As a follow-up to my previous post, I just checked my credit card statement and saw two separate charges from the Westin DTW (the hotel stay was a SPG.com prepaid rate and hit the credit card weeks ago). After calling the hotel it turns out that they hit me for a $14 minibar charge, which was incorrect as I did not take any items from the MB.

Having knowledge of this hotel's WATER-GATE policy, I brought two bottles from home. Coincidentally, the labels (Dannon) looked very similar to the lables on the infamous $5.50 bottles (although the brand was different). I wonder if they saw my own empty bottles in the trash and just figured it was "westin-wasser".

Normally I would think that the minibars are repleinshed by a separate staff member, however, when I went down to breakfast I passed a maid's cart which also carried beverage and snack items, suggesting that housekeeping was also responsible for the MB. Oh well, lesson learned - I'll refuse the MB key next time and hope that they process my refund as they have promised.

[This message has been edited by Non-NonRev (edited 08-26-2003).]