“Hotel Hoppa- Unacceptable, and aggressively rude service.…
A group of us used Hotel Hoppa transport between Heathrow Terminal 5 and Terminal 5 Hilton Hotel, in early June 2022. The electronic scanning system on the bus only accepted three out of our five electronic tickets, which were all on my phone. The driver wanted to charge me a cash payment for the other two tickets! I refused to pay again, and offered to show him the order email proving I had paid for 5 tickets. At this point he screamed at me to go on, and stop wasting his time! This rude, aggressive, and unprovoked behaviour is, of course, totally unacceptable, and he refused to give me his name on my leaving the bus at the Hilton hotel. On my groups outward journey in late May, it had also proved impossible for the electronic scanning system on that bus to validate all five electronic tickets on my phone. However, the driver on that occasion, politely allowed my group to all enter the bus, on my showing him the order confirmation email. The return drivers aggressive and rude behaviour, coupled with the incompetent electronic ticket scanning equipment on Hoppa buses, caused both myself, and fellow travellers in my group unnecessary stress, friction, and upset. Consequently, none of us will be using the services of Hotel Hoppa again!”
“This service is simply not fit for purpose. My 12yr old daughter and I had pre paid for the Hoppa back to the Hilton Terminal 5 hotel. Having arrived at the designated bus stop we checked the time table and had missed the bus by 2mins. It was cold and we were both tired but the next bus was due in 30mins so we waited… and waited. Other people arrived and got on their bus with ours being a complete no show. By this point my daughter was near to tears and I didn’t know if it was just running late and to wait or order a taxi just to get us back to our car. Eventually the next bus did turn up. The driver couldn’t offer any explanation or even an apology. Not worth the cost and the knock on effect of adding so much time to the end of a long journey.”
“Absolutely dreadful service. Think twice before you book this service - we had an early flight and booked the tickets to allow us over 3 hrs. We waited and waited along with the growing queue of disgruntled travellers and then we had to try and get a taxi. Talk about raised stress levels and a further £20 for the taxi and that was the price when we shared it with 3 other people!!
This was late October 23 and I am continuing to chase their complaints department on the principle now and surprise, surprise they can’t even be bothered to respond - I do suspect they are overwhelmed with very angry travellers.”
“terrible 😞 do not go by timetable as we were an hour late due to waiting for a missing bus - when asked for told - only one bus today as other driver did. it turn up! not ideal when using to get to the airport from hotel!! don’t risk it. catch a cab or Uber. same price”
“Truly awful experience returning from a wonderful weekend in Germany with my son. Arrived at Heathrow T2 around 4.15pm, breezed through border control, picked up a coffee, headed out to the bus stop expecting a bus to arrive within 30 mins as advertised on the sign but nothing for nearly an hour. When the bus eventually turned up the driver was disinterested and rude, took a long convoluted route to my hotel and eventually arrived nearly 2 hours after landing. My hotel was about 2 miles from the terminal.
If you value your sanity and wallet, give this service a huge wide berth.”
“From Hilton terminal 3, both on outward and return journey, no buses arrived for over an hour. Taxi needed on both occasions. No number to call, no website. An absolute disgrace of a service.”
“H2B on Saturday Feb 11, 2023 851 pm bus from Heathrow terminal 3 to Staybridge suites took 1.5 hours to arrive. Upon arrival the driver said he was only dropping passengers and refused to pick us up. It’s odd how nobody was on the bus when he pulled away to do drop offs. The truth is he wanted to take either a toilet or smoke break and leave people hanging. When the driver came back a half hour later he was rude and argumentative and insisted he was on schedule for pickup times and I wasn’t present at the previous pickup time. Trust me I was there waiting. Use a city bus for less £ or a taxi which will cost more but not leave you hanging for 2 hours.”
“Got there with 5 min to spare before the next expected bud. 2 and a half hours later no bus so I walked halfway to Heathrow then managed to flag down a cab for the last bit. Hotel Hoppa deserves a zero star rating”
“Heathrow Hotel Hoppa is operated by Rotala not National Express. I had a bad experience similar to many other reviews. Rude, unhelpful driver more interested in his own mobile phone than helping customers. Told me service did not go to my hotel when another driver told me it did. Luggage blocking gangway. Altogether an unpleasant and unreliable service.”
“Bus on return from Heathrow to Renaissance hotel didn’t turn up within 70 mins. Freezing cold ended up getting a taxi. Didn’t cost much more so get a taxi instead. No contact number, timetables out of date and not representative of reality. Absolute rubbish. Still haven’t had a reason from Hoppa”
“This is the worst airport shuttle service I have ever taken. We waited 30 minutes past the scheduled pickup time and then spent another 30 minutes picking up people at other hotels -- and leaving many, many more behind — before passing our original pickup point and getting on the road to the airport. All told, our travel time was an hour from a hotel 1.1 miles from the airport. And since we're used to free airport shuttles in the States, the 6 pound per person charge was a shock. We had taken the alternative--a 1 pound 60 pence public bus -- to our hotel the night before, and that experience wasn't much better, though cheaper. Next time I would spring for a hotel on the airport grounds.”
“We used the Heathrow Hoppa from the Renaissance Hotel, the service was fine running from the hotel to the airport however the return journey was not good. There was no clear instructions of where to catch one of the buses from so we ended up walking up and down trying to decide which stop to wait at. One gentleman said he'd been waiting for over an hour and no bus had arrived. Others gave up and went for taxis.
We waited over half an hour for a bus to arrive, which should have been every 15 minutes and when it did arrive it was jammed full of people with luggage all over the place, which looked dangerous. We were told that no one could get on, however rather than drive away the driver seemed to want to have a debate with everyone stood in the queue! Unbelievable! We definitely WILL NOT be using these again. Don't waste your money and risk missing your flight or been stranded on your return! This was booked via Holiday Extras.”
