Hotel Indigo London - 1 Leicester Square by IHG — Hotel in London

DO NOT STAY at this hotel, they evict you from hotel room due to their own incompetence, with your belongings put into bin bags!!||||Never have I experienced such a violation of my personal private space as I have following a stay at the Hotel Indigo Leicester Square.||||There were so many things wrong with this stay, let me share the events, some of which should have been warnings to me not to stay before I even got to check-in.||||I have been an IHG rewards member for 21 years, never a complaint about any of the hotels I’ve stayed at, never needed to look at TripAdvisor for feedback on a hotel before staying that has all changed.||||29th September 2024 – I made 2 bookings with the hotel for myself and my husband to stay, 1st booking, was using the balance of my reward points, the 2nd booking was for 2 further nights, that I would be paying for, this was a pre-pay rate which I was aware would be taken before my stay.||||10th August 2025 – I received an email from the hotel advising that they tried to take payment but the transaction was declined by my credit card company, asking for me to contact the hotel to advise new card details. My credit card had expired from the time of booking 11 months ago, so I understand why the payment was declined.||||I phoned the hotel at 21:05 on Saturday 9th August, my call was answered by a member of call centre staff who transferred me to the hotel, that call lasted 10 minutes and 53 seconds before I was abruptly cut off. I didn’t have time to call back that day, so sent an email reply back to the hotel asking for them to contact me.||||No reply or call back the next day, and with the threat of my booking being cancelled I tried calling the hotel back again on the evening of Sunday 10th August, I’ve 6 calls attempted that night, trying various options on the menu to get through to the hotel, but again I got a nice lady from the call centre – she tried to put me through to the hotel but told me the lines were busy, then when I explained the situation she tried to speak to the hotel, she returned telling me the lines were dead. She offered to make the booking for me again, but as the email I received advised me not to make a new booking to avoid duplicate charges I declined her offer, saying I would email the hotel again asking them to call me.||||The hotel phoned me at 17:55 on 10th August, advised me that they couldn’t take payment over the phone, and they would send me a 3rd party form to complete to send back to them.||||Not only do they ask me to complete a form asking for all personal and credit card details, but also asking for photographs of both the front and back of my credit card, alarm bells started ringing when I read this request, never should anyone ask anyone for all these details.||||I emailed the hotel back saying I wasn’t comfortable with completing this, and as I was arriving 1 day earlier than the booking, that I would make payment on 22nd August.||||I then receive another email from the hotel advising they have amended my booking to take payment on arrival.||||As far as I was concerned all was now good with the booking.||||22nd August 2025 – I arrived at the hotel early evening, walk into reception, only person there was a young girl in casual clothes on the phone chatting to a guest about restaurant bookings, and sounded like she couldn’t help the guest, stood a few minutes before she spoke to me.||Explained we were checking in, she looked up my name and said staying for 1 night, I explained we had 2 bookings and were staying until Monday, and I needed to pay for the subsequent nights. She didn’t understand how to process my stay so called on mobile to the manager, let’s call him “Manager 1” to assist, he arrived and was quite abrupt with the young girl, he looked at her to explain the problem, and then I took over to explain the situation. He spoke to the young girl to explain how she should have processed the stay, and then told me she was day 2 on the job, I smiled and said we all have to learn.||He then took my new credit card, told me this card had expired also, it hadn’t, he typed the details into his laptop, not once was my card entered into the card reader for me to authorise the transaction. He took pre-authorisation for £10 for my stay, strange amount I thought, not once did he try to take the payment for the Saturday and Sunday nights. He explained that he would leave a note for the staff for the next morning to swap my booking over to ensure I kept the same room. He gave me 2 key cards, and off we went to our room.