Best Spas in London in 2026
The Best London Spas for Customer Service, Facilities and Overall Guest Experience
Which spas in London genuinely offer a very good service
London has no shortage of expensive spas. The more difficult question is which ones actually deliver a consistently excellent customer experience.
A beautiful treatment room, a famous hotel address and a long treatment menu are relatively easy to find. What separates the very best spas is usually more subtle: how guests are greeted, how well the experience is organised, whether therapists listen, how staff respond when something goes wrong, how crowded the facilities feel, and whether the service feels genuinely personalised rather than merely luxurious.
To identify the best spas in London in 2026, we reviewed a mixture of current customer-review signals, review volumes, editorial recommendations, social-media discussion and the operating characteristics of the spas themselves. The objective is not to reproduce a single magazine ranking. Instead, the aim is to identify the spas that perform strongly across several different measures of guest satisfaction.
That distinction matters. A spa with a 4.9 rating based on 47 reviews is not necessarily outperforming one with a 4.6 rating based on more than 2,000 reviews. Equally, a large spa may offer exceptional facilities while generating more complaints about noise or crowding than a smaller, appointment-led property.
Our conclusion is that Raffles Spa, AIRE Ancient Baths London and The Lanesborough Club & Spa currently offer some of the strongest all-round propositions in London, while Akasha and Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park are particularly compelling for guests who prioritise a more holistic or private experience.
Our London Spa Customer-Service Ranking for 2026
| Rank | Spa | Current review signal* | Our assessment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Raffles Spa, The OWO | 4.9/5 (74 reviews) | Best overall luxury service |
| 2 | AIRE Ancient Baths London | 4.6/5 (2,115 reviews) | Best for the experience itself |
| 3 | The Lanesborough Club & Spa | 4.7/5 (104 reviews) | Best for personalised service |
| 4 | Akasha, Hotel Café Royal | 4.5/5 (184 reviews) | Best holistic/wellness proposition |
| 5 | Spa InterContinental | 4.9/5 (47 reviews) | Strongest underrated service performer |
| 6 | The Spa at Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park | 4.4/5 (85 reviews) | Best for privacy and discretion |
| 7 | Biome by Corinthia London | 4.5/5 (312 reviews) | Best large-scale spa facilities, but mixed crowding feedback |
| 8 | The Spa at Four Seasons Hotel London at Park Lane | 4.2/5 (77 reviews) | Excellent address and hospitality pedigree, but weaker public rating signal |
*Current ratings and review counts are the figures surfaced by the local business review data available during our October 2026 research. Ratings are dynamic and should be treated as a snapshot rather than a permanent score.
1. Raffles Spa, The OWO — Best Overall Luxury Service
Raffles Spa
The strongest all-round result in our assessment comes from the spa at Raffles London at The OWO.
The most striking public signal is its 4.9/5 rating from 74 reviews, which is unusually strong even allowing for the relatively modest review sample. The wider hotel also carries a 4.6/5 rating across 345 reviews, suggesting that the positive view of the property is not confined to the spa alone.
What distinguishes Raffles is the way its proposition appears to combine the things that luxury-spa customers increasingly value: excellent physical surroundings, exclusivity, a relatively intimate atmosphere and highly attentive service.
The service proposition is particularly important here. At this end of the market, clients are often paying as much for frictionless hospitality as for the massage or facial itself. The best experiences are the ones in which a guest does not have to repeatedly ask where to go, what happens next or whether a request can be accommodated.
Recent social discussion broadly supports the premium positioning. In a 2026 London spa discussion, a recent visitor to Raffles described the experience as one they would highly recommend, while another contributor reported having had a similarly strong experience previously.
Why Raffles stands out
Service: The clearest differentiator. The very high specialist-spa rating is consistent with a highly polished luxury-service model.
Environment: The OWO gives the spa an immediate sense of occasion and destination appeal.
Exclusivity: This is an important part of the product. Guests looking for a quiet, special-occasion spa experience are more likely to value intimacy than a huge list of facilities.
Customer experience: The overall impression is less “health club with treatments” and more “luxury hospitality experience with wellness built into it.”
