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Comment by recipe19 | Hacker News Reader

It reminds me of a hotel I stayed at that had a stocked mini-fridge. Removing any item from the fridge resulted in an automatic, silent charge. Putting it back did not remove the charge. So if you simply took something out to check it in, or if you wanted to chill your own beverage, they counted that as consuming the item.

They removed the charges if you checked the bill and objected at checkout. But how many people don't look? I'm sure it generated enough revenue to pay for the sensors. No one is going to say it out loud, but false positives are the point.

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I was at a hotel recently with packaged snacks on a tray, cookies crackers etc. There was a sign clearly explaining that moving anything off the tray results in an automatic charge. Thank god we didn’t have the kids with us.

This kind of thing is so penny smart, pound foolish. If I ever see that sign, it's immediately going on my Instagram, telling everyone I know to never stay at such a place.

I'm still never staying at AirBnB's when it actually matters because they completely screwed over my gf when she booked a bachelorette party and the owner literally sold the property without cancelling the reservation and the new owner rebooked the same site, also using AirBnB. AirBnB just offered a refund, even though the monetary damages were easily 10x the cost of the reservation and obviously permanent in the fact that in ruined a major life event.

Say what you want about the amount of money your company will make. Reputations take a lifetime to build, and most people have a grim trigger when it comes to being screwed over.

Airbnb and Hertz are two companies in an ever-lasting battle to prove who hates their customer more.

Yep, never renting another Hertz car and avoiding Airbnb like the plague when I travel due to consistently poor customer service and abysmal experiences with them. If you hate me, book me an airbnb and a hertz car to get to it.

Got billed (via corporate) for this because I put my own coke in a beer can slot and found myself in an interview with HR about it later, very strict no alcohol policy on company expenses. At the time I was tea total.

teetotal.

> tea total.

If it was totally tea, why were you drinking coke?

I am amazed that hotels are still stuck in this old mindset of charging exorbitant amounts to some customers (unpleasant to customers) rather than providing a good service to all customers (good for customers).

If I knew that a hotel chain will have my room fridge stocked with beer at reasonable prices (small markup or even no markup, because this does not need to be a revenue stream!), I would pick that hotel every time. Just for the convenience, and the nice feeling of not walking a minefield.

The problem is that renting rooms is pretty low margin. Hotels typically need to pull up the average margin with addons like this to make the business worthwhile.

Is it though? Just checked for hotels 3 star and up in my city, 1 month out, 1 bed, and it's $314 per night for the cheapest one. I have a hard time believing that if I stay here for 2 or 3 nights and pay them $1000 that they are barely scraping by on this.

Well why not just post higher prices with the assurance of "we will not try to screw you over at every step"?

I would be perfectly OK with that.

It's funny that the disruption to hotels - Airbnb - Does what you're complaining about but 100x worse

Most hotels that have this will tell you this at check in. That’s the refrigerator is the mini bar/snack bar and don’t use it for personal items.

What they don't tell you is that you can request/demand a second fridge for medical reasons and don't have to explain any further. Take that for what you want.

Some hotels let you call and request for the items to be removed, to avoid trouble at check out.

That's pretty standard in American hotels these days though. You don't touch anything you don't intend to pay for. It's to prevent people from drinking the booze and refilling it with water.

There are always signs, but if you goof they'll always take the charge off, but you do have to be upfront about it and tell them before checking out, otherwise you'll be charged.

I once had hotel staff show up right after I checked in saying they needed to check on my fridge. They spent a weird amount of time going over it. I hadn’t even looked at it, but it turned out to be one of these. Later I began to suspect they suspected me of messing with it. Now I kinda wish I had been

Wow that’s wild. I never touch minibars anyway, but I have been known to look at the contents! Guess I won’t now.

Though here in New Zealand most hotels I’ve gone to over the past couple of years don’t even stock the minibar anymore, it’s just for milk and optional extras you book with the room.

Seems like this is standard for every hotel in Vegas.

Those things should just be illegal. I can't even imagine how much energy and plastic/paper/food goes to waste in those damn things.

An entire hotel probably wastes less from the mini fridge specifically than a family of 4 for a year.

It's in the ballpark if you include all energy source for the family.

100 rooms times, say, 50W (5kW) is 43,000kWh. That's over 10 UK families of 4-5 (4100kWh/yr) for electricity, or 2 if you include gas usage. So for Americans, it's probably must closer to parity.

The fridge does dump heat into the room, so it has a small additional penalty for the aircon in hot countries, but a small, but inefficient compared to a heat-pump, heating offset in cold countries.

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