The Boltons Hotel

The Hotel double charged my credit card in July for an October stay. After much effort, I was able to obtain a refund for one charge. But now the hotel will not hold our reservation or acknowledge our second, processed payment. I am disputing the charge as fraud through my credit card company, and pursuing a formal complaint through the hotel management and the Best Western parent company. DO NOT TRY TO STAY AT THIS HOTEL!

What a disappointment! I booked 6 nights at The Best Western Boltons on Hotels.com. I chose to book it through Hotels.com because this stay would mean I would receive a free night stay on my next hotels.com booking.
I must have poured over the hotel choices in London for several weeks and countless hours. My biggest concern was bed size. It was my first time in London, but nowhere near my first time abroad. 32 countries and counting. I quickly discovered that the standard in London was 1 double bed. This gave me pause because my husband is a rather large fellow and I am currently pregnant so I too am larger than normal. We've never slept in a double bed before and since we were staying 6 nights I wanted to be comfortable.
Sadly, hotels.com did not have a filter to search for rooms with king and queen beds, so again I spent hours "saving" and "favoriting" hotels that listed a queen or king bed instead of a double.
I had it narrowed down to about 5 hotels and I chose this one because it was the least expensive option for a "King Executive Room." Perhaps the fact that it was less expensive should have tipped me off that something was amiss, but it was not extravagantly cheaper. It was at the Earl's Court tube stop instead of the Gloucester Rd or South Kensington stop so it was a little farther out which would make it less expensive. Finally, the other hotels I looked at were slightly better names like Doubletree so the price made sense.
We arrived Sunday at 9am. We were able to fill out paperwork and drop off our luggage. We were told our room would be ready at 2. When we arrived at 2 we got our keys and went up to the room and I was horrified.
I cam back downstairs and said there must be a mistake. I reserved an executive king. This room is the size of a closet with a double bed. Nope, this is the only bed size they have I was told. The woman at reception had long brown/blonde ombre hair. I was clearly upset. I asked if anything can be done. I was told I couldn't leave because my reservation was prepaid for the week. I could pay $160 more for 2 twins if I preferred, but those were my options. I also received a snarky comment about "Welcome to London, we don't have American size king beds. That is a king bed here." This is what really sent me over the edge. If this is a king bed here then what were the queens and doubles that other hotels had? Also, I am upset and you are in customer service. The proper thing to do is to try and figure out how you can accommodate me, not make a snide comment about my cultural expectations. The nice thing to do would be to offer me a free upgrade to the two twins, or at least make a gesture of offering me a free breakfast. Anything, any gesture, would have been appreciated.
I returned to the room where I spend an hour on the phone with hotels.com who at first acted like they would help me, only to tell me that they spoke with the hotel and indeed I was in a king executive room. Hotels.com gave me an even nastier, "London kings are not the same as American kings." When I asked the agent then what is a London queen and a London double she didn't have an answer I would also like to point out that Hotels.com is an American website and should know what Americans expect with king, queen, double, etc. Needless to say I won't be using hotels.com to book international ever again, and may not use them at all in the future.
So we reluctantly stayed in our closet of a room for the week and things didn't get much better. My husband complained that the bed hurt his back. I nearly fell out of the tiny bed twice. The shower was a claustrophobic nightmare, and the toilet never seem to flush properly all week. I told the ombre haired lady at the front desk one day before we went out but she was the one who all but called me a stupid American so I am not surprised that it was never fixed/addressed. The room was also crazy loud. Our street seemed pretty quiet, but it wasn't. You could hear everything through those windows. It was Times Square loud.
The only positives I can say is the location is super close to Earl's Court tube which although at the End of Zone 1 is pretty convenient since it is on both the district line and Piccadilly line. Also, the room did have a tea kettle, hair dryer, adapter, and even a free cell phone you could use. The hotel did have a lift, but it barely held 2 people or 1 person and 1 suitcase.
Overall, I was terribly unsatisfied with my stay and the fact that I made my displeasure known and not even the smallest gesture was made to assuage my disappointment or fix our malfunctioning toilet just really irritated me. Finally, as we came in last night and checked out this morning there were other guests complaining about the size of the room and the loudness of the room so clearly we are not the only ones displeased and this hotel just doesn't care.

