Anyone tried this room service trick?
 

Mrs Northants JP and I recently stayed in a 5* hotel in London. One morning we decided to treat ourselves to breakfast in bed, I fancied the English breakfast, Mrs Northants wanted cereal, croissant fruit and tea. Accroding to the room service menu, mine would cost £24 and Mrs Northants' £20 - £44 in total!!!! If we went A La Carte it would come in at over £50....

But then we noticed....

On the tick boxe menu there was no "or" , "tick one only" instructions - so we ticked that we wanted one English breakfast and then ticked that we wanted ALL options within that

4 different fruit juices
Coffee
Tea
Milk
Croissants
Danish
Toast
Cereal
Fruit Salad
Eggs
Bacon
Mushroom
Sausages
Hash Browns
Vine Tomatoes
Black Puudding
Sauces, Butter and preserves

Plenty for the 2 of us with stuff left over for lunch and all at the cost of 1 breakfast and a saving of £20. Staff didn't blink an eyelid when they delivered it and I signed for one breakfast.

Is what we did common practice amongst other travellers, it just seems an ideal way to get more for your money, particularly when 1 of you wants something different from the other (obviously it wouldn't have worked if we wanted the same thing)?

Should I feel guilty for doing this? No, I don't think I should - The hotel wanted to originally charge me £6 for each fruit juice and £8 for the coffee at those prices it's they who are trying to fleece me....

:D And I presume you enjoyed the meal. I could imagine the amazement of the staff when he delivered your order. You did good getting the most out of your money.^

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Great idea! I will definitely remember that!

Great approach....

Its a variation on something Mrs. Cyberdad and I do with some regularity restaurants that insist on charging sky high prices, but also do serve massive portions. It also opens up the possibility of ordering more in the way of side dishes, appetizers, etc. and sharing those. Splitting a meal thusly makes sense on more than one level.

Ingenious! ^

If you try doing that in Asia, you would probably get billed for 4 breakfasts ;)

Good one! ^

Thanks for the tip..great.

I have found in the UK and Ireland this is accepted and you will get away with it. Particularly since many hotels (5* in London excepted) in that region include breakfast in the rate already.

I tried it in France and was billed for many items a la carte so that the total turned out to be more than 2 breakfasts.

Good tip for the future, thanks!

great idea!
 

I usually travel alone, but if one of my friends finally decided to accompany me in my frequent trip in Morocco, we will try to do the same thing! The problem is, what if that doesn't work in other places such as my favorite destination, which is Morocco?

We only tried it because the price of breakfast was so expensive, we wanted different items, and there were no clauses such as "pick one" or "or" on the menu.

If it had gone wrong and we had been charged for 2 breakfasts or they had charged us for all the items a la carte (probably at a cost of over £100) I would have relied on the lack of instructions on the menu.

You could also ask the hotel for clarification. If it's a hotel you love and cherish and a small family run affair I might think twice about trying this. A corporation run mega hotel in rip-off London is perhaps a different matter.


The story actually gets better... we did an express check out and when we received the bill later we weren't charged for the breakfast...it definately wasn't included in the rate as we were on a Priceline stay.

That's a neat trick, but not something I would have dared try if I couldn't afford the full a la carte price had it gone wrong. I will complain and quibble about prices, but only when I'm confident.

I got something similar by accident recently when I was ordering business cards - usually they charge per run, and I needed two sets, one for me, one for my husband - I filled the form out for one run of 200 (not thinking clearly at the time), and when I went to order said 'Oops, actually we want 100 of each design' - they charged for 1 run of 200 instead of 2 runs of 100, so it was a nice discount. I was expecting, and willing, to pay the higher price though.

This will not work in

Taipei
Hong Kong
Shanghai
Tokyo

Because I tried it in those places as well ;)