Lastminute.com Review

Overall Rating

Easy to use site
Decent value mini-break

Disappointing accomodation
Poor customer service

My requirement from www.lastminute.com was a cheapish 2 day break to Paris, travel by Eurostar, and a comfortable hotel quite close to Gare du Nord.

In spite of snowfall threatening to spoil the trip and stop the trains from running, Lastminute.com came up trumps. £205 for the 2 of us to travel and a 2 night stay in a 3 star hotel a mere 10 mins walk from the station.

Here is an overview of the pros and cons of our trip. Before reading on, I am usually pretty unconcerned by the qaulity of a hotel and just need a clean and comfortable bed, warm room and a decent shower so I wasn't expecting anything more than this:

Pros
- site was easy to use and navigate. I probably could have got a cheaper deal somewhere else but I had limited research time and they layout made it easy to understand the timings, location and features of the break
- Confirmation email, easy to read, understand and print out
- Eurostar was punctual (a slight delay due to speed restrictions on the snowy rails in France), clean and more preferable to air travel, transfers etc
- Hotel was pretty much as described with some notable exceptions (see below)

Cons
- The cheapest time to leave Waterloo was 5.30am. Fine except for the continual loud announcements on the tannoy when we were trying to catch up on lost sleep!! grr!
- The hotel was slightly disappointing (how are these hotels graded and how can something have 3 stars when tiles are falling off bathrooms, bed matresses are so old that you nearly touch the floor and 'satellite TV' equals 7 channels on a broken set?)
- I was worried the night before our departure that that the snow would lead to train cancellations the following morning. There were no phone contact details on my confirmation email from Lastminute.com and Eurostar closed their phone info lines at 5pm 'due to adverse weather conditions' (!!!!???!!!). In desperation, I visted the Lastminute.com desk at Euston station to be greeted by a cold and miserable woman who was superbly unhelpful. She said that she couldn't check whether the trains would be cancelled and that she thought that if they were, that Eurostar would contact me directly. She wasn't very convincing, and fortunately the trains were running the following morning. Nil points for customer service (note to Lastminute.com, please give your desk staff some nice warm coats and customer service training!!)

In spite of the cons we had a great time, but would be less trusting of Lastminute.com's hotel information next time.