Upgrade: Travel Better writes that hotels are using motion sensors and scales to charge you if you even move an item from your room’s minibar. Here is what one such device looks like at the Wynn hotel in Las Vegas. Say you want to check out the nutritional information on the package. Or look at it. Or you pick one up and change your mind. You could get charged an extra $100 for food you didn’t even eat. The safest bet is to just not touch the hotel minbar. Or even think about it. No doubt they’re working on sensors to detect that and charge you for it as well.
That’s just one of many annoying hidden hotel fees. Here’s 10 others and how to beat them.
Be careful not to touch anything at the Wynn Las Vegas [Upgrade: Travel Better]
(Photo: Five Hundy by Midnight Podcast)
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Bellagio’s does that too. We got charged for M&Ms that my husband picked up and put down.
They should change it to something like if it’s picked up for more than 5 minutes or something. But youre still SOL if you pick it up and put it down somewhere else only to move it back later. Have people had luck having this stuff removed from the bill?
How is this legal? Being charged for merely moving an object? Heaven forbid you accidentally bump the minibar…. you could be charged a small fortune!
If you saw The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert – this would sadly make sense
(for those that didn’t: there’s a scene where they clean out the minibar and replace the vodka with tap water, the darker booze with tea)
“$8.00 for Beer Nuts. This room IS evil.”
The Wynn does have that but they also have a little note that says the item can be put back within 60 seconds. That’s a reason why I don’t touch anything on those sensors.
i’m pretty sure that you need to have the items away from the platform it is on for more than 30 seconds or something like that. I’ve stayed at the Wynn 2x in the past two years.
@MickeyMoo: I’m sure the management could just check to see if said products were opened in that case, instead of whether or not they were just moved around.
here’s what you can do:
1. call the front desk and have someone remove all the items from the minibar/snack tray. get a receipt.
2. if they refuse, use a laundry bag and put all of the items in it and take it to the manager on duty. get a receipt.
harrah’a in vegas does the same thing. only they actually sent somebody up to our room to check on it.
i wouldn’t think a place like the wynn would have those…..it takes a small fourtune to stay there, same with bellagio
@hypnotik_jello:
I’m sure “management” could, but the mini bars are usually checked by the overworked and underpaid cleaning staff who probably illegally get paid by the room instead of by the hour and don’t have the time to pick up each bottle and hold it up to see if the neck seal has been broken.
@qwickone:
Bellagio removed it from the bill with no problem.
Most hotels have a mini bar restocking fee if you remove items from the mini bars so don’t try that. Is it really so much trouble to not touch stuff in a hotel room ini bar that you don’t want to buy? Geez.
I’ve seen these in hotels for a long time and I have never been tempted by them. The $18 room room service Caesar Salad is another matter, though. I’ve never spent a penny on mini bars but 24 hour room service has got my number.
I stayed at a Hyatt in Boston for a business conference and noticed that if you even OPEN the mini-bar they will charge you a $25.00 restocking fee. Doesn’t matter if you take anything out or not. Outrageous!!!
las vegas hotels/resorts: is a mini-fridge, coffee maker, and a microwave too much to ask?
This is exactly why I bring my own booze if I intend on drinking at a hotel. It’ll save me buttloads of money.
Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas has the same thing (last time we went in 2007). What’s really annoying is that the bar is stocked with really pricey and tall items (such as vodka and wine) and it sits right on the dresser. We were careful not to put anything large and clunky, such as my laptop bag, on the top of the dresser in fear of it “accidentally” knocking over everything and us ending up with $1000 worth of alcohol on our bill.
I stay in hotels all the time- this is common.
IF something is charged to your bill, ask to have the charge removed- or to have someone check the minibar.
Call down or use the TV guest services menu to check your bill in advance – before you are standing at the desk with a flight to make.
If the Robo-bar is free standing or in a piece of furniture, jar it so that the whole thing registers movement of product.
You then say “oh, I stumbled into it…we didn’t use it”
Hotels will clear out the minibar if requested in advance- just tell them the guest has an abuse problem and all alcohol has to be removed.
MK
the new york new york resort in las vegas does not have any mini-bars
some rooms even have ice makers (we use them like little coolers).
God forbid the housekeeping do inventory.
Are they going to start putting dye packs on the towels?
This is news? Anyone who has stayed in more than one hotel ought to know that ANYTHING beyond the regular room rate is a complete ripoff (and sometimes even a scam, as illustrated here).
