Why I’m fed up with free hotel minibars

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• Chris Huggett says:

  29 Oct29 October 07:40

  The Andaz at Delhi Airport has a vast free minibar, no alcohol but loads of snacks, some actually healthy and lots of soft drinks, with a couple of really good natural smoothies .

• Mark says:

  29 Oct29 October 07:43

  Best ‘free’ minibar I have had is at the All Inclusive IKOS chain. you can request housekeeping to put any drinks you want in the fridge and it has some free snacks too. My wife mentioned in passing that she was really enjoying a certain type of white wine at dinner and we came back to the room to find a full size bottle had been delivered without us asking!

  • masaccio says:

    29 Oct29 October 07:46

    Sandals is the same. People can be sniffy about AI, but when done well it can be great.

    • Gordon says:

      29 Oct29 October 08:04

      As is the Hyatt Ziva and Hyatt Zilara AI properties.
      Stayed at all of them in the Caribbean/Mexico, fantastic.

  • aseftel says:

    29 Oct29 October 08:24

    They know their demographics – and one of the key ones is younger families. A strong mini bar is a big value-add if you’re spending your evening sitting on a balcony whilst the kids are asleep.

• JohnTh says:

  29 Oct29 October 07:46

  I dobt mind an empty fridge to keep milk and other drinks I’ve bought or sneaked out of the Exec lounge. Provided it is NOT really noisy – like most US ones in the kitchenette area that wake up every hour with a load rattle.

• paul says:

  29 Oct29 October 07:56

  Here you go then, how about this rough but enjoyable comparison between social classes:

  Pontins, Sand Bay nr WsM
  Average Stay £33pppn
  Included hot buffet breakfast
  Included hot buffet dinner

  Room Upgrade £10pp per stay;
  Upgraded Chalet
  Free newspaper
  Free bottle of wine
  Free box of chocolates
  Free biscuits
  Free UHT milk

  OK so you don’t get an actual mini fridge to keep your wine, chocs and milk in lol.

  £109 for 4 nights – I’d suggest those paying £750/night should try it lol

  • AJA says:

    29 Oct29 October 08:11

    Wow at that rate you could stay for almost a month at Butlins for £750. Not sure I’d want to but it is cheaper than the cost of renting a one bed flat in London.

    Is there a good fast train to Paddington? Might be cheaper to live there and commute to London.

    • AJA says:

      29 Oct29 October 09:21

      Oops I meant Pontins. And I’d actually avoid Butlins bedbugs or not.

  • Thywillbedone says:

    29 Oct29 October 08:27

    The problem with Pontins and the like is not the accommodation, it’s the other people.

    • Hak says:

      29 Oct29 October 09:46

      Probably no better or worse than the behaviour one can often see in airport lounges with people get drunk on the free booze. Besides if you have your own caravan or chalet I do not see why you would be interacting with other folk.

      • Gordon says:

        29 Oct29 October 10:14

        You do not need to interact with people, They interact with you once they spill out of the clubs in the early hours drunk and singing/Shouting/Arguing! Caravans/Chalets have zero sound proofing. I’ve experienced this first hand and I can say happily never again.

        • Paul says:

          29 Oct29 October 11:04

          The one at Sand Bay is Adult Only – and when I say “adult” I actually mean OLD – most go to bed at 10pm after the line dancing.

          And none of that modern Al Dente rubbish food – its all soft so easy on the gums

          Joking aside, Sand Bay is actually very good – basic chalets but food decent, entertainment OK (sometimes excellent) and it really is an incredible bargain.

        • Hak says:

          29 Oct29 October 21:24

          So that is a non random sample of one. I once had a drunkard bashing the door of my hotel in a 5 star hotel when they mistakenly believed they were locked out of their room. Again, so what? Is it representative of the place? Doubt it very much.

    • RussellH says:

      29 Oct29 October 11:04

      I suspect that it depends on when you go. Paul’s example looks like an out-of-season special offer, some thing we did all over France pre-covid. Mainly others like us looking for a brief trip with dirt cheap accommodation, but going out to nice restaurants for lunch or dinner.
      Did one in Cornwall back in May, we did interact with the couple in the chalet opposite, mainly because they were kind and helpful, explaining to us where the sitting outside chairs + tables had been hidden, and then helping us carry them to the chalet.

