so for those wanting to drink in excess of the stipend, about USD 8-10 per 20cl bottles, as long as they're stacking the right champagne^

How do you define "outside the minibar"?

"Minibar", for me, is the concept of having a mini bar inside my hotel room. "Minibar" does not mean "fridge". Just placing items outside the fridge doesn't mean they are "outside the minibar".

In Korea I had a notice in the bathroom advising me that I could buy toothbrush and paste from the minibar (some law is barring them from providing disposable toothbrushes). Of course they didn't place the item inside the fridge.

HTB.

As I understand it any items outside the actual fridge are only allowed free of charge to RA's at the discretion of the property. Technically that includes red wine quite often.

i've never been asked to pay for red wine, as far as i'm concerend, all beverages are covered, whether refrigerated or not, and the snacks, whether refrigerated or not, are not included, that's what the T&C state, Beverages^

some properties are generous and include the snacks, they may not have received the memo a few years ago.

I've literally never seen a property that gives free snacks for some reason, but on the flipside, they've never reeeeeeeeeeeeally charged for them either.

But I'd be all up in arms if they charged for a beverage "outside" the minibar.

We're all being really rather petty here btw, considering we're the top 1% or whatever. :rolleyes:

the snacks were included in the benefit, up until a few years back.

and even since the reduction in benefit, i tend to avoid them, but i've never been charged for snacks.

Minibar snacks have never been part of the benefits mandated in the terms and conditions, although many hotels have offered them or simply not charged as far back as 2004 according to various threads.

my recollection over the years was the benefit never stipulated beverages exclusively, but stated "Mini Bar" i may be wrong, but for sure no items, beverages, nor snacks were charged for years at all the properties i visited.

some of the long term RA's may recall their experiences?

it's never been a property, ot T&C issue for me, i've never been charged for either.

As far as I recollect, years ago (more than five, probably) the terms changed to
- beverages only (some hotels haven't been enforcing it. I also remember some hotels playing tricks before that, like excluding alcoholic beverages)
- in-room consumption only.

I even recall getting free travel adaptors, USB drives among others from "mini-bars".

The current "beverage only" clause is certainly not new.

Originally Posted by Flying Lawyer View Post
I was told today that they now apply a certain algorithm to judge over individual cases. From pulling together all information I received it is something similar to

EQP * IC Nights
-—--------------------------- = personal qualification score
Top 10% average IC nights

They will compare your personal qualification score against a set value. If your score is better, you will qualify. Even if this appears to be somehow transparent, the opaque number still is the average number of IC nights, the top 10% (clearance not one percent) do stay with IC. The algorithm take in both, general group turnover and IC nights.
so top 10% of IC spend, we knew spend, now possibly "small %" is ""10%, if correct?



Have we managed to determine whether or not HI, HIX, CP spend will aid re-qualification?

Nope, it's not known yet.

2006 was definitely drinks only when I first became RA.

However, the informal guidance I got from my IHG contact was "focus on your IC spend, this is what matters". So I'm doing exactly that now.

How? Are you booking higher category rooms now?

Yup, and also no longer caring about the other properties. This is probably going to have an odd effect on my IHG bookings - whereas before if there was a HI, I'd likely consider booking there over my other secondary chains unless it was a total dump, but now fortunately I won't bother anymore. We'll see where it gets me end of year.... but my personal plan is to almost-double my IC spend (try to hit an arbitrary goal of 15K or so) and not worry about the other IHG properties at all.