The drawback
The review sample is considerably smaller than AIRE’s. A 4.9 score from 74 reviews should therefore not be interpreted as statistical proof that Raffles is categorically better than every competitor with thousands of reviews.
Nevertheless, when very high customer ratings are combined with the strong reputation of the wider property and positive 2026 social feedback, Raffles has the most convincing all-round case.
Best for: Couples, special occasions, luxury travellers and anyone who places service ahead of sheer facility size.
2. AIRE Ancient Baths London — Best for the Experience Itself
AIRE Ancient Baths London
AIRE is probably the clearest example of why a spa cannot be judged solely by its five-star credentials.
Its current public rating is 4.6/5 from more than 2,100 reviews, giving it by far the largest review sample among the leading spas assessed here.
That matters because review volume is a useful — if imperfect — indicator of how robust a rating is. A 4.6 score supported by thousands of customers provides a different kind of evidence from a 4.9 score supported by several dozen.
AIRE’s strength is that it sells an experience rather than simply a treatment. The concept is built around a sequence of thermal bathing environments and a distinctive historic setting, giving the visit a ritualistic quality.
This helps explain its enduring customer appeal. The guest is not simply buying an hour-long treatment; they are buying a sense of escape in central London.
Customer service
AIRE is also interesting from a service perspective because its operational challenge is greater than that of a small appointment-only boutique.
A large-volume attraction has more opportunities for friction: arrival, changing, pool access, treatment scheduling, transitions between spaces and peak-period crowding.
The fact that AIRE has maintained a 4.6 rating across more than 2,000 reviews is therefore particularly meaningful. It suggests that the basic customer journey works for a large and diverse group of guests.
The main caution is that AIRE’s popularity is simultaneously one of its advantages and one of its potential weaknesses. Customers seeking complete tranquillity should be aware that a heavily booked urban spa cannot necessarily reproduce the sense of private retreat found at the smallest luxury hotels.
Why AIRE stands out
Scale of customer evidence: More than 2,100 reviews gives AIRE one of the strongest datasets in this comparison.
Concept: The thermal-bath experience is distinctive rather than generic.
Memorability: Guests are buying an experience with a clear identity, which tends to generate stronger word-of-mouth.
Service: Maintaining consistently high satisfaction at this level of customer volume is an important achievement.
Best for: A first-time London spa visit, couples, birthdays, gifts and visitors who want something memorable rather than simply luxurious.
3. The Lanesborough Club & Spa — Best for Personalised Service
The Lanesborough Club & Spa
The Lanesborough occupies a slightly different position from AIRE or Corinthia.
It is much closer to the traditional luxury private-club model, and that comes through in its 4.7/5 rating from 104 reviews.
The relatively modest review count means the score should not be directly compared with AIRE’s 2,115 reviews, but it is still a very strong customer signal.
The Lanesborough’s biggest potential advantage is personalisation. Smaller, club-style environments can make it easier to recognise returning guests, anticipate preferences and maintain a calmer atmosphere.
That is increasingly important in 2026. Luxury wellness has moved beyond the idea that “more facilities” automatically equals “better spa.” For many affluent consumers, service now means having fewer people around, less queuing and more attention from staff.
Customer service
This is one of the spas on our list where the service model itself is a competitive advantage.
A large destination spa can have more impressive infrastructure, but the Lanesborough approach is better suited to customers who value discretion and a sense that the experience is being managed around them.
Why it stands out
Personalisation: Strong fit with clients who value recognition and discretion.
Atmosphere: More club-like and intimate than some of London’s destination spas.
Luxury positioning: Consistent with the expectations of a high-end hotel and private club.
Service: Particularly attractive for guests who believe five-star treatment means being looked after rather than simply given access to facilities.
Best for: Hotel guests, repeat London visitors, business travellers and clients who dislike busy communal spa environments.
4. Akasha, Hotel Café Royal — Best Holistic Wellness Proposition
Akasha
Akasha remains one of London’s most interesting propositions because it sits between traditional luxury hotel spa and broader wellness club.
