Shaftesbury Hotel Booking App Makes Life a Lot Easier

If you are planning for a holiday stay in London or are looking to book rooms for your corporate staff at an affordable but luxurious hotel, then the Shaftesbury group of hotels is what you should be looking for. With their branches out there in every main location of London, be it the Heathrow, the Paddington, the Piccadilly, the Hyde Park or others, Shaftesbury has something to offer for every client to suit their needs and budget. With their Shaftesbury Hotel booking app, they have made life a lot easier for their clients when it comes to booking online.

Shaftesbury is a free hotel booking app for a London group of hotels and it has a very smooth, friendly and easy to use, interface that any novice can use to book rooms at one of their hotels online. Users can also keep track of their bookings and make any changes to bookings where possible. If you are interested in having a look at the list of hotels that come under the group, please see below.

• Park Grand, Paddington Court London
• The Metropolis, London Hyde Park
• The Shaftesbury Premier, London Paddington
• Park Grand, London Kensington
• London Premier, Kensington
• Grand Royale, London Hyde Park
• Park Grand, London Hyde Park
• Shaftesbury Hyde Park International
• Park Grand, London Paddington
• Park Grand, London Heathrow
• Park Grand, London Lancaster Gate
• Paddington Court Suites
• Shaftesbury Suites, London Marble Arch
• Paddington Court Executive Rooms
• The Piccadilly London West End

Setting up the app is pretty straight forward. You just need to download it and open and it comes up with a slideshow of random interior pictures of all their group of hotels. The local time and temperature are displayed on the screen. Users can either register and use the app or just browse through the app, but a sign up will be required to do their bookings and to keep track of the bookings.

The main screen of the app comes up with options to input Check in and Check out dates,

number of rooms required, how many adults and children with the default option chosen for all Shaftesbury properties. You can search rooms in all the hotels listed above or if you are looking for a specific hotel, then you can choose that from the drop down list and then search for rooms in there.

When all the above details are input, tapping the Book Now button on the app comes up with a list of all hotels in the Shaftesbury group that have rooms available for the dates chosen. The list shows Starting from price so users can look for cheaper affordable bookings.

The info icon on top right i gives the user the option to choose between hotels list and gallery list. Opening the gallery list takes you to a page that has a separate gallery for each hotel. Opening the individual gallery opens pictures for that particular hotel. Tapping the info icon again takes you to the main page with list of rooms.

Opening a particular hotel from the list takes you to the types of rooms available in that hotel, along with information on the number of rooms of each type available, maximum occupancy for each room and price per night for each room type. This page has hotel info button that takes you to a page with a slideshow of hotel pictures, a general overview of the hotel, room amenities, hotel facilities, nearby attractions with address, booking care charter that has booking security details and information on the TV channels in the room.

On this page, you can edit dates if required. The info i icon next to each package gives you quick info on package details. Each package has different types of rooms. The sort icon funnel shaped on top right can be used to sort the display of room list by price low to high or high to low.

Clicking on a particular room type takes you to a page with slideshow of room pictures, overview of the room, room amenities specific to that room, hotel facilities when you book that room type, nearby attractions, booking care charter and TV channels.

When viewing the room list, it shows the price, rating for the rooms and an option to call directly from the app using the phone icon that will connect you directly to the hotel through your phone providers network.

Once you are happy with a package or a particular room, you can continue to the booking process. Clicking on Book now, comes up with options to personalise your stay, for example add a bottle of wine, champagne, flowers in room, chocolates in room or a celebration cake. You can choose to skip or add enhancements, and after this step you will be taken to My stay summary where you can check your booking details to make sure they are correct.

Clicking on Confirm stay takes you to a page where you enter personal details like name, email, phone, address, etc. The next page should take you to where you enter your payment details.

The menu button is located on the top left of the screen. Tapping on it takes you to the screen where you see the options below.

Sign in | Register

View your bookings You can view any bookings that you have made

Rooms and suites Shows a list of available types of rooms

Dinning and bars To check to see restaurant and bars in each hotel

Corporates For making bookings for corporate clients

Offers Comes up with any offers going on in their group of hotels

Packages Shows all the hotel packages

Collections Brings up the list of different stay collections like elite, executive, classic, suites, smart

Events Shows conference halls and private functions facilities and choosing one of these, open a form to fill in details

Contact us Takes you to a page where list of hotels with address, phone, fax and rating are displayed

As a hotel booking app, I think flashing up the best offers on the main screen will help attract more clients and to help them click on that offer and view it quickly, rather than get into the menu to search for the available offers. iOS version of Shaftesbury Hotel Booking app is also available here.

I found the app to be very well made and user friendly with nothing missing.

Rating: 9/ 10

Price: Free