My hubby and I stayed here two nights. It was clean and well arranged to accommodate the typical needs of a hotel stay. They were very efficient in the living space.
However, you could only get into the full sized bed from one side or the end. It's a challenge if there person sleeping by the wall needs to get up in the night to use the loo. Also, if you are a plump person then forget getting into the shower. Both my husband and I had to shimmy our way into the shower in order to fit through the glass doors. We were also on the ground floor with street facing windows, which was fine, we just needed to keep our curtains closed when dressing.
Other than that, the breakfast was good and the service was fine. I'd recommend it based on price, location, and cleanliness.

Quite possibly the worst hotel experience I have ever encountered. I booked the hotel via Priceline after indicating a 4-star preference in Kensington. I was initially disappointed because the location is not exactly Kensington (and also due to some of the negative reviews I uncovered) but decided to give it a try due to a nonrefundable policy. After my first day, I could NO longer tolerate the facility. There were countless negative aspects of the hotel, the most notable include:
- mold growth in bathroom (sink and tub) and around the windows
- soaking wet carpet that was un-explanable by house keeping that did not dry out over the course of our stay
- multiple stains on carpets, walls, drapes, bedding, etc
- halls littered with cleaning supplies and trash
- leftover rubbish (from previous occupant) when arrived in room
This hotel was so horrid that I could not stay past my initial two nights even though the hotel REFUSED to offer a refund for my remaining four nights. I would rather pay the extra 1,500 cost of a new hotel to avoid subjecting myself and wife to this hotel for the duration of my stay.

TO ALL CONSIDERING THE BEST WESTERN BOLTONS...DO NOT STAY HERE. Possibly the worst experience and hotel I have encountered over years and years of traveling.

Terrible place, unpleasant staff and management who just state everything is subjective when you complain.

This place is listed as 4* hotel, it is not a Hotel, it is a glorified B&B, as they only offer meals (apart from breakfast) delivered to your room, so you are staying in a 4* hotel and eating your dinner of your knee, on top of bed in a small depressing room.

Also the hotel is located on a residential street and when we arrived there was a 'domestic' going on across the street between a couple with swearing, shouting and screaming, eventually the police arrived to the scene!! Not really an idyllic start to the holiday, whilst this was not the fault of the hotel it is an important factor to consider if going there!

Save your money and go somewhere else, as to be honest it is not worth the money.

I arrived, no pleasantry by receptionist,shown room 208, which was like a prison cell, 2 small windows high up on wall, moved then 211, which was only slightly better, the showers are so small you have to move your body to enable to wash yourself. We asked if there were any bigger rooms available we were told no, they were basically all the same, so we did not stay. The next night i spoke to another receptionist who advised me there were executive rooms available form the next day which we could have had, but obviously the previous receptionist didnt want the hassle of dealing with this and after speaking with the hotel management i can understand why? Guest welfare / comfort is not important.
THIS IS A HOTEL WHERE THE GUEST IS NEVER RIGHT!

When i complained and demanded a refund as i believe it did not meet the standards of a 4* hotel i was told that everyone's standards of a 4* hotel is subjective, i highlighted i googled definition of 4* hotel which describes it as , luxury, sumptuous a higher level of comfort. Again i was advised by the hotel Director this was subjective.

I was going to cancel my room was told they had a 48 hour cancellation policy, so i advised them i would just keep the room, returned later only to find the room had been let, hotel management state they didn't let room but other staff members state they did. hotel directors states they let types of room, not specific rooms?? Which is ludicrous.

I have worked ion the hospitality industry for years and developed hotel, etc and at the end of the day, the hotel responds to criticism about the room size on tripadvisor as due to it being a refurbished house. The owners could have made less rooms and increased room size instead, but they choose profit over quality and comfort.