Its current rating of 4.5/5 from 184 reviews is strong enough to indicate broad customer satisfaction, while the offer itself extends beyond conventional beauty treatments into fitness and holistic wellbeing.
This breadth matters because the definition of “spa” has changed.
Increasingly, premium customers are looking for an integrated wellness experience rather than a treatment followed by an hour in a relaxation room. Strength, recovery, movement, massage, mindfulness and skin health are becoming part of the same purchasing decision.
Customer service
Akasha’s challenge is therefore one of complexity. A broader offer creates more opportunities to impress the customer, but also more touchpoints at which the experience can become fragmented.
The strongest wellness clubs are those in which the front desk, therapists and wider team behave like one hospitality operation rather than a collection of separate services.
Akasha’s 4.5/5 rating suggests it is performing well on that overall experience.
Why it stands out
Holistic offer: Strong fit with the shift from “pampering” towards measurable wellbeing.
Location: Central and particularly convenient for West End visitors.
Brand proposition: More sophisticated than a treatment-only spa.
Service: The opportunity for staff to tailor the experience around an individual’s wellness objectives is a significant strength.
Best for: Regular wellness customers, fitness-oriented guests and people who want a spa to form part of a broader health routine.
5. Spa InterContinental — London’s Underrated Service Performer
Spa InterContinental
One of the more interesting findings in the data is Spa InterContinental’s 4.9/5 rating from 47 reviews.
On score alone, that puts it level with Raffles. Yet it would be misleading to call it London’s number-one spa simply because its star rating is currently higher.
The reason is sample size.
Forty-seven reviews can provide a useful signal, but they cannot provide the same degree of statistical confidence as thousands. What the score does suggest, however, is that customers who do choose to review the spa are responding very positively to the experience.
This makes Spa InterContinental a particularly interesting choice for customers who want a luxury hotel environment but may prefer something less obvious than the city’s headline-name spas.
Customer service
The InterContinental brand is built around full-service hospitality, and that can be a meaningful advantage in a spa environment.
Customers increasingly notice the transitions: whether reception is welcoming, whether therapists appear prepared, whether schedules run to time, and whether staff take ownership when a problem occurs.
Those details rarely appear in a glossy spa brochure, but they are exactly the things that can determine whether a customer returns.
Best for
Guests who value polished hotel hospitality and want a quieter alternative to London’s most heavily marketed spa destinations.
6. The Spa at Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park — Best for Privacy and Discretion
The Spa at Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park
Mandarin Oriental has one of the strongest service brands in luxury hospitality, but the spa’s current public rating — 4.4/5 from 85 reviews — is more measured than the very highest-rated properties in our sample.
That does not necessarily mean the experience is weaker.
The more interesting evidence comes from customer sentiment. In a 2026 Reddit discussion about London luxury spas, one contributor said they “much prefer the spa at Mandarin Oriental to Corinthia”, describing it as feeling like “a private experience” and noting that they barely encountered other people.
That is important because it identifies a benefit that conventional star ratings do not capture particularly well: how crowded the environment feels.
For some customers, privacy is not a secondary luxury. It is the luxury.
Customer service
Mandarin Oriental’s strongest proposition is arguably less about theatrical service and more about restraint: discretion, attentiveness and the absence of friction.
The customer who wants a busy social destination may prefer another spa. The customer who wants to disappear for several hours may prefer this one.
Best for
Privacy, discretion, high-end hotel guests and customers who dislike large or noisy spa environments.
7. Biome by Corinthia London — Best Facilities, With a Crowding Caveat
Biome by Corinthia London
Corinthia’s spa is one of the most prominent names in London’s luxury wellness market and currently has a 4.5/5 rating across 312 reviews.
That is a substantial customer sample and, on the face of it, a good result.
It is also the clearest example in our research of why customer satisfaction cannot be reduced to facilities alone.
Biome offers a major wellness proposition, but recent social discussion reveals a recurring risk: crowding.
In a 2026 Reddit thread, one visitor recommended the Corinthia, only for another recent visitor to say they had been “very disappointed” because the spa was “incredibly crowded, loud” and felt insufficiently maintained on their visit. Another contributor explicitly said they preferred Mandarin Oriental because Corinthia felt crowded and loud.
