Royal Lancaster London

I truly appreciate how the front desk helped us by early checking us in although that was prior to the normal check in time

Always a lovely stay at this hotel and the staff are very friendly

Be careful of being unknowingly charged with a ‘discussionary charge of tips’ (supposed to be A Conpulsory charge of tips, don’t be fool by the name, it is non-discussionary) AFTER CHECKING OUT of the hotel. I was being charged with a discussionary charge of the tips on the credit card automatically without being informed upfront after I checked out and left the hotel. When I checked out, i was informed at the counter that they were closing their account for previous day and they would help me check out my room and email me the invoice of my stay after they finished closing account. As a result, I innocently left the hotel since I thought a 5-star hotel would not have anything gone wrong. However, I was totally wrong until I saw extra charges on my credit card while not receiving any so called invoice from the hotel at all. I then reached out to Trip.com to request for the invoice that they have promised to send to me and it was then I was informed that the extra charges were from a discussionary charge of tips. I wasn’t happy about the way this was done hence I requested for a refund for this since it clearly stated this is a DISCUSSIONARY fee, not a compulsory fee. However, I was informed that this is a Non-refundable fee and my request was denied. Out of so many hotels I have stayed, it is unbelievable that in a 5-Star hotel, I was forced to pay something that wasn’t even being informed upfront. In addition, with the fee name suggested, it is a discussionary charge of tips NOT a compulsory charge of tips, the hotel has forced the customers to pay it as COMPULSORY CHARGE OF TIPS. In addition, the hotel services were very inefficient and lot of rooms for improve. We ordered for an in-room meal and we were told that it would take about half an hour to deliver. Hence we waited, and until an hour later, there was no update on our meal and we had to make a call again to check for the progress of our meal. It was then we knew there was a delay in the meal. By the time we done with our meal, we made the call again to request for someone to collect the plates, we literally waited for more than an hour and had to call twice before someone came to pick up the plates. This shouldn’t have been the service received in a 5-star hotel and the worst of all, the hotel should have more transparency in their charges and should have informed the customers on the charges upfront before the actual charging. When we signed for the amount paid for the meal, there were no statement on the discussionary charge of tips at all, and we didn’t expect there would be as we were not even informed. It is not that we are unwilling to give the tips and we did give the tips during the stay. However, it made us very uncomfortable that we weren’t informed anything upfront and it was charged to my credit card AFTER we CHECKED OUT of THE HOTEL. It made us feeling very unsafe to provide the credit card to the hotel as they can charge whatever charges they want after checking out the hotel. In addition, it is a discussionary charge, isn’t it should be discussed before I was being charged? If not it should be called a a compulsory charge of tips.