Comments on: Scam alert: beware of hotels that charge for what you don’t eat — or drink

By: sandrar

sandrar — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:57:47 +0000

Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. :) Cheers! Sandra. R.

By: dulles

dulles — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 10:04:43 +0000

hello.in order to stop these problems it would really help if any time you are being ripped off to report it to 1) BBB 2)the AG of that state 3)your credit card company. that way we can all check on the services and file a major suite in court. to you it is one incident but the hotel has 1000’s.1000;s a year. would you stay at a hotel that had 100s of complaints of this service?? thank you,

By: Max Weatherton

Max Weatherton — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 13:54:36 +0000

Paris Airport Sheraton.
Watch out for their minibar scam.
It is left in the room without any price list.
I assumed it was included in the room price.
At checkout I was asked about whether I had consumed any drinks from the minibar and which ones!
I had tried some of the small bottles of liquor and the champagne.
The clerk then said I owed another 155 Euros. The room was 175 Euros!
So they charged me exorbitant rates for the small bottles. One small bottle of Absolute Vodka for 47 Euros!
What a rip off. Plus the receptionists acted like robots.
These people need to reported to proper authorities as it is close to fraud if not fraud!

By: Don Smith

Don Smith — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:07:16 +0000

The W strikes again. Have stayed there 7 times in the past couple years. Three out of seven (percentage wise I’d say it’s way high) times. I have had “dis-Honor Bar” charges. First two times were for a mini bottle of Wine (which I don’t drink) They ran $12.50 a bottle. And the last time they waited a day after I checked out to charge me $6.50 for an “Honor Bar” item.

Called and ased about it……………….they are crediting my card.

Watch your card charges. Worse than the people with a bad attitude, giving bad service and expecting to get a tip.

By: Laurie

Laurie — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 15:18:40 +0000

I stayed at the Hotel Monaco (Kimpton) in DC last year, and upon checkout I noticed charges for valet parking. Which was kind of interesting, because I not only don’t own a car, I don’t even drive. I had to pull out my non-driver state ID to prove it. I jokingly asked them what kind of car they gave me… if they were going to charge me for a non-existent car (which they already had, and I had to wait for them to reverse the charge) I was hoping it was a nice one.

By: Val

Val — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 13:20:51 +0000

The Sheraton in Bellevue tried to charge me for bottled water when I was in town to take the bar exam (duh). When I checked in, there was just one big bottle of water with a big price tag hanging from it. I tried the tapwater, which tasted fine, and didn’t touch the bottled water. Day 2 after getting back from the bar exam, there was still just one bottle. Day 3, after getting back, a second bottle had mysteriously appeared. At checkout very early on Day 4, they charged me for the bottle that wasn’t there when I checked in. The dodgy part is that they didn’t “replace” the missing bottle the second day (or prior to me checking in!), but waited til the third day, and of course it didn’t show up on my bill until 6am on the day I needed to check out and had limited time to get to the final day of the bar exam.

They removed it immediately, but based on above reports and the weird timing of the bottle “replacement” and charge, I’m pretty sure it was deliberate. Skanky Sheraton :-(

By: Barbara

Barbara — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:33:45 +0000

I stayed at the Bellagio in Las Vegas and was hit with a $20 mini-bar charge. When I called to complain, I was told that the charge is based on “movement,” and that when I opened to door to the mini-fridge (which I did once to see what was in there), movement was registered and I was charged $20. They refused to refund me even though I didn’t consume anything; hence, I tell everyone I can to never stay there and I certainly never will. First class rip-offs. Macau is their justice.

By: Sean

Sean — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:15:57 +0000

The Fort Lauderdale Grande Hotel and Yacht Club in Fort Lauderdale FL is notorious for doing this. They hope that people won’t contest the charges.

By: Brian

Brian — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 18:09:07 +0000

My hotel once lost my rental car for a whole day, don’t ask me how it happened, I brought my ticket down and they couldn’t find my car. They brought me up three cars, none of them close to mine. After the second car I even told the attendant what make and model the rental was and they still brought the wrong car…yeah that 89 Lexus looks like the Ford Taurus I got from Hertz.

They fould my car by the time I returned from my day’s appointments and still had the NERVE to charge me for parking. I brought this to the attention of the manager and promptly moved to a hotel accross the street. They comped the parking charges and the room for the night which was the right thing to do.

By: Matthew B

Matthew B — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:39:39 +0000

As a rule, I don’t even open the minibar, especially the robobar type that automatically charges you. A lot of the more modern hotels and cruise ships allow you to check your bill on the TV screen. On a recent Carnival Cruise, I found a $2200 charge for the minibar on my room bill one morning. A quick trip to the purser’s desk resolved that issue (I don’t think there’s even $2200 worth of stuff in the minibar). It was clearly an error. I don’t think Carnival would be making a practice of adding such outrageous charges to shipboard accounts.

I am surprised that someone had a problem at Marriott because they’ve taken the minibars out of all their hotels in North America (they’ve also gone non-smoking, thank goodness!). Having said that, I just stayed at the Marriott Grand in Moscow and it has to be the single most expensive hotel I’ve ever stayed in. I think it was about $20 for a soda from the minibar – fortunately there was a Tabak right outside the hotel that sold sodas and beers for about $1.50.