These are individual experiences, not a statistically representative social-media survey. But they are valuable because they expose the gap between the marketed experience and what customers notice during busy periods.
Customer service
This is where service recovery becomes particularly important.
At a highly expensive spa, customers understand that peak periods can be busy. What they are less tolerant of is feeling that staff have not acknowledged the issue, managed the flow or responded effectively when the atmosphere falls below expectations.
The strongest large-scale spas therefore need more than excellent facilities. They need excellent capacity management.
Why it still makes the list
Biome remains one of London’s most compelling choices for customers who want a substantial wellness facility rather than a boutique treatment environment.
But our recommendation comes with a clear qualification: consider the timing of your visit.
Best for: Customers who prioritise facilities, thermal experiences and a full destination-spa proposition.
8. The Spa at Four Seasons Hotel London at Park Lane — Great Hospitality Pedigree, But a Weaker Review Signal
The Spa at Four Seasons Hotel London at Park Lane
Four Seasons is perhaps the most obvious example of the distinction between hotel brand reputation and the review score of an individual spa.
The spa currently shows 4.2/5 from 77 reviews, the weakest public spa rating in our eight-property comparison.
That does not make it a bad spa. Far from it. What it does mean is that we cannot simply borrow the Four Seasons luxury-hospitality reputation and assume that every customer experience inside the spa is consequently best-in-class.
From a Very Good Service perspective, this is exactly why the property belongs in the analysis.
A credible customer-service ranking should be willing to distinguish between brand expectation and observed customer sentiment.
Customer service
Four Seasons has long been associated with highly structured hospitality, but the public spa score suggests that the individual experience deserves scrutiny on its own merits.
For customers spending several hundred pounds on a wellness experience, relatively small disappointments can have an outsized impact on satisfaction. A good massage is not enough if the arrival experience, facilities or post-treatment service feel merely adequate.
Best for
Guests who value the Four Seasons setting and location, particularly those already staying at the hotel, but who should compare the spa experience with London’s stronger-rated alternatives before choosing.
What the Customer Data Tells Us About London Spas in 2026
The most interesting conclusion from this research is that there is no single definition of a “best spa.”
The market is increasingly divided into several distinct propositions.
Luxury hospitality
Raffles and the Lanesborough are strongest where the experience is primarily about personalised service, discretion and a feeling of being looked after.
Destination experience
AIRE is strongest where the customer wants the spa itself to be the attraction.
Integrated wellness
Akasha and Biome are better suited to consumers who see wellness as an ongoing lifestyle rather than an occasional beauty treatment.
Privacy
Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park is particularly interesting for guests who want the atmosphere to feel private rather than social.
The importance of review volume
There is also a methodological lesson.
A spa with 4.9/5 from 47 reviews should not automatically rank above one with 4.6/5 from 2,115 reviews.
The first provides evidence of very high satisfaction among a smaller group. The second provides a much more robust picture of how a large customer base experiences the business.
For that reason, we have treated review score and review volume as complementary rather than interchangeable indicators.
Customer Service: What Actually Matters at a London Spa?
For the Very Good Service audience, the most important issue is arguably not which spa has the most impressive pool.
It is how the customer feels they have been treated.
Across luxury spa experiences, the most meaningful service factors tend to be:
| Service factor | Why customers notice it |
|---|---|
| Arrival and welcome | Sets expectations immediately |
| Appointment management | Delays and confusion disproportionately damage premium experiences |
| Therapist communication | Listening and adapting feel more personal than a standard treatment |
| Staff attentiveness | Customers notice whether service feels proactive or reactive |
| Privacy | Particularly important for luxury clients |
| Crowd management | A major differentiator at busy destination spas |
| Service recovery | How a spa responds to a problem can matter more than the problem itself |
| Consistency | Luxury customers expect the same standard at every touchpoint |
This is also why social media can be useful alongside formal review scores.
Traditional review platforms are good at measuring broad satisfaction. Social discussion is often better at revealing why customers feel strongly.