“I booked this service as part of my hotel and parking package through Holiday Extras paying £6 a day. When I arrived at my hotel with over 3 1/2 hours to spare before my short haul flight to Brindisi Italy and after a two hour plus drive there was a rather long queue outside the hotel for the bus which unfortunately had come and gone whilst I had checked in my car. I was told not to worry, that bus was late but another was due in about 20 minutes so I waited, and waited. After 30 minutes there was still no bus so I went back into reception to ask and got told the buses were quite often late so waited another 10 minutes but still no bus. Panicking now that I would not arrive at Heathrow the recommended 3 hours before my flight I went back into the hotel reception and ordered a taxi at a cost of £22 which I waited another 10 minutes for, with still no sign of any Hoppa bus. I eventually arrived at Heathrow with only 2 ¼ hours to spare and due to the appalling wait at passport control and security due to staff shortages only made my flight check in by 10 minutes!
One week later, I flew back from Italy on an evening flight landing at Heathrow at 10.20pm. We arrived on time but it still took approximately an hour to get out of the airport. I, and several others at the same time made our way to the correct bus stop. We waited for a few minutes and one person looked at the timetable only to announce to us all that the last Hoppa bus from Terminal 5 left at 10.30pm! We were not happy! Many, including myself saying that 10.30 pm is NOT late enough. So, despite having already paid the £6 as part of my package deal I, and the others, found ourselves forking out to get a taxi, which for me was another £22!
When I later looked on the Hopper Bus website (which there is no link to on Holiday Extras) I found out that the reason I was waiting so long at the hotel for a bus is that they only actually run once an hour, and that incredibly, between 12.40 and.2.40 there are no buses at all! It seem absurd to me that that a bus service to one of the world’s busiest airports leaves a two hour gap at such a peak time for passengers! It also amazes me that Hoppa Bus claim on their website they have over 900 services a day and run from early till late and yet you can wait two hours for a bus and they top at 10.30pm. Since when was that late? Especially in London?! It never occurred to me they would only run once an hour or that they would stop so early at night. They also appear to be unpredictable when they are running as the bus I just missed was already running late!
Hoppa bus may offer a cheap option but personally I will NEVER use Hoppa bus again as it is not worth the stress for such an unreliable service! They still have £12 of my money for a service they did not provide me with.”
“First Joppa of the day was already full when it arrived at our hotel. No one allowed to board. 5:50am saw many families stuck and scrambling for taxis as next Hoppa is an hour later. Absolutely useless and paid in advance. Licence to print money and no guarantee of a seat. USE TAXIS AND AVOID HOPPA HEATHROW,”
“Do not use hotelhoppa. Bus was cancelled. Tried getting in touch (many times) no response whatsoever. Hotel Ibis heathrow blas'e about the matter. Never got reimbursed.”
“I had to grab an early flight from the misleadingly named Hilton T5 (which is not at Heathrow Terminal 5) so I booked a Hoppa ticket from the hotel reception. The bus did no turn up. The receptionist was surprised as she said that they normally get a notification when this happens; the next bus was on the way, she was told when she called Hoppa. The next bus failed to arrive also (I understood from my follow up claim with Hotel Hoppa that it did arrive. but late). Having waited around for over half an hour, I decided to take a taxi.
When I went to claim for the taxi fare, hotel Hoppa first asked for my receipt, but then came back saying that they never refunded taxi bills - which seemed like a bizarre change of heart. Overall a rather depressing experience.
I will also add that the bus are pretty horrible. I think hens and chickens are driven in nicer trucks yet for the price we're paying...
In conclusion: just avoid this service if you can - it's not the end of the world but it's just not worth it.”
“Warning to international travelers:
NEVER USE Hotel hoppa TRANSIT SERVICES!
Our experience with HotelHoppa was so bad, that others need to be aware... Our 10 min ride to Heathrow Airport took a turn, when the driver decided to take an unnecessarily long toilet break at one of the hotels on the route... Then, he couldn't figure out how to start the bus again. We sat for over 20 minutes watching him try to start it, over and over again, while an anti-theft alarm rang out. He ended up getting assistance from a random bus driver, who mad, because he was blocked our bus!
Our driver then proceeded to allow too many passengers onto the bus at the remaining stops (dangerously overcrowded) and had lengthy conversations with people at every stop. He seemed to be confused about every passenger that approached the bus. Our ride turned into a frantic panic that lasted an hour or more, while people were literally yelling obscenities at him from the back of the bus.
When we finally arrived, I told him that he made us miss our flight. He said it was not his fault because "the bus had too many buttons." He then told another passenger to "Shut up!" in front of us. I told him that I was going to report him, and he may lose his job over this... His reply was to laugh in my face and say "Hahaha! Just go ahead and try!"
In short, he was inept, rude, and we missed our flight and I ended up purchasing emergency/standby tickets to get back home, which cost me an additional £1500 of travel costs, as well as the loss of our original airfares of £700!!!
I tried to file a complaint with Hoppa Support, and their website won't allow me to do so, because we did not book with them, directly. Evidently, they only take complaints from people that do not use aggregate travel services... >:/
So, we are expected to file all complaints with the original booking company(s). Since this was through a second and third party (Green Motion, booked through Hotwire), I have left stern messages with all links in the chain.
I REPEAT: NEVER👏 USE👏 HOPPA👏... EVER!
I'd advise anyone to get a cab. It may cost you more, but you will get to your flight on time!
#hoppa #hotelhoppa #heathrow #travelwarning”