||On getting to our room 1 of the 2 key cards didn’t work, room is clean, functional, super air-conditioning, but very tiny room, only room for a bedside table on one side, other side of bed is tight to the curtains and window, nice bathroom, and there is a balcony but the door is locked. ||||On our way out for dinner we stop off at reception to speak to the young girl, advise her that 1 of the key cards isn’t working, “Manager 1” takes over to tell me the Wi-Fi password, I didn’t ask for the Wi-Fi password, I was looking for a new key card. He tries to take them both of me, but I advised the other one is working, he generates a new card. I ask if the balcony is locked for a reason, we are 7 floors up, he tells me it’s locked for security purposes and he as the manager is the only one with the key, he can go up and open it for us, I agree, we are going out, he as the manager can enter the room to unlock the door for us.||||23rd August 2025 - knock at door at 11:50, I answer it to a lady with a clipboard, she asks if I have a late check-out, I advise that I’m staying until Monday, she apologises and says that she hadn't been made aware and leaves.||We go out for the day returning around 4pm, we go back to our room but the key cards don’t work, we assume that our booking hasn’t been swapped over and our key cards have expired, we go back to reception, this time the same young girl now on day 3 on the job is there with another manager let’s call him “Manager 2”, I give him the keys, explain the situation, he can’t find me on the system, the young girl lifts a print out, shows it to him, he dismisses her, he tells me he can’t reinstate our cards until the other manager comes back in around 10 minutes or so. This is quite a heated discussion, dealing with someone who can’t find us on the system, despite my booking having been sorted out by “Manager 1” the previous day. He tells me he could go and open the door for us, but couldn’t give me new key cards. I tell him I don’t understand why he can’t activate the key cards, I then log in to my IHG account find my booking number, give this to him, he finds me on the system, then gives us updated key cards. I noticed the phone on the desk had 24 missed calls, so was my previous problem with trying to contact the hotel down to them just not answering calls.||||We get to our room and find no-one has been there to clear rubbish or give us new towels, a while later we get a knock at the door, it’s housekeeping asking if we need anything, as we were getting ready to go out for the evening, and the room has no floor space for 2 never mind 3 people, I ask for clean towels and for her to clear the rubbish. She empties 1 bin, gives us new towels but doesn’t take the wet ones away.||||Went out to a concert for the evening, returned to the hotel around 1:30am, the outside of the hotel is littered with rubbish, cigarette butts and various streams of liquid, you have to tip-toe around to enter the hotel, my husband mentions the mess to the man on reception, he dismisses him saying that housekeeping would clean it when they came on shift at 2am, really not a good impression of the hotel, and this general dirty appearance was a theme throughout our stay.||||24th August 2025 – after arriving back very late from the concert, we had a lazy morning, leaving for the day around 12:30 - 12:45, we returned back to the hotel around 18:45, pass reception, up to our room, our chat outside the room is I wonder if the room has been cleaned today, I open the door, yes the bed is made, but wait where are all our belongings, the room is totally empty, no clothes on the rails, no toiletries in the bathroom, no drinks in the fridge, no suitcases, nothing – what has happened where is everything, totally distraught we rush down to reception. My husband asks “Manager 1” to call the police our room has been broken into and everything has been stolen, he then starts to tell me he has been trying to call me all day and the phone number they have on the system is incorrect, because he couldn’t contact me (despite them calling me on the 10th August), he decided it was hotel policy to empty our belongings into black bin bags, yes bin bags, but he claimed he had folded all the clothes into those bin bags and they were in a storage room behind reception.