The 2026 discussion around Corinthia and Mandarin Oriental is a good example. The issue is not whether both spas have good facilities. It is whether the customer experiences those facilities as calm and exclusive when they actually visit.
What the Wider London Spa Market Looks Like in 2026
The London market is becoming increasingly sophisticated.
The old formula was simple: five-star hotel + treatment rooms + swimming pool.
The leading spas now compete on a much wider range of dimensions:
Wellness credentials. Customers increasingly expect treatments to connect with fitness, recovery, sleep, nutrition or broader wellbeing.
Experience design. AIRE’s success demonstrates the value of giving the customer a distinctive experience that they cannot easily reproduce at home.
Personalisation. Smaller luxury spas can compete effectively against larger properties by making guests feel recognised and understood.
Privacy. Affluent customers increasingly value space and quiet just as much as equipment.
Operational execution. Once prices become very high, customers become much less forgiving of queues, crowding, delays or indifferent service.
This means that the best London spas are no longer necessarily the ones with the most facilities. They are the ones where the entire customer journey feels coherent.
Best Spas in London in 2026: Our Final Verdict
After combining the available review data with editorial coverage and customer sentiment, our overall ranking is:
1. Raffles Spa, The OWO — the strongest blend of luxury, exclusivity and customer service.
2. AIRE Ancient Baths London — the strongest evidence base and one of London’s most distinctive spa experiences.
3. The Lanesborough Club & Spa — particularly strong for personalisation, privacy and sophisticated hospitality.
4. Akasha, Hotel Café Royal — an excellent choice for customers who want wellness rather than simply pampering.
5. Spa InterContinental — a highly promising service performer whose very high rating deserves more attention.
6. Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park — especially attractive to customers who value a quiet, private environment.
7. Biome by Corinthia London — outstanding facilities and a strong overall rating, but more vulnerable to peak-period crowding.
8. Four Seasons Hotel London at Park Lane — still an important luxury option, although its current public spa rating is not as strong as the leaders in this comparison.
Methodology
This ranking is deliberately an aggregation rather than a reproduction of another publication’s league table.
We considered:
- current public customer ratings and review volumes
- specialist-spa review signals where available
- recent editorial coverage of London’s spa market
- recent social-media discussion, particularly where customers described the experience in detail
- facilities and proposition
- likely privacy/crowding characteristics
- the distinction between hotel brand reputation and spa-specific customer feedback
- customer-service factors including arrival, attentiveness, personalisation and service recovery
Time Out’s 2026 London spa guide is one of the useful contemporary editorial reference points for the wider market; its February 2026 guide describes its selections as spas its editors have tried and tested.
Social-media feedback was used as qualitative evidence, not as a scientific sentiment score. A Reddit comment represents the experience of one customer and should never be treated as equivalent to hundreds or thousands of structured reviews. Its value is that it can expose recurring themes — such as crowding, noise, privacy or exceptional service — that aggregate star ratings cannot explain.
Finally, all review figures should be understood as a snapshot of the London market in October 2026. Customer ratings, review totals, facilities and operating policies can change, so the ranking should be updated periodically rather than treated as permanent.
The bottom line
For the ultimate luxury-service experience, Raffles Spa is our 2026 winner.
For a memorable experience backed by the strongest volume of customer-review evidence, AIRE Ancient Baths London is the standout.
For customers who define luxury as privacy, discretion and highly personalised attention, The Lanesborough and Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park deserve particular consideration.
And for anyone booking a large destination spa, the most important lesson from the customer feedback is simple: the quality of the facilities is only half the story. How the spa manages the people using them is just as important.
That is where genuinely very good service still separates the leaders from the merely expensive.
This post was prepared by ChatGPT – prompted on 5th October 2026
Recent Industry Accolades: How the Eight Spas Have Performed
Customer reviews tell us what guests think, but industry awards provide another useful perspective. They show which spas are being recognised by specialist judges, travel editors and the wider wellness industry.
We have therefore looked at recent awards and professional recognition for the eight spas featured in this guide. One important distinction is worth making: winning an award, being shortlisted or being nominated are not the same thing. Where a spa has not won a major award recently, we have said so rather than turning a nomination into a headline achievement.