This is not a hotel that cares for the guest, they are purely all about profit.

If you are looking for a good hotel, try the Premier Inn round the corner, the rooms are bigger, the bathrooms are bigger and most of the time they are priced the same as same, this is what we did and you could not compare the two, the minute we walked through the hotel door, we were warmly greeted, we had a chance to preview the rooms before we purchased

I stayed three nights at the The Boltons in November 2010. The hotel is located very close to Earl's Court subway station. The location is good with easy connections to the more central parts of London as well as easy access to Heathrow by subway.

The check-in was smooth and efficient but the lobby was tiny so I wonder what would happen when it is busy. Anyway I received good service on all occasions. I was promptly given my room as well as Internet access codes for the full three days.

The room was on the second floor at the end of a corridor. The view was nothing special but did not matter to me. It was facing the back and it was a quiet location which was more important to me.

The room was fairly modern with most things I would expect. There was a fairly comfortable bed (not excellent but good enough), flat screen TV, a/c, desk, wireless (and wired) Internet access, safe and water kettle (coffee and tea also provided).

The room was however tiny. The door to the bathroom would open into the chair by the desk and at the end of the bed it was barely enough room to stand. Still it was impressive that they managed to put everything into a room and while there was not much space it was still ok. I would of course have preferred more space but at the price paid this was still good.

Never had time to try the breakfast so cannot comment on that. Everything except for the size of the room was to my liking so can recommend it as a good place to stay if you wish to stay around Earl's Court.

We stayed at The Boltons during our anniversary trip to the UK last year and were very happy with our accommodations. Though small, the rooms are modern and very nicely appointed with a flat screen TV, a roomy closet and a good-sized bathroom. Breakfast was included in our package and it was very good.

The location was terrific -- near the Earls Court tube station and in a neighborhood with lots of charming restaurants, a great pub (The Blackbird), a pharmacy, grocery store and shops. I had the misfortune of breaking my foot while sightseeing and the staff couldn't have been more helpful. They directed us to the nearest hospital, called cabs, faxed info to our travel insurance company, and generally tried to assist us in every way possible. We've already decided to stay there again on our next trip to London, hopefully next year.

Our room was smaller than a box. Literally if one person stood there another couldn't pass by. The only thing working for this was the location since its steps away from the Metro. Otherwise for the price of the rooms, this was not worth it. Seemed more like a low quality motel than a hotel. I would not recommend staying here at all.

I am traveling for work with my 2 children and was denied accommodations based on my reservation only supposedly accommodating 2 people, although I booked for 1 adult 2 children. The hotel could not accommodate me when I requested a larger room and quickly told me there were too many people for 1 room. Serena, who claimed to be the manager refused to give me my money back after I refused to allow her to book me a second room for my 11 and 14 year old daughters. I was told by Priceline that the hotel was like Hyatt and was 4 star when I booked, unfortunately, this was untrue as my hotel was in fact a Best Western, which, is not as nice as a Holiday Inn and definitely not a Marriott or Hyatt. The Best Western Bolton actually told me that they could not accommodate 3 only 2, so 1 person would have to leave at one point! I requested a refund under the circumstances and they refused to give me my money back. I had to rebook us at another hotel and I booked for 3, but of course Priceline changed this again, but the hotel was more than willing to accommodate us as it was REALLY a 4+ star hotel. Best Western is an economy brand name and more like 2or 3 star, not 4. I would like a full refund for my reservation and I think Priceline should at least make sure their star ratings are accurate. The women at the front desk were very unprofessionally, I could have never imagined being told to pay for a separate room for my children to stay in alone, completely absurd! They did nothing to resolve this manner in a professional way that would have accommodated my children and myself and the fact that after they denied us accommodation to try and keep my money is the ultimate insult. I travel often for work and being my children along when possible and have never encountered such horrible service!

Our stay was very pleasant. The hotel was a typical London building and I'm guessing it only has about 30 rooms.. Very cozy and clean! The staff was very pleasant