No surprise, they just want to make sure we don’t put bathroom tiles back into the cookie box
To sum up, yes, there are sensors on the minibar. Yes, they probably register too many false positives. And … yes, the front desk should be able to take stuff off your bill. Couple of further points here:
1. I’ve successfully had my bill adjusted days later. Sure, you get caught in phone tag with management, and you have to keep on them, but generally, they’re pretty good at working with you. Generally. Of course, with something like a mini-bar charge, it gets harder to prove/disprove after the room has been cleaned. What I’m trying to say is that, if you notice a problem on your bill after you leave the premises, you’re not totally SOL.
2. I do check my bill meticulously for extra fees, and almost never find them. HAVING SAID THAT…. I did get an odd fee at a hotel in Dallas: something like $1.50/night as a “Safe Fee”. I called them when I noticed that (I checked out at 5am, grabbed my receipt and left; I noticed this a week later as I was doing my expense report). The manager said that that was “for use of the safe”. I said, “But I didn’t!” so he pulled it from the room. Seemed a bit shady that they charged me as a default though.
I was at some resort in IL that had the minibar sensors. I emptied the fridge to us it to store some left overs and milk that i bought for cereal. When i checked out, they charged me for everything in the fridge. I was able to argue the charge, but I thought it was ridiculous.
Stayed in Caesars’s in Nov last year, they have the same annoying setup. Two of the slots were empty – I had my husband call the front desk immediately lest we be charged $45 for a 3 pack of golf balls!!! I think they probably make a lot of $$$ from drunken people who accidentally knock them off the sensors when they stumble back in their room!
@snoop-blog: Most Las Vegas Hotels/Resorts don’t put minibars (or microwaves, or fridges) in the rooms to encourage you to get downstairs and get-a gamblin’. Ridculously policed minibars are a “luxury” that some of the swankier places provide.
Need a late checkout at the Hilton Chicago? They’ll sell you one for $25/hr. If you don’t accept that offer,they’ll gladly check your bags for the afternoon at the Bell desk——for 1.50 a bag (with tip jar prominently displayed)!
If you’re in Las Vegas, you should pretty much expect to be scammed somehow. Isn’t that kinda the whole point?
Again, if anyone is coming to Toronto, let me know. The hotel I work at has an actual person whose job it is to check the mini-bar. We ask you when you check out if there was anything from the private bar to add. If you lie and the mini-bar girl checks and something is missing, you get charged. If you tell the truth and didn’t take anything, then you’re all good.
Plus people dispute stuff all the time, if it is less than $10 we usually just take it off.
A can of coke costs $4. Plus tax.
You can also call ahead and tell them you’re traveling with your own food due to allergies, or with baby formula/food, or with medicine that needs to be refrigerated and they will gladly pull the items from the minibar and leave you with an empty fridge.
Last time i whent to a hotell that actuily HAD one of these things i told them. (in polite terms)
I basickly gave them 2 choises.
1. remove the unit compleatly.
2. comp me the entier contents of the unit.
or i’m going to shake the thing every 20 minuts till eather 1 or 2 gets done.
since the thing charged x amout per cencor and the guy at the desk musta ben a bit lazy i got the whole minibar comped
all that and i drank 2beers and one of those little bitty things of vodca
if i ever end up in that earia again ill stay there again.
PS. the room was like 130$ a night.
they made there cash off me :p nice place tho.
@MickeyMoo: Having worked in management in a couple of those Las Vegas resorts being mentioned (fortunately that is over), I can tell you for a fact that the housekeepers are not underpaid or overworked. The employees are part of the union and the union negotiates the work contracts on behalf of the employees, which includes how many rooms/shift to clean and how much they get paid. If they feel overworked or underpaid, it is the result of the union negotiations, not the management making the employees work unfair hours/be paid inappropriately.
@snoop-blog: Yes it is, things like that make you stay in your room longer (same reason the tv stations in the hotel rooms only have like 10 channels, and no HBO or anything), and spend less money in the casino. Why would they put a coffee maker in you room if you can go downstairs to one of the 3 Starbucks in the casino/hotel and spend $7 there?
But yes, they can/will take off the charges if you didn’t use the items in the mini-bar. While staying in one of the resorts, I noticed a charge on my bill for the mini-bar, which I hadn’t used. I just called down to guest services and they removed it, no questions asked.
I would hate to check out the morning after an earthquake. The checkout line would be horrendous with all those people disputing their mini-bar tabs…
Disney had just started using this system in the Grand Californian at Disneyland when I was there last, and my 8 year old son picked something up and showed it to me. While it was on my bill when we got ready to check out, when I contested it they sent someone up to check and had it taken off within 3 minutes. No reason other hotels using this system could not act the same way Disney does.
