Premier Inn Pillow Review
The pillow people search for after a good night in a Premier Inn, and the honest answer is that hotels solve a different problem from you.
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Verdict
The pillow people search for after a good night in a Premier Inn, and the honest answer is that hotels solve a different problem from you. A hotel pillow is a compromise engineered for thousands of strangers, and hotels hedge it in a way you can copy for free.
Buy it if
You slept on one, liked it, and it happens to match the height you need.
Avoid it if
You are hoping a hotel pillow will solve a pillow problem. Height is personal and a hotel cannot know yours.
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| Specification | Detail |
|---|---|
| Made for | Hotel use, acceptable to thousands of guests who did not choose it |
| The usual answer | A medium, generously filled pillow, supplied two per person |
| Why two | So guests can stack or discard to reach their own height |
| Washability | Commercial pillows are laundered constantly, which is a real design constraint |
| What you can copy free | The two-pillow hedge, tonight |
The scores
A well made commercial pillow, solving a problem that is not quite yours.
Reasonable. You are buying a durability and laundering standard.
Fixed, and correct for you only by coincidence.
Medium, which is the safest answer for an unknown guest.
Depends on the fill. Commercial pillows lean synthetic for washability.
Some scope to change the height, but not freely.
Built to survive industrial laundering, which domestic pillows are not.
The trick hotels use, which you can copy tonight
Two pillows is the hedge
Hotels cannot know whether a guest is a broad-shouldered side sleeper or a front sleeper, and height is what decides whether a pillow works.
So they supply two medium pillows per person. A side sleeper stacks both and gets height. A front sleeper pushes one aside and gets almost nothing. A back sleeper uses one.
One product, three heights, no guessing.
You can do this at home with pillows you already own, for nothing, tonight. If your neck aches in the morning, try adding or removing a pillow before buying anything.
Then verify it properly. Lie in the position you actually sleep in for ten minutes so the pillows settle, and have someone look at you from behind. Your neck should be a straight continuation of your spine: tipped up means too high, dropped means too low.
What you actually liked was the room
The same point applies to hotel pillows as to hotel mattresses. When you sleep well in a hotel, you are experiencing several things at once: a mattress, a topper, hotel-weight bedding, fresh linen, blackout curtains, a controlled room temperature, and usually a day that left you more tired than normal.
Buying the pillow replicates one variable. And three of the others are free: blackout curtains or a sleep mask, a cooler room, and a consistent bedtime.
If the hotel bed is what you want, the topper is doing more work than most guests realise and costs a fraction of a mattress. See the Premier Inn bed review for the full argument.
What a commercial pillow is genuinely better at
One real advantage worth naming. Hotel pillows are laundered constantly at high temperatures, so they are built to survive washing in a way domestic pillows are not.
That matters because most pillows cannot be washed at all. Foam cannot go in a machine, and down usually needs specialist cleaning. You sleep on a pillow for eight hours a night and skin, sweat and dust accumulate in the fill rather than the case.
If washability matters to you, a commercial-standard synthetic pillow is a sound choice, and it is the strongest argument for buying one of these.
A correction worth making
Commonly repeated, and wrong
Hotel pillows are recommended on the basis that guests sleep well on them, and hotels are solving a different problem: a pillow acceptable to thousands of people whose sleeping positions and shoulder widths are unknown. Their answer is to supply two medium pillows per person so guests can stack or discard to reach their own height. That hedge, rather than the pillow itself, is what made the hotel bed work, and it can be reproduced at home for nothing.
Should you buy it?
Fine if you slept on one and it matched what you needed, and the commercial washability standard is a genuine advantage.
Before buying, try the hotel's actual trick: add or remove a pillow at home tonight and run the ten minute test. It costs nothing and it solves more neck ache than any purchase.
Questions people ask
Why do hotels give you two pillows?
Because height decides whether a pillow works and they cannot know yours. Two medium pillows means a side sleeper stacks both, a front sleeper pushes one aside, and a back sleeper uses one. One product, three heights.
How do I fix neck ache from a pillow?
Try adding or removing a pillow before buying anything. Then lie in your actual sleeping position for ten minutes and have someone look at you from behind: your neck should be a straight continuation of your spine.