Putting Personal Items in the Minibar is Going to Cost You
A last minute thought right before I went to bed cost me $50 this weekend. Well I got lucky (I think), but I almost had to pay a lot of money all because I stuck a small bag of wine (don’t ask) overnight on top of the drinks in the mini-bar at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas.
I thought my big problem was accidentally locking the mini-bar when trying to open it. But when I mentioned my issue to fellow conference attendees, their first response was “You didn’t put the wine in the minibar did you? They might charge you for putting personal items in there.”
Wait what!?
Apparently Scott Mayerowitz had recently written about the $25 fee mini-bar use fee being charged by Aria and other Vegas hotels.
Horrified I ran back to my room during one of the conference breaks. The Mandalay wasn’t charging $25 for personal use, they were charging $50! I had shoved the bag of wine on top of the soda cans late at night as an after thought, totally missing the little tag on one of the water bottles (since I wasn’t planning to consume anything).
And it was mentioned again in the little rate card, which I hadn’t seen since I wasn’t eating anything.
Ack.
Ack. Ack. Ack.
I checked my charges via the television after I called down to get the minibar unlocked and nothing was showing up. As of check out yesterday, nothing had appeared and I’ll admit I wasn’t going to volunteer that I had put something in there if the sensors hadn’t picked that up. I will now be checking my credit card statement for the next couple of days, just to make sure.
Whew.
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A bag of wine?
What is the world coming to??? 😀
😉
Just tell them you were looking in the minibar and bumped some items by accident. They will remove the charge. If not, credit card dispute.
I really think this extra fee to store personal items is unreasonable! I’m surde they still charge resort fee too. I hope you’ll not get charged.
This is absolutely ridiculous. I would love to hear a reasonable justification for the charge.
The way the notice is hidden is predatory. Why would you read a water bottle tag if you don’t plan on drinking it, and how is that an appropriate place to put a note about the fridge use charge? Same with putting it in fine print at the bottom of the price list. Why would anyone read the price list if they don’t intend on taking anything from the fridge?
so you are supposed to rent a refrig for $35 a night? on top of all the ridiculous fees? wow just wow! another strike against the “riches”, make’em pay their fair share. i suggest Macau for a better experience, 6x the gaming volume of LV, huge, nice casinos. it is half a globe away true though.
Since she stayed two nights, it was technically more economical to get hit with the $50 fee than pay $70 to rent the fridge for two nights!
The Mandalay rooms also had a Keurig coffee machine and they wanted 4 bucks to use one capsule. Giddy up!
i am horrified that hotels are starting to charge to use their fridges? i dont get it, why would they charge you to use it? id be questioning them why they charge$50 to put something in their fridge?
Probably because they were willing to rent a fridge to me for $35 a night!
I liked your picture where you’re at the chair…you’re hot!