A freeloader’s nightmare: Paying for things that should be complimentary

When The Girlfriend I went to San Diego last month, we stayed at a hotel that just open. And by just opened, I mean two days prior. The place was brand spanking new–so new that the address couldn’t be found on Mapquest.

There’s a difference between a national hotel chain opening up and a lavish grand opening on the Las Vegas strip. Instead of celebrities and glitzy, that San Diego hotel opened to empty rooms and hallways that reeked of glue. Las Vegas hotels work out all their kinks beforehand; smalltime San Diego hotels lock their guests outside at night because the door near the pool doesn’t work (thank goodness I managed to flag down an employee; otherwise, I would’ve had to spend the evening sleeping on a pool cot).

I’ve stayed at an Unidentified National Hotel Chain many times before and one of the reasons I do so is because the free breakfast they offer in the morning. I’m not talking a continental breakfast composed of generic cereal and day-old bagels. No, no–Unidentified National Hotel Chains have wonderful fresh, hot breakfasts. Eggs, waffles, bacon–a true, real breakfast with the quality of Denny’s–sans the smell of old people on the verge of their death. Every single Unidentified National Hotel Chain I’ve stayed at offered a free breakfast–it comes with your stay. Kinda like a toy in a Happy Meal.

When The Girlfriend and I woke up to get breakfast, we wandered over to the breakfast bar. It was self-serve so I made myself a waffle; she gathered some fruit and we sat down at a table to eat. A woman came up to us and offered us coffee. Another made sure we had napkins and silverware. I thought it was odd that they gave us that much attention. The majority of Unidentified National Hotel Chains have a girl around to make sure plenty of food was available–but I never had anyone come to my table before and offer me coffee. I chalked it up to the hotel being empty and the employees having nothing to do (you know a hotel is empty when only two people are eating free breakfast).

We got a few bites into our meal when The Girlfriend discovered a menu sitting on the table. It listed prices for coffee…and a $13 per person charge for the breakfast buffet.

“What are we going to do,” she said. Neither one of us would have came down to such a lousy breakfast if we knew it was $13 a pop. The bacon was cold. The waffle was tasteless. If I wanted to pay for a meal so crummy, I would have went to Denny’s.

How could I have been mistaken? It made no sense to me. Every Unidentified National Hotel Chain I ever stayed at offered breakfast for free–there was no reason to think this hotel was any different. I looked around the room. There were no hints of a cash register anywhere. No signs indicated a charge. In fact, the breakfast bar itself was out in the open, near a hallway.

It would have been one thing if The Girlfriend and I were sat down at a table and handed a menu. We walked into an open area that had food available. We had no way of knowing there was a charge because no one indicated to us breakfast wasn’t free.

I panicked. We both already started eating–it was too late to stop. I couldn’t return my waffle and say I wasn’t going to pay for it; she couldn’t put her eggs back into the warmer. “Just finish your meal,” I told her. “When we’re finished, we can play dumb. There’s no reason to think the meal isn’t free.” Even when we checked in, the front desk clerk told me to be sure to come down for breakfast in the morning.

It was hard to enjoy the meal because I knew what was coming. When The Girlfriend finished her food, she returned our room while I stayed behind reading the newspaper. The Girlfriend doesn’t like to be around whenever she knows I’m going to get mad: apparently I yell too much.

Not that I was looking forward to this. I suppose it was my bad to assume the food was free–but the hotel really needed to do a better job of making it clear breakfast wasn’t free. Maybe if they put a sign up or made sure everyone who went to the breakfast bar was properly greeted and told what was going on. Maybe I’m just a freeloader, but when I’m at a hotel and I see food, water, and coffee available without anyone keeping tabs of who’s there or not, I’m going to assume it’s free.

I had no intention of dining and dashing–that wasn’t my style. But I wanted to make it perfectly clear to the woman (who now clearly was our waitress) that I had no idea food wasn’t free. I got up from the table and went to the bathroom. When I returned to the hotel lobby, I plopped down in front of the TV. The waitress appeared before me and said “You check is on the table.”

Time to put those acting lessons I took at junior college to work. “Check? What check?”

“Your bill for breakfast,” she said to me.

The good news is that I didn’t hafta yell. I simply told the gal that I didn’t know there was a charge because ever other hotel I stayed at in her chain offered breakfast for free. I told her that I thought it was unfair for us to have to pay because prices weren’t clearly marked and I certainly wouldn’t have sat down if I knew I was paying $13 for a stinking waffle.

She offered to charge me for child’s meals. While I believed I was in the right and duped into a breakfast I wouldn’tve otherwise eaten, I agreed. The child’s price was 50 percent off and while $6.50 didn’t feel like a fair price for waffles and fruit, I accepted. It seemed like a fair compromise–even though I would have much rather eaten Pop Tarts in my room than gotten dressed and out of bed for that.

Before I left, I told the waitress that the hotel will have problems like mine in the future. They need to work out a system and maybe have a sign or two letting folks know the breakfast snacks aren’t complimentary. “”I’m sorry,” she said to me. “I thought I saw you here the past couple of mornings.”

Past couple mornings? The hotel opened two days ago and by my count, I was the third person to check in. Her assumption was just as bad as mine.

Later on that day, The Girlfriend and I were in our room watching TV. She was thirsty and the hotel room came equipped with a bottle of water. I’ve seen some hotels that offer complimentary water; I’ve seen some hotels charge $5 a bottle. But when a hotel charges for water, there’s always a giant tag on the bottle letting you know how much it cost. This bottle had nothing. But given the breakfast incident, I couldn’t be sure.

I called the front desk. “Hello, I just want to confirm that the bottles of water in the room are complimentary.”

“No, they’re not,” the clerk said to me. “It’s $3.50 per bottle.”

“Ya know, you might wanna get a label or something. You can’t charge people like that without warning them.”

“The cards were order but we haven’t received them yet.”

If I opened that water and they charged me, I would have been even more upset than I was about breakfast. You can’t go around charging people for stuff without letting them know there’s a charge. If the hotel doesn’t have the proper price indication for water, they shouldn’t be putting the water in the rooms. Either that or until they get the cards, that water has to be free–you can’t expect your guests to know what all the charges are.

That was over a month ago–I’m sure the hotel has worked out its kinks by now. But I’m sure it was ugly getting there.