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The Premier Inn Hypnos mattress is a popular mattress at the budget end of the Hypnos range.
It offers the huge advantage of allowing you to actually try it out for a night or two in a hotel. That’s somewhat better than 30 seconds in a showroom.
We’ve put together a few headlines about how the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress compares to other mattresses. We’ve also suggested some similar alternatives. At the bottom of the page you’ll find our thoughts from when we first bought the mattress.
A big name brand
The Premier Inn mattress is made by Hypnos. They’re a UK company with a Royal Warrant, meaning they supply a royal household. The Queen doesn’t tend to stay at Premier Inns, but she does use the same brand at least. When we checked, the Hypnos brand was scoring an average of 3.6/5 on TrustPilot. However, that’s for the brand as a whole rather than just for this mattress.
How firm is it?
It’s a medium-firm mattress, according to the Hypnos website. The general rule is that firmer mattresses are best for heavier people and people who sleep on their back or front. The aim is to get a mattress which is ‘supportive’ without being too hard. Lighter people and people who sleep on their sides tend to go for softer mattresses. It’s worth realising that there’s no industry-wide standards for measuring mattress firmness. Different companies have different ideas of what ‘medium-firm’ means.
How is it constructed?
It’s a pocket sprung mattress, which is the proper way of making a sprung mattress. Cheap sprung mattresses use open coil springs which are – quite frankly – rubbish in comparison. There are about 1000 pocket springs on the king size version of the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress. That’s a little on the low side if you’re very heavy but will be fine for most people. The usual range in a decent mattress is about 1000 – 2000 pocket springs.
The Premier Inn Hypnos mattress is something called a ‘pillow top’ mattress. That usually means you get a pocket sprung mattress underneath for decent support and then a topper which is attached to the mattress for some added comfort. The Premier Inn Hypnos topper uses wool, which is a natural and breathable material.
The main downside of a ‘pillow top’ mattress like this is that you can’t turn it over. Instead, you just rotate it round every so often. Some guides I’ve read suggest that mattresses last longer and won’t get dips and sags as quickly if you can flip them over regularly. There’s also evidence that a ‘sagging sleep system…negatively affects sleep quality’ particularly for people sleeping on their front or side (research by Verhaert et al 2010.)
What guarantee do you get?
The Premier Inn Hypnos mattress comes with a 5 year guarantee. That is somewhere in the middle for a pocket sprung mattress as the usual range is between 1 year and 10 years. Posh mattress brands like Vispring come with a 30 year guarantee whilst most ‘bed in a box mattresses’ come with 10 years or ‘forever’ in the case of the Nectar Sleep mattress.
As mentioned earlier, the main advantage of the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress is that you can actually try it out for a whole night or two. The only thing that competes with this are the large number of mattresses which now offer a home trial period of 30, 60, 100, 200 or even 365 nights. Some will give you a refund if you don’t like it. Others will just let you swap it for a different mattress.
How much does it cost?
The Premier Inn Hypnos mattress costs £515 for a double mattress (at the time of writing). That makes it cheap by usual Hypnos standards, as some of their other mattresses cost more than £1000 for a double.
5 Medium-Firm Alternatives to the Premier Inn Hypnos Mattress
There’s a lot to be said for buying a mattress you’ve tried before. However, here are five highly rated alternatives to the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress.
We’ve picked out five which are all described as medium-firm, just like the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress. We’ve picked mattresses which have similar or better specifications, or offer something similar for a cheaper price:
1. Sleepeezee Memory Comfort 1000 Pocket Pillow Top Mattress – £439
This Sleepeezee Memory Comfort mattress has a remarkably similar specification to the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress. If they met in the street they’d probably have a double-take.
For a start, they’ve both got 1000 pocket springs and a pillow top layer. They’re both medium-firm mattresses and they both come with a 5 year guarantee. They both have a ‘Royal Warrant’ and they are similarly priced, if you wait for the sales. The Sleepeezee mattress is 26cm deep whilst the Hypnos mattress is 27cm deep.
But what about the differences?
