Premier Inn Manchester Airport (Heald Green)

Rooms at this Premier Inn feature a king-size bed and a comfortable chair (twin rooms have a double bed and a chaise longue/sofa bed), a writing desk, flat-screen television, tea and coffee making facilities and an en suite bathroom. All rooms have free Wi-Fi wireless internet access (up to 1GB per day).

The hotel features a Beefeater restaurant, which has a good full English breakfast and a heavily meat-centred menu for lunch and dinner. There is also a cluster of local shops and restaurants just a two-minute walk away.

Breakfast is an optional extra and you have the choice of either a buffet continental breakfast or a full English cooked breakfast where you have access to the continental buffet plus a hot meal cooked to order. A hot breakfast costs £11, which is good value considering the quality.

This is an older Premier Inn, so it’s not quite as nice as some of the chain’s newer hotels but it is still clean and well maintained, offering a great value accommodation option.

Although this hotel is located 3.2km (2 miles) from the airport terminals, it has better access to the airport when compared with the other two Premier Inn airport hotels even though those hotels are closer to the airport. What sets this airport hotel apart from the others is that it is located right next door to Heald Green railway station, which is only one stop, and a six-minute train ride, from Manchester Airport. You can also catch a tram to the airport (the tram stop is a 10-minute walk from the hotel) or walk to the airport in around 40 minutes.

While it is not as well located as those hotels immediately next to the airport terminals (the Clayton, the Crowne Plaza, the Hilton and the Radisson Blu) it is the best located of Manchester Airport’s cheaper hotels.

Premier Inn is the largest hotel chain in the United Kingdom and usually scores very high on customer surveys when compared to other UK hotel chains. It operates at the budget end of the market and provides a reasonably high standard of accommodation for the price, and is comparable to ibis and Travelodge hotels.