So many things annoy me about checking into a hotel. First, it’s being intimidated by the concierge because he’s always dressed smarter than me. Second, the whole baggage thing. I hate having someone carry my luggage up to my room. I’ve managed to get it all the way from one part of the world to a hotel in another. I don’t then need someone to wheel it the remaining 12 yards to my room. And even if I did, I don’t think it’s worth a tip.
Then I’m annoyed because I can’t work out how to get at the theft-proof coat hangers. And because the TV’s stuck on a chintzy “Welcome to our hotel, Mr Rudd” page, and every button I press seems to switch it to the $15-an-hour porn channel, which will now show up on my bill. And because I’m sure I’ve been given the room with the worst view, the smallest bed and the most complicated curtains.
All this pales into insignificance, though, when I am confronted by the Most Annoying Thing in the World. The hotel minibar. Yes, I know there are plenty of other things that should be up there — people who use mobile phones on trains, people who use iPods on trains, world poverty, to name but three — but for sheer, blatant, outrageous, monstrous annoyingness, it’s minibars for me every time.
Three minutes after you see me vanish into my room, you will hear the shrill, muffled scream of horror that goes something like this:
“FIVE QUID FOR A BOTTLE OF WATER?!? YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS!” Because I can never quite believe how the hotels have the cheek to get away with it. It’s midnight, you’ve had a long flight, you’re tired and dehydrated, lips cracked like you’ve just crawled across a desert. You have no idea if you can drink the tap water or not, and there it is, that tempting little bottle of mineral water, sitting in the minibar like an unattainable oasis, next to its ridiculously inflated price tag. Five, perhaps 10 times its street value is perfectly standard practice. For water.
If you want something as fancy as a can of Coke, in some places you won’t get much changer from a tenner. And what sort of chocolate bar would you think £3.50 buys you? Something organic perhaps, handmade by Chilean mountain people from the world’s finest cocoa beans, packaged in designer rice paper and tied with a bow of £50 notes? You’ll be lucky if it buys you a Kit Kat.
The price isn’t even the worst of it. What about the minibars that are booby-trapped? If you so much as lift a product out of them, BANG!! It’s on the hotel bill for you to argue over on departure. Electronic tagging is controversial enough on criminals. How do they get away with it on Pringles?
Enough is enough. Today, we name and shame the rip-off minibars. Which means a lot of naming and shaming. First, we asked hotels to supply their price lists. Several were reluctant, and one refused point blank. The woman at the Ritz Paris said she wouldn’t give any information that risked portraying the hotel in a bad light.
Well, we weren’t having that. Our investigative-reporter noses were twitching. We sent our undercover man in Paris for a snoop around, and just before we went to press, he reported back. They do indeed have something to hide. The Ritz Paris charges £6.70 — yes, £6.70 — for what it describes as a “canette” of Coca-Cola — thus shooting to the top of our list of shame (see box, above).
In fact, of the hotels we tested, only the Emirates Palace, Abu Dhabi’s super-extravagant seven-star hotel, thinks that its customers have paid enough already not to be further charged for soft drinks and snacks. At the Four Seasons in Milan, you’ll pay a shocking £7.50 for a beer, and an equally outrageous £6.80 for a bottle of mineral water; and a packet of M&Ms at the Oriental in Bangkok will cost £2.47. You can have a three-course meal and a Singha beer on the Khao San Road for that.
It’s hilarious the way some hotels try to pretend they aren’t ripping you off. Take the Waldorf Towers, in New York. Even using the current, super-friendly exchange rate, a Kit Kat costs £2.04. But that’s okay, because it is listed under Gourmet Foods, along with Snickers, pretzels and Gummy Bears. And I would caution against getting elegantly wasted in your room at the Byblos, hotel to the stars in St Tropez. As well as charging £5.40 for a titchy little 25cl bière, it’s asking £161 for a 70cl bottle of Absolut vodka. My advice? Buy a bottle at the airport for a tenner before you go.
When I notified the five-star Metropolitan on Hyde Park Corner that, at £3.50, it had won the award for Most Expensive Kit Kat We Could Find, we were thanked for the accolade. The GM gave us this rather lofty justification: “When one factors into the equation the high overheads faced by any hotel in a prime location such as Park Lane, one must expect to pay the price for eating a Kit Kat in such palatial surroundings.” Well, we’ve already paid £320, exclusive of 17.5% Vat, for the privilege of sleeping in the “palatial surroundings”. Couldn’t you chuck in the Kit Kat for free?
Claridge’s went quiet for a while when I asked it to justify charging £4.50 for a Coke. Then, Renaud Gregoire, the hotel’s food and beverage director, offered an explanation: “The London hotel industry is highly competitive, and Claridge’s, being at the top of its field, cannot afford to fall behind its competitive set. Claridge’s does not pretend to be the cheapest, but what we strive for is to be the best, and to offer our guests excellent value for money across the full experience of their stay.” I’m sorry, Renaud, I don’t care. You’re still charging your guests £4.50 for a Coke.
Hilton’s justification for its prices was mind-boggling. “It is created by two to three people being required to replenish items daily, the cost of technical maintenance of minibars and equipment, and other maintenance, including cleaning and ensuring that all drinks and snacks are still within their consumption date at all times.”
Hilton is one of the tagging bunch: take anything out of the bar and, ping, it’s on your bill. Now that’s technology. Annoying, untrusting and, most important, expensive technology. Perhaps if it just had normal minibars, the technical maintenance would let it charge less than the £2.80 it does for a Coke at its Heathrow hotel.
The Starwood Hotel group has identified minibar costs as a frustration for guests, so it is introducing several new initiatives, such as free tea and coffee in Sheratons and Westins, and free water for Luxury Collection properties. At least it’s trying. So is the Hotel du Vin chain, which only wants £1.50 for a Coke and £3.50 for a Kronenbourg (but, grrrr, still £3.50 for water).
Why can’t all these hotels follow the example of Mr Pret A Manger, Sinclair Beecham? At his new Hoxton Hotel, in Shoreditch, you get complimentary water — and the sort of goods that you’d normally find in a minibar are sold in the lobby at shop prices. That means — are you sitting down? — Kit Kats for 50p.
“I’ve been charged up to £2.50 for a Kit Kat in London’s West End hotels,” Beecham says. “That’s not for me, and it’s not for my guests.”
I couldn’t agree more. So come on, readers! Let’s have a revolution. Let’s throw those minibars out the window. Failing that, because I don’t want to be arrested for incitement to violence, let’s just whinge a lot at reception. They’ll soon get the idea.
I currently work at a hotel and i am responsible for minibars including the ordering and stocking.we give customers who stay in the rooms which have minibars two free glass bottles of water a bar of dairy milk chocolate and a carton of orange juice. yet they still steel the stock in the fridge???
Sara , Bolton,