Positive reviews
When we checked, the Sleepeezee brand was scoring higher on TrustPilot with an average of 4.2/5 compared to 3.6/5 for Hypnos. We struggled to find customer review scores for the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress. However, this Sleepeezee mattress was scoring just above 9/10 after about 500 reviews.
Unlike Hypnos, you get a 60 night trial with a Sleepeezee mattress so you can swap it for another model if you aren’t happy (note that you can’t ask for a refund, but you can swap it). You’ll get a good idea after a night or two with the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress, but there is some advantage to trying out a mattress for a few weeks and seeing how your body feels.
Foam rather than wool
The main difference is that this Sleepeezee mattress has a ‘pillow top’ layer which is made from memory foam. The Premier Inn Hypnos mattress uses wool. Memory foam offers a bit of extra comfort on top and most mattress experts and guides reckon that memory foam offers ‘more support’ than springs (John Lewis & Partners guide).
Some people don’t like the sinking feeling of memory foam and find it makes them hot. Other people like the consistent cushiony support. Lots of online guides will tell that you memory foam is also good for allergies as it doesn’t collect dust in the same way as natural fibres. However, researchers in Norway concluded the opposite when they took samples from foam and sprung mattresses in 2002 (‘House-dust mites and mattresses’ by Schei, Hessen and Lund). They found ‘mite faeces in 15 (40.5%) of the dust samples from the foam mattresses without covers and 18 (26.3%) of the foam mattresses with covers. Only three (12.5%) of the spring mattresses contained detectable amounts of faeces.’
2. Happy Beds Signature 2000 Pocket Sprung Pillow Top Natural Fillings Mattress – £319
This Happy Beds Signature 2000 mattress doesn’t have the prestige of a Hypnos mattress. However, in some ways it actually has a better specification and it is considerably cheaper (about £150 cheaper when I checked).
The similarities with the Hypnos Premier Inn mattress include that they are both medium-firm, pocket sprung, pillow top mattresses which are made in the UK.
The Happy Beds Signature 2000 mattress also makes use of natural materials including wool.
Much like the Hypnos Premier Inn mattress, it can’t be turned over because of the pillow top layer. Instead, you just rotate it round to make it last longer.
More springs for more support
The main differences between them are that the Happy Beds Signature 2000 has a much higher pocket spring count, so it should theoretically provide more substantial support particularly for heavier people.
It is also a bit deeper at 33cm, compared to 27cm for the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress. Both are perfectly decent depths for a mattress though, so I wouldn’t worry about that too much. It’s worth realising that a 33cm deep mattress will need extra deep fitted sheets unless you want to take your eye out whilst trying to squeeze your usual sheets onto it.
As for reviews, on the Happy Beds own website the Signature 2000 was scoring about 4.6/5 whilst on Amazon it was scoring 4/5 when we checked. At the time of writing, the Happy Beds brand as a whole was scoring 4.4/5 on TrustPilot compared to 3.2/5 for Hypnos.
It comes with a 5 year guarantee, which is the same as the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress.
3. Nectar Sleep Memory Foam Mattress – £749
**Nectar Sleep Bank Holiday Sale: 45% off until 12/06/22**
The Nectar Sleep mattress makes our list as another medium-firm mattress. It’s quite different to the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress but it has a couple of lovely jubbly advantages.
Rather than using pocket springs with a fixed topper, it uses layers of foam including memory foam to provide support. Memory foam type materials were first designed to keep astronauts snug and have been developed to give a hugging and supportive feeling whilst you sleep. Some people aren’t so keen on the sinking feeling, but they are better for allergies and generally seen as more supportive than springs.
But why would you switch from the familiarity of a pocket sprung mattress?
Three major selling points
The Nectar Sleep mattress is one of several modern mattresses which comes with a) great reviews b) a generous risk-free trial period and c) a long guarantee. There are many mattresses offering those three nowadays (e.g. OTTY, Simba Sleep) but the Nectar Sleep has the joint longest home trial (365 nights). The idea is that you can send it back for a refund if you don’t like it. It also has the longest warranty we’ve found. It’s described as ‘forever’ which I think you’ll agree is a long time. The small print explains what is covered.
The Nectar Sleep brand also scores well on TrustPilot (4.4/5). It costs a bit more than the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress, but there are sometimes deals and discounts.
