The Upgrade: A Cautionary Tale of a Life Without Reservations

by Paul Carr

  Hotel rates in London have surprisingly little seasonal fluctuation. January and February are a tiny bit cheaper, and there tend to be fewer deals available at hotels popular with tourists, but, apart from that, you can pretty much stay for the same price at the height of summer as you can the rest of the year. That’s the good thing about staying in hotels in London.

  The less good thing about staying in hotels in London is that the average nightly rate is about a billion pounds and, outside of five-star places, the standards are generally appalling.

  In fact, even at five-star level, it’s a mixed bag. On my first night back in town, I decided to stay at a five-star hotel near Green Park, one of the most prestigious in the capital. When I opened the wardrobe, I discovered that someone had written, in huge pencil letters, inside the door: ‘this place is a shithole.’ It was a pretty accurate review: the room was tiny, the shower didn’t work and when I tried to call reception to complain, in the hope of getting an upgrade, I was foiled by the fact that the phone didn’t have a dial tone.

  There lies the problem with the hotel star-rating system in the UK: it’s complete bullshit. As with most countries, including the US, there is no legal obligation for hotels to be independently assessed. Yes, many of the star ratings you see on the side of British hotels have been awarded by the AA or VisitBritain (what used to be the British Tourist Authority) which are the only two really reliable ratings organisations in the country, especially since they recently synchronised their ratings criteria. But both of these organisations charge hotels to be rated and many, including huge chains like Hilton, simply choose not to sign up. Aside from legislation designed to prevent grossly misleading advertising, there is nothing to prevent a hotel from self-assessing: a homeless person could draw five stars on the side of his cardboard box and call it a five-star property. Indeed, many hotels will describe themselves as ‘four-star standard’ or ‘five-star standard’ despite being – as the wardrobe reviewer put it – ‘a shithole’. That’s just another reason why I tend to rely on Internet reviews from actual guests before making a booking.

  But on my second night back in London even a four-star standard shit hole would have been a step up. In the interests of research, I had decided to stay for a couple of nights at a £50-a-night hotel. I was curious to know what standard of room I’d get in London for my normal budget which, let’s not forget, had covered a spa suite in Vegas, a classic movie set in San Francisco, one and a half rooms in a villa in Spain and about five minutes in a 1978 Dodge Challenger.

  After paging through literally dozens of pages of hovels on Trip Advisor – sample review: ‘Dreadful hotel. I’d be embarrassed to offer the room to anyone!’ – I finally found the only place in London which seemed to fit my basic criteria. Namely: do the rooms look decent, does it have wifi and is it central? The only place answering all of these questions in the affirmative, despite not even pretending to have any stars, was the Easy Hotel in Victoria.

  There are actually five Easy Hotels in London,* and, while they’re not actually owned by the people behind low-cost European airline EasyJet, they do license the company’s branding and colour scheme. As a result, the rooms are decorated in the same vivid orange that makes EasyJet planes so easy to spot, even from 36,000 feet. Close up, that’s less of a selling point.

  The hotels also share EasyJet’s business model, which makes a lot of sense given that airline seats and hotel rooms are both highly perishable. Like EasyJet flights, Easy Hotel rooms are only sold online, at highly variable rates. When demand is high, the price goes up, when demand is low, it goes down.

  If you’re savvy enough to pay for your Easy Hotel room months in advance then some splendid deals can be had – as low as £20 for a double room. Given that the hotels are small – fewer than fifty rooms in each – and centrally located, they are sold out most nights, so if you leave it till the last minute you’ll pay through the nose – maybe even over £100 a night.

  With such low revenue per room (RevPAR† as it’s called by hotel managers) it’s hard for a budget hotel chain to afford to invest in decent standards of decoration and comfort. Easy Hotels solved this problem by making their rooms entirely functional, and totally standardised. Every room is exactly the same: a double bed, built into a wooden base fixed to the (laminate, wipe-clean) floor, and an entirely self-contained shower and toilet unit. Add in two coat hooks and a flatscreen TV on the wall and that’s it. Servicing an Easy Hotel room could be done with a single maid, a fresh set of bedding and a hose. The beds are perfectly comfortable; and, given that’s the only furniture in the room, there’s really nothing left to complain about. Unless, of course, you decide to invite a girl back.

  1001

  ‘Fucking hell,’ said Hannah.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ I said, ‘but I needed to see what it was like – it’s part of my experiment.’

  ‘And bringing me back here was part of the same experiment, was it? To test my tolerance of bright orange walls? Jesus Christ, Paul, I’m a designer; this is like torture.’

  ‘It could have been worse,’ I explained, ‘at least there’s a window.’ I pointed to the small sliver of glass right at the top of one of the walls. Through it we could just about make out people’s feet walking past on the street above.

  ‘Yes, well, I’d hope there was a window.’

  ‘I’m not kidding,’ I said, ‘the window was an optional extra. I had the choice: £35 for a standard room, £50 for “standard room with window”.’

  ‘Well, I have to admit, design aside, this place was a smart tactical move on your part – I mean, all there is to do here is go to bed or else watch crap British television.’

