Pullman Istanbul Hotel & Convention Center 5 yıldız

Turkish Airlines offered this hotel to me as a free stopover night in a paid business class ticket. I would never stay here again. The moral of this story there are two types of free: free like a beer and free like a puppy. This was more like a puppy as you have to include all the extra costs. CONS: - horrible location. 38 mins by taxi from airport. 40 mins from Istanbul center. Far from public transport. You have to pay for taxi going anywhere. TK does not provide any free transfers. - horrible air conditioning. Other reviews mentioned this. But my room was 92° when I entered. It never got cooler than 84° even with the A/C going on full blast the entire time. - TV remote didn’t work. Too exhausted to try to work on getting it fixed. - Nespresso machine had no coffee capsules. - Bath tub/shower was dangerous to get in and out of. PROS: - friendly check-in staff - comfy bed - perfectly fine breakfast buffet. But nothing special. I really wished I had just booked a hotel myself in the center of the city closer to things. This “free hotel night” ended up costing me lots of taxi rides and a bad night’s sleep due to the underperforming air conditioning.

Awful. Bang in the middle of nowhere and part of a conference centre. Was a Turkish airlines free stay after flight overbooked. Felt like a conference hall rather than hotel. A/c did not work, food outlet was poor and all rather grim. Checked out within 1 hour and went to the Hilton Bosphorus, which is class. One to avoid.

Very bad breakfast, poor location and unfriendly reception staff, I would say Turkish Airlines stopover scheme needs to choose a better hotel. The quality of breakfast was very poor, least expected from a 5-star property. The rooms were clean and comfortable with decent amenities but it would be total rip-off for someone staying here on a business class ticket as part of the scheme. Location wise, there is no tram station nearby and it's in the middle of a busy highway, far from the city centre. Avoidable place

Shame on Turkish Airlines! Used Turkish Airlines Stayover Istanbul program for Business class. This is supposed to be a 5 Star property so that travelers can experience Istanbul attractions and culture. It is a modern day Grand Budapest Hotel. The hotel has a surface appearance of a modern business hotel, but it lost its way years ago. The rooms are horrid - lights don’t work, missing shower doors, inoperable blinds in glass between shower and bedroom area, inoperable USB ports, tv too small for its wall opening, stained shower floor, stained countertops, abandoned hotel areas, creepy dark hallways, extremely rude staff, transient tour groups wandering around what once were nice restaurants and lounges. I imagine that when the Istanbul Airport was nearby, this hotel was an energetic place and functional. Now it is a disgrace for anyone whose name is attached to it. Even though it was a perk or free offering for flying through Istanbul with an expensive Business Class ticket, I am furious with myself for being duped into staying in such a dump. Run from considering this location! Everyone at Pullman and certainly Turkish Airlines should be ashamed at allowing their names to be associated with this sham. It has tarnished Turkish Airlines reputation in my eyes, and I can’t see forgiving them anytime soon.

TLDR: This hotel is not for the unseasoned or frugal traveler who wants to explore the city I stayed here as part of the Turkish Airways stopover program. As part of the program, you can choose a free hotel night or a free tour, I chose the hotel because the hotel costs across the city were astronomical that weekend due to a tournament in town. This hotel may have made a lot of sense to be part of this program back when the airport was closer to downtown -- but now that the airport is over an hour away, this hotel seems to be unnecessarily out of the way to almost everything. It is not walkable to anything and right on a highway (which I did not find loud or bothersome), you will need a taxi or the hotel's concierge service to pick you up from the airport or to take you anywhere in the city. I appreciated that the hotel concierge was able to communicate via WhatsApp prior to my trip in order to arrange an easy pickup from the airport. The roundtrip was 140 Euros but then again, the hotel is over an hour away from the airport. The driver provided by the hotel was very nice and showed me a lot of interesting sites. He let me sit up front so I could get a better view and communicate with him easily over Google Translate. The hotel was clean, comfortable and easy to navigate, but my door did not lock. Room service was nice and the food was pretty good. Luckily I always travel with an "Add-a Lock" device so I felt secure in my room. Also unusual is the shower had a floor to ceiling window in it which was visible to the bedroom. The window had miniblinds to help with privacy. While there, I tried to make the most of my one night stay in Istanbul. I used the hotel's concierge to book a tour knowing that the reviews here on TripAdvisor strongly recommend against this. If you do this, make sure to pay in Turkish currency with your credit card and NOT dollars or Euros-- the exchange rate with your bank will be much better than what they offer at the hotel. The cost was about $250 USD which basically just pays for the cost of the private driver for several hours. The driver takes you to a beautiful part of the city where you meet up with an English speaking "guide" who works for a rug and candy shop. The guide basically just tells you the name of the buildings/sites and that it is very old. No history, no context, nothing. He is utterly uninterested in anything to do with the tourist sites or making the experience memorable (although he did offer to take my photo in front of the Blue Mosque for me). He was very helpful at one point when the mosque was closing -- the announcement was only made in Turkish and he made sure to push me to the entrance so that I got in before it closed. Overall, my free night at this hotel cost me $400 in transportation fees. These were 100% my choice and I'm not complaining, but just giving you a heads up on how much things could cost if you choose to go this route.