Guerlain Spa at Raffles London at The OWO
The clear recent awards leader of our eight.
Guerlain Spa at Raffles London has won England’s Best Hotel Spa at the World Spa Awards in both 2025 and 2026, making it the current holder of the title for two consecutive years. It is also listed among the nominees for the World Spa Awards’ World’s Best Hotel Spa 2026.
Closer to home, it won Best Spa in London in the 2025 Good Spa Guide Regional Awards, having also won the same Good Spa Guide regional title in 2024.
The spa was also Highly Commended for Best Spa Hotel – London in The Luxury Spa Edit’s Global Spa Awards 2026, while Vogue included the Guerlain Spa in its Global Spa Guide 2025.
Verdict: Raffles has the strongest recent competitive-awards record in this group. More importantly, it is not dependent on one organisation: its recognition spans World Spa Awards, Good Spa Guide, The Luxury Spa Edit and major travel-media coverage.
Akasha at Hotel Café Royal
Akasha has an unusually strong combination of customer reputation and professional recognition.
The spa was England’s Best Hotel Spa at the World Spa Awards in 2023, and it remains a nominee in the category in 2026.
More recently, Time Out named Akasha at Hotel Café Royal London’s Best Hotel Spa for 2025, following its editors’ testing of London spa hotels.
Akasha has also been a regular presence in specialist and luxury travel-spa coverage, while its current 2026 World Spa Awards nomination demonstrates that it remains firmly within the industry’s leading group.
Verdict: Its biggest awards win is not the most recent on the list, but Akasha has demonstrated unusually strong staying power. Being a former World Spa Awards winner and a current nominee, while also taking Time Out’s 2025 London title, suggests this is not simply a legacy reputation.
Biome by Corinthia London
Biome is an interesting case because its industry recognition is currently stronger at finalist/nominee level than at outright-award-winner level.
It is a 2026 World Spa Awards nominee for England’s Best Hotel Spa and also appears in the 2026 Good Spa Guide London awards field.
Good Spa Guide’s current editorial assessment also gives Biome considerable professional attention, describing it as a contemporary wellbeing destination with an unusually extensive thermal and wellness offer.
Michelin Guide has likewise featured Corinthia London’s spa among its London wellness recommendations, reinforcing its position as one of the city’s major luxury-spa destinations, even though this is editorial recognition rather than a spa award.
Verdict: Biome does not have the recent major competitive-award haul of Raffles, but its repeated presence on serious industry shortlists is significant. Its recognition is based heavily on the quality and scale of the proposition rather than a string of category wins.
The Spa at Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, London
Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park has perhaps the most interesting recent treatment-level accolade in the group.
Its Movementum Prime Treatment won Spa Treatment of the Year at the 2025 Destination Deluxe Awards, beating a competitive international field.
The spa was also a 2026 World Spa Awards nominee for England’s Best Hotel Spa and appears among the Good Spa Guide’s recent London finalists.
Separately, the spa holds a Forbes Travel Guide Four-Star Spa rating in 2026, placing it among the group’s internationally recognised properties for service and standards.
Verdict: Mandarin Oriental’s strongest recent recognition is around expertise and treatment rather than simply being named “best spa”. That fits the customer feedback in our main analysis, where personalisation and therapist quality are recurring themes.
Banya No.1 – Chiswick
Banya No.1’s recent recognition is notable because it comes from specialist spa organisations despite being very different from London’s traditional five-star hotel spas.
In 2026, Banya No.1 Chiswick was a finalist in three Good Spa Guide categories: Best Day Spa (Boutique), Best Spa in London and Best Spa for Wellness.
It was also selected as a finalist in the 2026 World Spa & Wellness Awards for Day Spa of the Year – Western Europe & Scandinavia, putting a Chiswick bathhouse into an international category dominated by much larger luxury wellness businesses.
The Chiswick branch has additionally received a 2026 Tripadvisor Travellers’ Choice award, meaning it is ranked within Tripadvisor’s top-performing attractions based on traveller reviews. Although this is not a traditional industry judging award, it is useful corroborating recognition from a different source.