4. Silentnight Sofia/Classic 1200 Mirapocket Mattress – £399
Silentnight is probably an even more famous mattress brand than Hypnos in the UK.
We’ve picked this pocket sprung mattress as an alternative to the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress. It costs about the same and is a similar level of firmness. However, it has a few extra points working in its favour.
The Silentnight Sofia 1200 (which you’ll also find called the Classic 1200) doesn’t have the squidgy pillow top layer which you’ll find on the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress. That means you can turn it over which will hopefully give it a longer life. You could buy yourself a mattress topper and attach it, which basically achieves the same thing as a fixed pillow top.
Rave reviews and big awards
The Sofia has won a top award from expert testers including Good Housekeeping. It also scores very well with customers, averaging about 9/10 after 1200+ reviews on Mattress Online. Meanwhile, the Silentnight brand was scoring 4.1/5 on TrustPilot when we checked, compared to 3.2/5 for Hypnos.
The 1200 figure refers to the number of pocket springs in the king size version of the mattress. So, it’s got a few more than the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress. I wouldn’t obsess over 200 springs, but it is a slight advantage if you are heavier than average.
You don’t get a trial period with this mattress, but it’s a very popular one so you might be able to find it in a mattress shop.
5. Hypnos Pillow Top Stellar Pocket Sprung Mattress – £1450
If you like the Hypnos brand but want to upgrade from the Premier Inn Hypnos model then you might like the Hypnos Stellar Pillow Top mattress. It’s another medium-firm mattress.
It costs nearly three times as much but you’re getting a few improvements for your money.
The biggest factor is that you get 10 years guarantee with this upgraded model (according to the Hypnos website) instead of 5 years with the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress.
Upgrading to a higher spring count
Regarding the specification, there are 1600 pocket springs instead of 1000. The lower number will be fine for most people, but you’ll certainly get more support from 1600 springs. It will make a more significant difference if you’re heavier than average.
The Hypnos Stellar uses some latex in the pillow top layer, as well as wool. Latex is a natural material which comes from rubber trees. It works well in mattresses but is expensive to produce so it tends to bump the price up (most latex mattresses just use a thin layer of latex, apart from the brand Dunlopillo which is the leader in the posh latex mattress market).
The Hypnos Stellar is also a few centimetres deeper than the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress. Of course, that means they’ve used more materials which tends to increase the price.
Next, here’s the waffle we wrote when we first bought our Premier Inn Hypnos mattress:
We recently bought ourselves a new mattress and bedstead.
A simple task you might assume, considering the many hours we spent researching this website. In reality, it took us weeks but we got there in the end.
One option of course is to go with the award winners. We’ve pulled together a list of 10 mattresses which have won awards and get great reviews, but I still remain keen on trying before you buy.
Of course, many mattresses now offer a risk free trial but most of these are foam mattresses (Nectar Sleep, Eve etc) and I personally prefer pocket springs. Well, to be more accurate my wife prefers pocket springs and I was keen that she was happy with the purchase.
Another option is to go to whichever showroom you have nearby and just pick the mattress you find most comfortable.
My issue with that is that it’s hard to get a proper sense of comfort from a 10 second lie down. After you’ve tried out 20 mattresses and disagreed 20 times about comfort you end up back in the car and back at square one.
So, we plumped for the Hypnos mattress which is made for Premier Inn.
How much we paid
For the mattress alone in King Size it was £580 including delivery. It was about £450 extra if you wanted a divan but my wife persuaded me to go for a bedstead. After much searching we went for the Julian Bowen Ravello, which was about £489 for a King Size and also features in our guide to sleigh bed frames.
It’s certainly at the cheaper end of the bedstead market, but for the money I was impressed. It took me a couple of hours to build, but I was being ‘helped’ by a four year old. It arrived in three huge boxes and could mostly be constructed by one person. Most of the time was spent putting together the sprung slats which arrived as a wadge of wood and a packet of plastic attachments.
One of the main things to look for with a bedstead is the gap between the slats. If they’re too far apart then it won’t do your pocket sprung mattress much good and it will become uneven. In this case, the slats were nice and close together.