  ‘Actually …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If we want to watch crap British television we’ll have to pay five pounds at reception to rent the remote control.’

  1002

  The next day I met Robert. He too had decided to come back to London, partly because he didn’t want to miss my launch party – he was guest of honour, after all – but mainly because he was determined to prove it was possible to stay in London on the Kings of the Road Club budget.

  After my Easy Hotel experience, I’d basically resigned myself to the fact that I’d be paying through the nose for my short stay in the capital. At least it proved my point about the cost of living in London, and made me excited about the prospect of leaving again.

  Robert on the other hand seemed to be taking the whole experiment much more seriously than I was, which was frightening, but also slightly gratifying. Just about everyone who I’d told about my new nomadic life had been fascinated by the idea and many of those had expressed an interest in trying it out. Robert’s enthusiasm, and his success in making the budget work so well in Spain, proved that living on the road wasn’t something that only a person who grew up in hotels could do. It was actually a lifestyle choice that anyone could make, provided they were willing to throw themselves into it feet first.

  But while Robert was going overboard in trying to find a fun place to stay in London for £50 a night, I had seized on an opportunity to take a more relaxed approach to the rules – if only for a couple of days. My friend Anna and her boyfriend were going to be out of town for a couple of days to look after her parents’ dogs. Anna knew I was ‘doing that whole living in hotels thing’, but if I was interested in staying at their house in north London for forty-eight hours I’d be very welcome. Unless I thought that would be cheating.

  I’d accepted in a heartbeat.

  ‘That’s cheating,’ said Robert over lunch.

  ‘No it isn’t,’ I said.

  ‘Yes it is. Anyone can survive on an accommodation budget of £50 a day that way: just sleep on your friends’ sofa for a year. Job done. But if you can live with yourself …’

  ‘Yes, Robert, I can live with myself – which is why it’s not cheating. I’m not sleeping on their sofa while they’re still there. I’m sleeping in their proper bed, while they’re no
t. I’m just renting the place for a couple of days, for free. There is nothing in the nonexistent rules banning that.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Rob.

  ‘Anyway, you didn’t see the Easy Hotel. There’s just nowhere practical and central in London where you can stay for less than fifty quid a night.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Rob.

  ‘What do you mean ‘hmm’? Where are you staying?’

  ‘Pimlico, just down the road from the Easy Hotel, actually, but far enough away from Victoria so as not to actually – you know – be in Victoria. Thirty-five quid a night. And it’s full of beautiful women.’

  Bullshit. I used to live in Pimlico. It’s a nice part of London; one of the best, in fact. My rent was somewhere north of £2500 a month for a one-bedroom flat. There were some pretty cheap guesthouses on the outskirts, but nothing for £35 a night.

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ I said. ‘There’s no way you’ve found a hotel for £35 a night in Pimlico.’

  ‘And there’s your problem,’ Robert continued. ‘You’re obsessed with hotels. You don’t think laterally. What do we know about June and July?’

  ‘It’s summer. But that doesn’t matter in a London hotel … OK, so you’re not in a hotel.’

  ‘Correct. The key is to think who leaves town in summer, and so what’s going to lie empty. It’s like the villa.’

  It took me two courses and the best part of a bottle of wine before I got it.

  ‘Students. That’s who leaves London during the summer.’

  ‘Well done, mate – only took you half an hour. I’d figured it out before I’d even landed back from Spain. Student halls of residence all lie empty over the summer; the first years have all moved out at the end of May and the new influx doesn’t come until September. I made some calls and it turns out all the halls become hotels during the off-season. They’re not luxurious, but they’re much better than when we were at uni. They put in proper hotel bedding and shampoos and stuff; and there’s free wifi. Also, the only people left behind are foreign exchange students. My place in Pimlico is full of hot Italian girls.’

  ‘Thirty-five quid a night?’

  ‘Yep.’ A smug smile covered much of Robert’s face. ‘Beers are on me for the rest of the day. I can afford it.’

  1003

  Had circumstances been different the next morning, I too would have felt smug. I would have called Robert and I would have said something along the following lines.

  ‘Ha! Guess what, Robert, I’m even better at this game than you. I’ve found somewhere in London that’s central, not somebody’s house, and available for less than thirty-five quid a night. In fact, it’s totally free.’

  Circumstances being what they were the next morning, though, calling Robert wasn’t an option. For a start, I didn’t have my phone. It was in a different room, a few feet down the corridor in a little plastic bag with my name written on it in ballpoint pen. My shoes were in a bag too, as was my belt, my wallet and the keys to Anna’s house, where I’d finally made it after spending the rest of the afternoon and evening drinking with Rob.

  We’d finished our second bottle of wine, I’d met Anna to pick up her keys and then Rob and I had headed off to meet our friend Angus for a few more drinks. Those drinks had led us back to Angus’s house where we’d opened a couple of bottles of champagne. The night had ended with me deciding to take a cab to Adam Street, a members’ club – of which I wasn’t a member – just off the Strand. At some point I’d realised that Robert wasn’t with me and decided to go home. And that’s where things had gone terribly, terribly wrong.

