I think almost everyone understands the massive rip-off hotel minibars are (What inspired this topic was watching a video about current Las Vegas scams that has a single can of Coke which retails for $1 at most today going for an eye watering THIRTEEN BUCKS) but I am curious if anybody has every actually used them, and why, if they were desperate or the prices weren’t actually bad.
Back before computer sensors were perfected I have to admit, I was the asshole who would occasionally open the bottle of Fiji water, drink it, then refill it with tap water and perfect seal it. Never was charged but also only ever did it twice and that was when I was thirsty in the middle of the night and was at a far off-strip hotel with absolutely nothing open near me that late.
No. Never. I always wondered about the economics of it. I don’t see how anyone would do it. But I would be tempted if the markup was just outrageous and not obscenely outrageous. I would think they would make a lot more money with less of a markup without having to rely on the occasional blackout drunk.
When we occupied several suites for Orycon a few weeks ago we stripped out all the minibars and hid all contents until it was time to go, photographing the contents, both before and after.
I was on vacation in Mexico and I once grabbed a soda from the minibar because I was very thirsty and I wasn’t going to drink the water from the bathroom tap (it was very late at night, most everything was closed and I wasn’t going to leave and walk around to find something to drink).
Other than that, never have and never will if I can at all help it. I never understand how they think those prices are reasonable and the way to make the most money from it. But, I guess they have crunched the numbers and enough people are dumb enough to do it.
Once on a business trip to Europe in the middle of summer. The room had no air conditioning and it was horribly hot. I was desperately thirsty and the only cold drinks were in the minibar.
Fortunately, as I said this was a business trip, so I was eventually recompensated for it.
Supposedly, some hotel minibars have sensors that track what’s removed so you might be charged even if you just take out something to look at but don’t consume it. I’ve also heard that you can request that the hotel empty the minibar before you occupy the room, such as if you’re a recovering alcoholic and want to avoid the temptation.
In the 1990s when I examined travel expense reports as part of my job, an absolutely shocking percentage of salespeople regularly used items in the minibar. Even back then the prices were like $4-5 for a bag of chips or a soda. $8-10 for a mini bottle of wine or beer.
It came out of the $50 per day meals limit. We didn’t care. Most of the time these guys weren’t going to a steakhouse for dinner. They’d just grab a pizza or sandwich and eat it in the room. If they were traveling alone they just wanted quiet time after 5pm.
I stayed at a very nice hotel in Milan for a business trip and checked out the mini bar. I picked up a beer with a label of a beautiful woman with uh, more than ample accessories. I thought I might take it home as a sovereign of my trip, but then saw it cost like $32 per bottle so I put it back. Next day it showed up on my hotel bill.
I told my supplier about this the next day and he exclaimed that this was how business works here in Italy and that he was impressed with the scam. He then called the hotel and they took it off my tab.
I’d flown into town for a funeral. The funeral was a little emotionally taxing, and when I got back to my hotel, I wanted a drink, but didn’t want to go down to the hotel bar. So I hit the minibar. Not unreasonably; as I recall, I had two little bottles of gin and a can of tonic water as a mixer. Of course, the room came with glasses and there was ice down the hall, so no problem there.
But of all the places I’ve ever stayed that had minibars, that’s been about it.
The only time I used a hotel minibar was at a family-run (not a chain) hotel in Paris. The prices were right on top of the mini-bar fridge, and they were quite reasonable: about what you’d pay in a store or vending machine. Like €1.50 for a 330 mL bottle of Orangina. We drank most of the drinks in the mini-bar fridge, and they helpfully refilled it for us.
Go do a thousand push ups! Because of people like you -I- was dinged by a hotel. No, I hadn’t touched the $5 per bottled water, but someone had, and they caught it on my watch. So $10 (two bottles) got billed to us.
You can do the push-ups of penance over a few weeks. I’m not a total jerk after all!
But for purposes of the thread, because of that I “bought” two bottles of water from a hotel fridge/bar. Nothing else.
I travel to Europe often and sometimes end up in hotels with nowhere to purchase a coke other than the minibar. I usually try to find a store before I end up in these godforsaken locations but sometimes it doesn’t work out. Those are the only times I resort to the mini bar.
I was so excited on a recent to Dublin to find out the hotel actually had lovely vending machines that sold water, coke and snacks!
When I used to travel for consulting work I would use the mini-bar as I wasn’t paying for it.
The last time we were in Rio in 2015 we stayed at the Arena Hotel right across from Copacabana Beach. For a week we ate and drank out of the minibar including Champagne splits. The exchange rate was so good that the total bill was chump change in U.S. Dollars. That was a great week!
I’ve been to all inclusives where the minibar was included.
I was in Dubai in 2018 and a bottle of Heineken from the minibar was $110.
Yes, once. It was a hotel in Madrid, and our kids (much younger, this was a few years ago) were curious how it worked. So we let them open a small can of Pringles. Sure, it cost like seven euros, but as a one-time novelty, it was not a big deal. Plus they discovered the Pringles were stale, because they’d probably been sitting there for a year, per the general drift of the thread. They got it out of their system as a one-time thing, and haven’t asked again. That made it worth the money, from a certain point of view.
Not supposedly, in actuality. We were just in London this past weekend, and that’s how the Hilton’s minibar setup worked.
I regularly take snacks from the minibar then restock from a nearby super market before I get charged (DND sign left on the door). Why? Because I might get in late to the hotel and am peckish but can’t be bothered going out.