||The issue was he hadn’t retained the credit card details from the booking, he as our 1st point of contact at the hotel had taken on Friday. The manager who was so important only he could open the balcony door, decided to empty our room because he quoted it was the hotel policy, rather than take a sensible approach to disable our keys so we couldn’t get back into our room and would have had to call back at reception, ||I told him the mobile number on my account was correct, he asked my husband to stand with him whilst he tried to phone me, the call didn’t go through, I stood with him and asked him to rekey the number from his screen, my phone rang, so had he keyed the wrong number all day, had we been evicted into bin bags because he didn’t do his job correctly on Friday, and hadn’t keyed the correct number today, and continued to redial the wrong number.||He advised us because he couldn’t contact me that he had cancelled my booking, and when I logged into my account I couldn’t see any trace of the booking, didn’t get any emails, nothing.||You can imagine these exchanges were not calm, I felt like I’d been burgled, I had expensive clothes hanging in the room that he had thrown into bin bags.||He took my husband into the back office to retrieve our belongings, we got 2 black bin bags, 1 containing dry clothes, make up bag, toiletries, a 2nd black bin bag containing contents of the shower, sponges, shampoo, conditioner, shower gels, toothpaste, tooth brushes, swimming in a pool of water, and then a 3rd white bin liner containing a box with the contents of our fridge, minus a few chocolate bars.||We had been due to go out, and the clothes we were to get changed into were in a heap in a black bin bag.||He suggested we could leave free of charge, suggesting we’d be lucky to get another booking, then offered to reinstate our booking and we could sort everything out the next morning at 10 when the other manager was in!!! ||We decide to go back to our room to calm down, when we got there I realised I can’t settle for the night, knowing that someone had been through all my belongings, treated us in such an appalling way, was downright rude, and was expecting me to go for round 2 the next morning, how could I enjoy the rest of my holiday, that has already been plagued with problems each day due to the hotel staff! ||My husband went back to reception, but passed “Manager 1” in the lift, he was on his way to my room with an iron and ironing board at my request for me to try to sort my clothes, I tell him we’ve decided to check-out and my husband has gone downstairs to discuss our bill for the previous night’s stay.||I tell him of the issues I had trying to pay the bill before we arrived and the bizarre and unnerving request for card details and photos before we got there – he continues to shout that he tried to phone me all day, but he clearly got the number wrong.||He leaves goes to reception to speak to my husband, agreement reached that we check-out with no bill to pay, my husband returns to the room, we booked into a nearby Marriott hotel, repacked our belongings and checked-out.||||We checked into the new hotel, and what a different experience, greeted at the door, asked how our travels had been, shown to lift, asked if someone could carry our bags, all those little things that make for a lovely hotel experience. ||||The Hotel Indigo has a lot to learn about how to treat guests.||||I couldn’t sleep on Sunday evening, still recounting the arguments with “Manager 1”, still seeing the clock at 3am, and waking thinking about it. This is not how I expect to be treated in any hotel, and especially not an IHG group hotel.||||Had this been my 1st experience in London it would be my last, so glad I wasn’t on my own, and I had my husband there for support. ||The way that young girl was treated at the desk by 2 different managers on 2 different days was shocking, if she is wise she will leave and look for a job at which she will get the respect she deserves from a management team.||||I’ve raised this as a complaint to IHG group, but all they can do is ask the hotel to call me, that hasn’t happened as yet, don’t expect it will, and based on all the other comments on here from the hotel, they will thank me for my feedback, and hope to welcome me back...