@zagroseckt … intriguing spelling on that one. $130 a night for a nice room? Was this like 10 years ago. Jeez, the Riviera runs $140/night these days, and it’s constructed entirely out of hookers and bed bugs. And that’s a conference rate! Sigh…
@Zagroseckt: ok so #1: Learn to spell. #2: Don’t brag about how you scammed the hotel and stole minibar drinks while acting like a douche to the hotel staff.
@12-inch Idongivafuck Sandwich: great point. about the union and the amenities
@sith33: my new york new york trip was only $55/ night. gotta have a good travel agent to find the best deals.
These things have been around for the better part of a decade. And every hotel that has them should take the charge off if you call them and notify them. Big whoop.
@sith33: It all depends on when you go and what promotions the hotels are running. I stayed at Mandalay Bay for $100 a night last month.
I worked night audit at a Quality Suites for a while before I got a better job. They did one kinda shady thing and one really shady thing IMO.
The kinda shady thing was the expensive bottled water in each room (I think the charge was something like $5 for one of those large Fiji bottles). To me, that was only kinda shady since I figure everyone knows not to touch that kind of thing (and in my experience very few guests ever “took advantage” of the water). There wasn’t an automated system to track it; the housekeepers would report back to us if the water was missing when they cleaned the room.
The really shady thing was automatically charging customers $1.50 for a newspaper each morning. You had to ask to have this fee removed from your bill as you were checking in, and we didn’t make it obvious. You really had to pay close attention to the paperwork to avoid this charge. Most people didn’t.
By contrast, if you bought a newspaper from a box on the corner, it cost 75 cents.
$130 a night for a nice room? Was this like 10 years ago.
It all depends on where you stay and when you stay. Weekends are more expensive, but I’ve stayed at the MGM Grand for $50/night and Mandalay Bay for $90/night during the week, and at Mandalay Bay for under $200/night on a weekend. You need to do some better shopping around; sign up for all the casino email lists, and they’ll send you good deals.
@44 in a Row:
Yeah, the key is “weekends”…I stayed at the Luxor not so long ago (Feb ’02 I think) for $39 a night, Monday-Thursday…I don’t think I’ll ever see a price like that. Not that the Luxor is the Ritz-Carlton or anything, but still.
I think this robo-bar stuff is predatory and a totally BS move by the hotels. For every one of the posters above who knows better than to touch anything, there’s fifty other visitors who aren’t as savvy. Just because the customer SHOULD look at the bill first to see if there are any bogus charges doesn’t mean the hotel has the right to just stick stuff on there in the hopes they can get away with it.
This is very common at hotels all over the country. In the past, while on a long business trip, I’ve requested that the minibar be emptied and I use it for my own food / leftovers.
I for some reason thought this was common knowledge? At the nicer hotels on the strip, the fridge is usually within the dresser so for one to ‘bump’ into it and jar the contents would be quite a feat.
As with others, one time, when I was dumb, I opened the door and looked at an item. When I was charged for it, I told them what I did and they removed it from the bill. Not very difficult.
@Javert: Bellagio (and Wynn) have a tray of goodies on top of the dresser that triggers the sensor.
Lest ye forget the chargeback, lads. Even if a hotel gave you a hard time about removing the charge for a minibar you didn’t use, you could still call your credit card company.
I stayed at the Wynn ONCE. The service was so terrible – after complaining, being apologized to and comped, TWICE, the service got worse – I checked out and moved to another hotel for the rest of the week.
But, while I was there I picked up a $10 mini-bag (teensy-tiny bag) of “Wynn” potato chips. Less than 5 seconds later, I returned the bag to the mini-bar. Less than 5 minutes after that some guy was pounding on my door demanding to inspect my mini-bar.
@missdona:
Marriot does this, even overseas.
The wife and I were in Paris for a week, at the Marriot Rive Gauche. Out of curiosity, I took a gander at the minibar. I picked up a few things, looked at them, and put them back…
THEN I read the sticker conveniently placed inside the mini-fridge that said something to the effect of “any item removed will be charged to your room.”
We had to go down to the front desk and explain that I was just curious and hadn’t actually consumed everything.
They were really nice and understanding about it, and they removed the charges (which had already appeared in their computer system, 5 minutes later). I don’t remember exactly how much it was, but it was a lot.
@k8supergrover: Hey, I was hoping to visit Toronto and Quebec this summer. Let me know if you happen to work at a Starwood hotel… I’m hoping to use my points for an award stay.