor in taxes and admin fees of Priceline.

The great thing about Lastminute.com is that you should be able to work out from the description what hotel it is with a bit of detective work. If you can't, post the description up here and I'm sure a lot of the regulars will identify it for you.

Often the description exactly matches the hotels page description elsewhere on the lastminute site.

Virginia, USA
238 forum posts
2. Re: Has anyone booked a "Top Secret" hotel with lastminute?

I've booked "top secret hotels" twice. Both times I thought I had figured out the hotel before I booked. Both times, my guess was correct. Look at the descriptions and list of amenities of non-secret hotels in the general area and you will probably see something with a very similar description to the top-secret hotel that you are looking at. My top secret hotel bookings were a lot cheaper than if I had booked the same hotel knowing the name. I definitely thought it was a good deal.

UK
8,484 forum posts
3. Re: Has anyone booked a "Top Secret" hotel with lastminute?
Destination Expert   What's this?
for South Ayrshire

I've heard of some people punching the hotel's details into google and coming up with the hotel name - its not difficult apparently:-)

UK
12,767 forum posts
4. Re: Has anyone booked a "Top Secret" hotel with lastminute?

Once, and managed to work out the hotel from the description and picture before going :-)

It was a good deal.

Exeter...
104 forum posts
5. Re: Has anyone booked a "Top Secret" hotel with lastminute?

Same here, got the 5* Intercontinental Mayfair for some ridiculously low price. They used to have a map with the hotel description, but they seem to have got rid of that because it made it far too easy to work out which hotel it was.

Derby, UK
3,179 forum posts
6. Re: Has anyone booked a "Top Secret" hotel with lastminute?
Destination Expert   What's this?
for Lindos

Again got a great deal this way and knew the hotel before i agreed the booking. All i did was google the hotel description. It's also worth checking the reviews on lastminute, even with the top secret hotels you get the odd customer review saying "I enjoyed my stay at..........."

UK
12,767 forum posts
7. Re: Has anyone booked a "Top Secret" hotel with lastminute?

"got the 5* Intercontinental Mayfair"

Is that the one at the bottom of Park Lane , because thats the one we got.

Scotland
8,985 forum posts
8. Re: Has anyone booked a "Top Secret" hotel with lastminute?
Destination Expert   What's this?
for Edinburgh

The Lastminute website allows you to organise hotels in distance from a given point.

This means you can start with a Secret Hotel that is so far from point "A" then go to the list of normal hotels and find hotels that are also the same distance from point "A".

Then it's just a case of comparing descriptions to find one that is a VERY close match. Normally the difference in description is minor and involves removing the name of restaurants and other names

London
9,540 forum posts
9. Re: Has anyone booked a "Top Secret" hotel with lastminute?
Destination Expert   What's this?
for Isle of Arran

BUT..... has anyone almost booked a deal with Lastminute.com and then checked with the hotel what rate they will get?

Often, hotels will match any internet deal if you phone up and ask them. That way, they don't have to pay lastminute.

I'm a bit suspicious of lastminute since Ryanair announced that they (lastminute, expedia, etc) were regularly adding £10 to the fares which you can book at Ryanair's site. I stopped using them for flights when I found several cheaper flights by myself, despite their claims of "guaranteed lowest fares".

Kent
135 forum posts
10. Re: Has anyone booked a "Top Secret" hotel with lastminute?

I have done it 2 times with the last one only being last Friday. We stayed at The Thistle hotel by Tower Bridge. It had excellent views of the river & bridge and for 2 of us it was only £79 including breakfast.

I not sure if it is cheaper to book through the hotel, but the room we had was advertised on the hotelwebsite as £250 without breakfast.

If Im happy with the price that lastminute sells it at I am happy to book throught them to save my time trawling through various other sites.

As said above posters mentioned you can generally work out which hotel it is, but I just look at what facilities it has & its location - I quite like the surprise elemant.