I have stayed at IHG hotels before and was very excited to stay here over Christmas/NYE for my friend's 30th Birthday. That excitement was quickly shattered. When we arrived, my friend's reservation was unable to be found. We wasted 20 minutes with the front desk until they miraculously found it (he had called a week earlier requesting early check in and all was well).

The room I checked into, as well as my friend's room, both had zero air moving. No matter what we did to change the temperature/fan, nothing was happening. He had no soap in his soap dispenser, and my sink clogged and flooded the bathroom the second I washed my face. After housekeeping came later that day, the room was actually dirtier, it was very impressive. There was dirt on the floor as well as gum that looked like someone had tracked in. My fridge was leaking water, and was actually warmer than the room itself.

Keep in mind these issues occurred within 24 hours of being in the room. We requested to be refunded the rest of the week as we were staying for 7 nights to be able to move to another hotel. After a 3 hour ordeal with the front desk and guest services at IHG, all they gave us was a drink voucher (that ended up just being for beer or wine?) and a new room.

No one moved an inch to help us move to our rooms. The rooms were definitely bigger, but they came with their own problems. The room was never vacuumed whatsoever, and no toilet paper was replaced. I had to call down multiple times to get anything. When they "cleaned" my room, they emptied the trash can into a larger black trash bag, and then left that trash bag in the room on the floor. If you are confused by this, don't worry, I am too! The room's floor/carpet was just disgusting, and the carpet didn't look like it had been cleaned ever. There was hair that was not mine on the carpet. However, I was too exhausted to fight anymore with a company that clearly does not care about their guests being happy with their stay after paying a lot of money. I saw someone with a vacuum in the elevator, but don't think it actually worked.

My friend also moved rooms, and a night into his second room, his ceiling started to leak in the middle of then night, and again had to move rooms for a third time. You almost have to laugh at this point.

The issues with my room don't stop there. On the last night of my stay, in the middle of the night, MY room also started to leak. Since I was leaving that morning, I gave up and didn't care, and there was a huge puddle in the room when I left. How is this hotel running?

To make matters worse, the front desk staff all seemed like they started the day before we arrived. No sense of urgency, no understanding of the hotel processes, and seemed to be bothered anytime you asked them for anything.

Please, I beg of you, if you are thinking of staying here, please stay at Page 8 or some other hotel that is near Soho and walking distance to a lot of the touristy things. However, don't stay here and let this hotel get away with all of these issues just because of their location. It is absolutely despicable what we dealt with. I'll be returning to London, but NEVER an IHG hotel. Don't worry - I have pictures to prove all these...

We checked in on the 11th for a few days as part of a birthday trip, we had two rooms and as my friend is an IHG platinum member, we stayed at this hotel rather than a Hilton like we normally do - never again!

The hotel rooms themselves were nice, our room 407, a Queen Bed Premium Leicester Square View room was a really good size and was nicely appointed. It could have been a bit cleaner but was overall nice.

When we arrived, the larger of the two lifts were out of order, this remained the case for the full 4 days we stayed here, the queues to use the lift were ridiculous and they took forever so we mostly used the stairs - the hallways and stairway was incredibly hot though, quite unbearable so thankfully we only had 4 floors to climb. When this was raised with the front desk, they shrugged it off with a "Yeah, it’s not been working for a few days", when asked if it was going to be fixed we were advised "A part has been ordered, nothing we can do is there?" - a fantastic attitude.

When we checked in, we asked for late checkout, a perk of the IHG status and were told to ask on the day of checkout. A few moments later, while waiting in the above mentioned lift queue, a group tried to check in with their reservation but were told that as it was late, they had given their rooms away! We should have known the shambles that would ensues then.. when it came around to the day of checkout and we asked for late checkout, we were told that it wasn’t possible as they were fully booked and that we should have requested this at check-in. When we complained that we did exactly that we were met with a shrug and told that it must have been someone else (which it was) and that there was nothing she could do.

At the point of checkout, the stairwell, which we had become accustomed with was covered in bags at the bottom at reception, the secure bag storage for the hotel is simply not large enough and so the hotel were just leaving them around reception and at the bottom of the stairs. We were assured that there were 4 people guarding them but this was not true and was incredibly risky given anyone could tamper with the bags but also, it was completely blocking the stairwell. Had there been a fire, peoples lives would have been at risk. When this was pointed out, the hotel staff did not care. I've followed my complaint up with London’s Fire Service and HSE who absolutely will care about fire exits not being clear. I wasn't able to get pictures of the stairwell but did of the reception.

My last complaint was the roof top bar - a great view, terrible service and they have the audacity to automatically add a 12.5% service charge! Ensure you check your receipts! We asked for water several times, it never arrived. We waited so long to be served, we went to the bar to order and they still added 12.5% on! The problem with this type of automatically added charge is that they expect that they can have awful service and don’t need to try but still line their pockets.

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