Taj 51 Buckingham Gate, Suites and Residences in London

Used to love the Taj chain for its customer service, but this will be sadly our last stay. Every time we have visited London, which has been 5-6 times over the past 12-14 months, this has been our hotel of choice.
I booked the room about 2 weeks ago and wanted to change the stay date due to family matters, but they declined under the cancellation policy.
I decided to gift the stay to another family member, who pointed out that we had been overcharged significantly. The price for 1 night at the hotel had gone down from £517.50 to £360. I requested that they match the price, as it not only seems like bad practice but also a lack of care for a regular returning customer.
Once again, they refused but said they are happy to change the stay date now.
Over the past 12-14 months, the hotel has been undergoing constant renovations, which meant that every time we visited, the service did not meet the high standards for which they charged, but as an understanding customer, we never complained.
This treatment has left us with an overwhelmingly sour aftertaste of the TAJ chain, which I don't think we will ever visit again.

I stayed at Taj Buckingham London for five days, and unfortunately, it was one of the worst luxury hotel experiences I’ve ever had. For a property charging nearly £1,000 per night, the operational gaps and service failures were completely unacceptable.

The issues started the moment I landed. The hotel failed to properly coordinate with their third-party driver for my airport pickup, leaving me with the driver confused with no clear communication. Upon arrival at the hotel, things got even more frustrating. Despite paying everything in advance, I was made to wait 30 minutes in the lobby because they needed to “double check” with their finance team if my payment had been received. After a long flight, this kind of inefficiency felt ridiculous.

I booked a 1-Bedroom Suite with a living room, expecting a clean and comfortable space. Instead, the couch had a strong, unpleasant odor, and the bed sheets and pillowcases smelled like they hadn’t been laundered properly. For a luxury property, this level of housekeeping is simply unacceptable.

The next morning, I asked the breakfast staff if I could have breakfast in my room the following day. They happily agreed and never mentioned any additional charges. But when the breakfast arrived, I was suddenly billed an extra £100. Why? I already paid for breakfast as part of my room package. The lack of transparency felt misleading and extremely unprofessional.

But the most shocking and honestly traumatizing part of the stay happened at night. For three consecutive evenings, hotel staff — specifically male and female Indian staff — knocked on our door between 8–10 PM. Twice, they entered our room without permission, offering massage services. I have never in my life experienced hotel staff walking into a guest room uninvited. Having strangers inside our room late at night, while we were already sleeping, was beyond unacceptable. It felt unsafe, invasive, and completely out of line for any hotel, let alone one claiming to be “luxury.”

This stay was stressful from start to finish. With the high price point, I expected professionalism, privacy, and a seamless experience — yet what I received was the opposite. I genuinely hope the management addresses these serious issues, because no guest should ever have to go through this.