A long wait for it to arrive
I was a little surprised to find the mattress would take a month to arrive as I assumed they sold a lot of these things. We weren’t in a hurry so it was OK for my needs.
The advantage of course is that we’ve tried it out in Premier Inns before and have found their mattress comfortable. We’ll have slept on some which are a few years old (not a pleasant thought) and some which are much newer. That probably provides a more accurate idea of comfort than a showroom mattress.
When it finally arrived I’ve got to admit it was firmer than I had remembered. Perhaps it will soften up with time. There’s no definitive scale for measuring firmness of mattresses but I’d put it down as a medium/firm mattress personally.
One notable downside
It’s also a non-flipper, by which I mean you can’t turn it over. Usually I turn my nose up at those mattresses as it can be a sign of a cheaper product. In this case it seemed to be to make space for the wool topper.
It’s got 1000 pocket springs, which is right at the lower end of what I consider the ideal range. My wife and I are both as thin as rakes so it provides adequate support. I’d avoid this mattress if you are reading this whilst simultaneously eating a cream cake.
The main selling point for me was the Hypnos brand. They’re one of the best names in the mattress market and have won many awards in recent years.
My feeling is that I’ll probably buy another topper to soften it up a bit. A topper on top of a topper may not be a top idea, but I reckon I’ll give it a go.
Update: 1000 nights later – how is the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress performing?
It’s now been three years since we purchased our Premier Inn Mattress from Hypnos. It seems like a good time to carry out some tests and inspections of how it has performed. Usage has been around 95%, so it has been used for more than 1000 nights.
The mattress comes with a five year warranty. Research by the National Bed Federation found that most people hold onto a mattress for seven years (2019 Annual Report), so it should still have plenty of life in it.
How does it look?
The overall appearance is still good. It has a pillowtop finish, which means that you can’t turn it over so you are only ever sleeping on one side. We have rotated it round on a semi-regular basis which is highly advisable with a no-turn pocket sprung mattress. Honestly, I haven’t diarised the regularity with which we’ve carried this out. I would estimate that we rotate the mattress on a quarterly basis.
There is a little bit of bulging on the corners but not enough to affect the comfort. The way the mattress feels hasn’t changed noticeably during the three years of usage. A fairer test would be a new mattress alongside this three year old mattress. In all likelihood it has softened a little over time, as a lot of pocket sprung mattresses do.
Is it sagging or dipping?
After our visual inspection we moved onto an indentation test by laying a machine-cut piece of wood across the width of the mattress.
As you can see, the 1000 night indentation test highlighted that there has been a slight dip compared to the edges of the mattress. It was not a huge dip but was big enough for my little finger to sit underneath. We measured from the highest point, since a tufted mattress is designed to have some undulations as part of its robust construction.
The tape measure revealed that the indentation to be 14mm from the top of the mattress to the bottom of our indentation stick (hilariously referred to as ‘Rodney’ or ‘Rod’ during testing). For comparison, we also measured another pocket sprung mattress which is six years old but which has had approximately 50% usage. That means it has had a similar level of usage compared to the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress. This one is made by Highgrove and cost about £400 at the time. This is a double sided mattress which has been flipped on a roughly quarterly basis since it was bought.
You’ll notice that the indentation on the Highgrove mattress is much less significant and is approximately 2mm.
However, there’s a key difference between these two mattresses which it would be unfair to overlook.
Allowing for the pillowtop design
The Premier Inn Hypnos mattress is a pillowtop mattress. That means that the top layer provides comfortable softer support on top. The Highgrove mattress doesn’t have a pillowtop and has a much firmer feel as a result.
My view is that a lot of the indentation on the Hypnos Premier Inn mattress is due to compression of the ‘wool-filled soft topper’. Once you lie on the mattress, the wool will naturally compress and isn’t designed to spring back into position. I would be more concerned if the mattress used a memory foam or latex topper which is designed to return to its original shape. A full test would require us to remove the attached pillowtop layer. We could then see to what extent the 1000 springs on the Hypnos Premier Inn mattress have begun to dip or sag.
In summary, I am pleased with the way the Premier Inn Hypnos mattress has performed and am expecting to get several more years of usage from it.