• Stephen Lee says:

  29 Oct29 October 08:02

  Rob mentioned the Virgin Hotel. I used £86,000 points to travel on a Virgin Cruise out of Portsmouth to Barcelona. In an auction I upgraded for around £1,200 and got absolutely unlimited food and booze for the whole trip of around 8 days, They could hardly squeeze all the booze into the cabin and the fridge was jammed. One or two bottles accidentally found their way into our suitcases. Almost worth becoming an addict to get one’s money’s worth ! Having said all that, I run a fleet of sleeper coaches and am too mean to provide more than tea, coffee, milk and sugar !

  • Chris W says:

    29 Oct29 October 09:05

    All food is included for all guests on Virgin Voyages

  • Will says:

    29 Oct29 October 10:21

    Is that what you did after the snooker career?

  • executiveclubber says:

    30 Oct30 October 03:24

    £1200 could have paid for a pretty sizeable bar tab. Good job yours was ‘free’!

• BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

  29 Oct29 October 08:02

  As long as there is a fridge in the room I’m happy.

  Complaints might lead to their removal entirely and none of us wants that!

  My biggest annoyance though is if there there is a bottle of complicated water it’s often left on the side and not in the fridge!

  • AJA says:

    29 Oct29 October 08:07

    Love the autocorrect typo. Maybe that’s because it’s complicated? 😀

    Seriously though some people don’t like the water chilled. I think a compromise might be one bottle in the fridge and one on the side?

    • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

      29 Oct29 October 08:20

      Have you seen some bottles these days?

      Positively dangerous to open!

      Should be a law against it or something,

  • RussellH says:

    29 Oct29 October 11:07

    Decent places provide 1 or 1½ litre bottles of “complicated” water which do not fit in the tiny wee fridges.

• AJA says:

  29 Oct29 October 08:04

  I use the minibar to store alcohol (beers and wine) and water along with salamis and prosciutto that I buy at the local supermarket so I don’t care if the mini fridge is empty, actually I prefer it.

  I try to avoid snacks such as crisps and biscuits but am partial to pistachios or cashew nuts but I don’t think I’ve seen a hotel minibar offer either of those.

  And I’m not bothered if there’s a kettle or a coffee machine in the room as I tend to only drink that with breakfast. But I do book hotels that includes breakfast , I got fed up of having to leave the hotel every day to go search for a local cafe.

  I like a hotel room balcony but it’s not somewhere that I consciously choose to sit on to have a drink as the sun goes down and that assumes you have a subset viewable balcony. I do use the balcony though.

  My daytime alcohol consumption in hotels (other than an AI resort) tends to be beside the pool or when I’ve ordered a lunchtime meal. Other than that I tend to drink bottled water.

  But I would expect a hotel room that costs £750 per night to have a decent stocked minibar, not necessarily free either. Though given it’s in the middle east I guess that it might not although if catering to European and American guests I think it really ought to. I think that’s one of the contradictions of flying the likes of Emirates or Qatar Airways that they freely serve alcohol on board even when they’re flying to what might be a dry country and the locals might frown upon it.

• Tim Hewson says:

  29 Oct29 October 08:06

  Tenants lager and a Carmel Tunnocks and you think this is “curated”. I suspect the hotel has a Glaswegian staff member who they simply sent to the shops.

  It’s all a silly distraction anyway when they should be completing on price.

  • Rob says:

    29 Oct29 October 08:35

    Competing on price is never a good idea. Business 101. Do what you can to avoid it. We don’t compete on price for advertising sales.

    • jj says:

      29 Oct29 October 09:26

      Competing on price is a very good idea if you have a lower cost base than your competitors. RyanAir and Aldi are two great examples.

      • Chas says:

        29 Oct29 October 18:37

        That only works if you have little constraints on supply. That doesn’t apply to a hotel where they have a limited supply of rooms, that they can only sell once per night…

  • The Savage Squirrel says:

    29 Oct29 October 08:35

    You can’t deny they have a certain place in Scottish consciousness though. Along with the Irn Bru and amongst the branded stuff, it was a cheeky wink to its location and Glagow being a city with an, ahem, “mixed” population demographic. Sure, a bit style-over-substance, but exactly the kind of tongue-in-cheek thing Virgin can often do well.

  • cin3 says:

    30 Oct30 October 10:44

    Yeah there’s no way any of this was thought about or planned.

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