What lovely places you and TB are describing. Make sure you give them the rating they deserve on Trip Advisor or similar.

If I recall, to get to be a 4 star' establishment, the gues rooms have to at least have A/C. That doesn't mean it is any a decent state of repair, though. As others have said, many 2 and 3 star establishments are far better because they have lower maintenance/running costs because they have far less (supposedly) fancy extra facilities, but pay more attention to getting the basics right.

I've stayed (for work) in a couple of Travelodges and found them to be fine despite them being amongst the cheapest per night.

I'll be going on holiday to my 'normal' (not been for 3 years due to the Coof) holiday place in Cornwall in the summer, so it'll be interesting to see whether things have changed in terms of the cleanliness, state, etc of the lodges.

I was lucky with the price (they now vary considerably day-by-day, as per foreign holidays, cruise ship holidays and flights [they never used to - just one price as per the table in the booklet/website and a 5-20% discount for booking early]) - paying nearly half as much as it is costing at the moment and roughly equivalent to what I used to pay pre-pandemic. Prices have gone up a LOT in that time.

Unfortunately the old adage rings true

"There is no relation between what you pay and the value you receive" so basically that promotes the big chains like TL and PI where expectations are modest but often surprisingly easy to access and are good value. I used them for work for years and a few private places I found and found them great. But did get caught out sometimes and had to endure the odd night in a ' dog kennel' of a place. Always worth asking before your planned trip. Someone will nearly always have been there, done that.

Cheers Concrete

Well Well.

We managed to get away to an alleged 4* hotel last week on the Solent.

Reception gave us a standard room instead of the superior room we had booked, (you can't have a superior room with a dog!)... But I phoned before and was told I would be allocated one.

That over with, the room was impeccable, bathroom looked like it had just been finished, and the room, although what I would call compact, was fine.

Staff everywhere were helpful, was given 2 lots of drinks vouchers to apologize for the "error" and then a really nice bottle of wine with a thank you card.

The dog was fed treats by the bar staff, and swmbo was able to enjoy the gym and Spa.

Breakfast was entirely acceptable, and lots of walks along the beach.

I'll wake up shortly, must be dreaming.