Avoid hotel rip-offs

High prices in a London hotel minibar (Photo by Rick)
High prices in a London hotel minibar

Hotels try to pad your bill with overpriced extras and ancillary fees; here's how to avoid them

All of the rip-offs listed below are perfectly legal; they're just not very nice.

Also, I should point out that, by a huge margin, it tends to be the pricier establishments that do this. The smaller mom and pop hotels and B&Bs do it much less (or at least less flagrantly), and their extra charges are often nominal and quite reasonable.

Many hotels, though, try to squeeze every pence they can out of you beyond the cost of the room. Because, hey: once you're booked in, you're bound to get thirsty and give into the temptation of that Coke in the minibar, or want to phone some great-sounding restaurant to make reservations for the evening or (God forbid) make a quick call home, or you may eventually want to, you know, eat breakfast or something. And then they have you.

Let the fleecing of the unawares begin!

Hotels links
B&Bs links
Apartments links