Minibar charge

[judecorp]

Also, I got my credit card bill yesterday and found a mysterious $17.08 charge from Hilton Hotels on my statement, assumedly from our NYC stay. We shouldn't have had extra charges because we prepaid on Priceline.

I called this morning and the woman said it was a minibar charge. This is exactly what I expected them to say. Here was our conversation:

Me: I noticed a $17.08 charge on my bill. Do you know what that's from?
Her: I see it's a minibar charge.
Me: We didn't use the minibar.
Her: They must be missing items. Okay, I'll take the charge off your card.

Doesn't that seem a LITTLE fishy to you? I mean, if they REALLY thought I used $17 worth of stuff from the minibar, would they have agreed to reverse the charge so immediately? I mean, I was prepared to go into the whole story (the truth), that we had asked to NOT have a minibar key but they gave us one anyway, and then we wanted to bring it downstairs and hand it to a real person at checkout but they said to leave it in the room, etc. But I didn't have to. Because she just said, "Okay."

I wonder if this is a common problem - either them trying to get extra money out of people, or room cleaners sampling from the minibar. I'm just glad it will come off my card.

Comments

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Woah, that's nuts! :)

(Did you touch anything?)

[goddamnelf.livejournal.com]

I think I pulled something out, and that is how I figured out they had the little sensors. And I just remembered that there was a 15 second timer or something, so you could pick it up, but if you did not put it back down you would be charged.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

That's wacky! It's like a sci-fi movie.