Verdict: Banya has not accumulated the same number of major outright wins as Raffles, but its 2026 finalist appearances are particularly impressive given its very different business model. It is increasingly being recognised as a serious spa experience rather than simply an alternative wellness concept.
The Retreat at The Londoner
The Retreat at The Londoner has one of the strongest recent specialist-media wins in the group.
In 2026, it won the Women’s Health Travel Award for Best Spas for Self-Care, a particularly relevant accolade given the growing emphasis on restorative wellness and recovery rather than traditional beauty treatments.
It had previously won the Organic Spa Media Wellness Travel Award for Best Urban Spa, giving it a meaningful award pedigree dating back to 2023.
The Londoner itself has also received significant hospitality recognition, including Forbes Travel Guide’s Recommended distinction in 2026 and a number of hotel awards, although those should not automatically be interpreted as spa awards.
Verdict: The Retreat’s awards profile is smaller than Raffles’ but highly relevant to its proposition. The 2026 Women’s Health award is especially useful evidence that its self-care and recovery positioning is resonating with specialist travel and wellness editors.
Claridge’s Spa
Claridge’s has one major competitive win that remains highly relevant.
It won England’s Best Hotel Spa at the World Spa Awards in 2024, defeating a field that included many of London’s established luxury spa names.
It subsequently remained a World Spa Awards nominee in 2025 and 2026, showing that its 2024 win was not simply a launch-year novelty.
Claridge’s Spa also received Verified Luxury status from Forbes Travel Guide, whose assessment highlights the spa’s personalised, holistic approach and carefully designed facilities.
It was also featured in Vogue’s Global Spa Guide in 2024, while Condé Nast Traveller and other luxury travel publications have repeatedly highlighted the spa since its opening.
Verdict: Claridge’s has one of the strongest awards credentials among London’s newer luxury spas. Its 2024 World Spa Award is particularly significant because it came very soon after opening and was followed by continued nominations and luxury-industry recognition.
AIRE Ancient Baths London
AIRE’s awards history is unusually strong for an experience-led urban day spa.
The London location has been named Spa of the Year at the London Lifestyle Awards for three consecutive years — 2023, 2024 and 2025. AIRE’s own recruitment and corporate material confirms the three-year run, while its 2025 announcement described the latest win as its third consecutive victory.
That is particularly notable because the award has been repeated rather than won once.
AIRE London is also a 2026 World Spa Awards nominee for England’s Best Day Spa, placing it among a relatively small group of national contenders.
The combination is important: London Lifestyle Awards recognition speaks to its popularity and city positioning, while the World Spa Awards nomination gives it recognition within the specialist international spa industry.
Verdict: AIRE has the clearest recent record of repeated city-level awards. Its three consecutive London Lifestyle Awards wins are a meaningful indicator of longevity and consistency rather than a one-off launch accolade.
What the Awards Tell Us
Looking across the eight spas, the awards picture broadly reinforces — rather than contradicts — the customer-review analysis.
Raffles is the awards leader, with consecutive England’s Best Hotel Spa titles in 2025 and 2026, plus Good Spa Guide recognition.
Akasha and Claridge’s have particularly strong established credentials, each having won England’s Best Hotel Spa in recent years, while continuing to appear in current competitive fields.
AIRE has perhaps the strongest record of repeated city-level success, with three consecutive London Spa of the Year wins.
Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park’s strength is more specialised, with an internationally recognised treatment win and continued Forbes and World Spa Awards recognition.
Banya No.1 demonstrates that a very different spa model can now compete for serious industry recognition, while The Retreat at The Londoner’s 2026 Women’s Health win highlights the growing importance of self-care and recovery.
And perhaps most importantly for this guide, awards do not tell the whole story. A spa can have an impressive trophy cabinet and still receive individual complaints about value, crowding or service. Conversely, a spa with few major awards can generate exceptional customer loyalty.
That is why we have treated industry accolades as one layer of evidence alongside customer ratings, review volume, written feedback, social sentiment and the quality of the customer-service experience — rather than allowing awards alone to determine our ranking.