  For all of my drinking, particularly during the last few months I’d actually lived in London, I’d never ceased to be surprised at my ability to get home while plastered. No matter what ridiculousness I’d indulged in the previous night I’d always, regular as clockwork, woken up in my own bed the next morning, like Bill Murray’s character in Groundhog Day.

  Even when alcohol had forced the shutdown of every other part of my brain, there was – apparently – a little fail-safe part at the back that contained my address and whatever instructions were required to make my legs carry me into a taxi and my hands pay the fare.

  Sure enough, I’d stumbled out of Adam Street and tumbled into a cab, £20 note in hand, and given the driver my address. Unfortunately, it seems I’d forgotten to update the address details at the back of my brain and so, after about twenty minutes, I realised that I’d sent the cab heading towards my old flat in East Dulwich. We were just passing the Elephant and Castle roundabout when my mistake became apparent.

  ‘Sorry, mate,’ I said to the driver, ‘I’ve just realised we’re going the wrong way. I’m actually staying in Crouch End.’

  The driver groaned, in the way that only a London cab driver would when he’s just learned that he’s going to have to do something that will earn him an additional fifty quid, but soon we were headed north. The only problem now was that the meter was already nudging towards £20: we’d have to stop at a cashpoint, which was sure to elicit another groan. No! Wait! I still had fifty quid in my travel wallet back at Anna’s, a precaution I’d taken in every city – one night’s accommodation budget in local currency – just in case I lost my actual wallet and needed to spend an extra night sorting it out. Pleased at my brilliant foresight, I celebrated by passing out.

  I recall waking up outside Anna’s house. ‘I’ll just be a minute, mate,’ I remember saying, as I fumbled for my keys and headed inside.

  I remember finding my travel wallet and being relieved that the £50 note was still there. I remember being distracted by my phone vibrating in my pocket. It was Hannah, calling me back after the half-dozen times I’d called her from the back of the cab. That’s really all I do remember.

  Piecing everything together the next morning, here’s what must have happened. I must have started talking to Hannah. From my slurring and my slipping in and out of consciousness, she would have quickly deduced that I was drunk and offered to call me back in the morning: these are facts that Hannah confirmed the next day. Then, still absolutely paralytic, I must have headed off to bed, completely forgetting that there was a taxi driver sitting outside Anna’s house, meter running, waiting for his money.

  1004

  A quick flashback. Two years earlier – almost to the day – I had a similar incident with a cab driver. I had spent the night out with, among other people, my ex-girlfriend, who also happened to be my business partner. Concerned that she’d be able to get home safely, I’d insisted that she take one of my two credit cards in order to pay for a taxi. I kept the second card to pay for my own journey home. Unfortunately, what I hadn’t realised was that the card I retained had expired the previous day, leading to an amusing impasse when the driver refused to let me go into my flat to get another method of payment, fearing that I was planning to run off. He instead drove me to a police station where, as a direct result of my getting lippy with the desk sergeant, I was arrested and held for a night in the cells. After that I vowed never to rely on a credit card to pay for a cab again, but, rather, to ensure that I always had at least twenty quid in cash in my pocket, no matter how drunk I got. Twenty pounds being more than enough money to get home, unless of course you send the cab driver in the wrong direction for twenty minutes.

  1005

  ‘Get up!’

  Being woken up with those words is always bad news. Being woken up having those words shouted at you by three policemen standing over your bed, one of whom has an extendable baton poised to hit you, is really, really bad news.

  As I would later discover, the cab driver had called 999 after waiting an hour for me to return with his money. The police had tried ringing the doorbell, but I hadn’t answered, by reason of being passed out. It’s at that point they’d racked their brains for a lawful solution and realised that there are only a small number of occasions when it’s justifiable to kick someone’s door down.

  The belief that a crime is in the process of being c
ommitted is one such occasion. That wouldn’t really wash as technically my ‘crime’ had been committed over an hour ago. Another occasion is if the police genuinely believe that a third party is in imminent danger. They had no reason to believe anyone but me was in the house, so that was a non-starter as well.

  Which just leaves the third time when kicking a door in without a warrant is justified: a genuine belief that someone inside was ill or seriously injured. Ding! The fact that I’d been very obviously drunk when I went into the house and was now not answering the door could only mean one thing: I had choked on my own vomit and died. There was nothing else for it; using one of those metal battering ram things you see on cop shows, the police had smashed the living shit out of Anna’s front door to ‘rescue’ me.

  You’d have thought that discovering me alive and well, but asleep, they’d have been delighted. Apologised for the door, even. ‘We’re just glad you’re OK.’ But no – by the time my eyes were open and I’d started to process where I was, they’d hauled me out of bed – mercifully still wearing my clothes – handcuffed me and thrown me into the back of their van.

  1006

  Welcome back to London, I thought, when I woke up for the third time in twelve hours, this time lying on a wooden bench inside a cell at Marylebone police station. I’d already been fingerprinted and had my DNA taken; they’d been thrilled to discover a match with my previous arrest record – and even more so when they found it was for exactly the same crime: making off without payment.