$26 Las Vegas Minibar Water Bottle Ignites Internet Outrage

• • • A guest at the Aria was charged $26 for a bottle of minibar water
    • The guest wrote about the experience to a travel blog
    • Social media shared the blog and responded predictably
      

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A guest at the Aria in Las Vegas was charged $26 for a bottle of minibar water on June 8. The guest wrote about the experience to a travel blog and social media has responded predictably.

It all began after the unidentified guest emailed his frustration, and the receipt to prove it, to the travel website From the Wing.

There was no price listed on the bottles or near the minibar for the 500 ml bottles of Eska water, which retail for a little over $2 each plus tax at Walmart. So, the guest reported refusing to open one until he knew for sure.

However, he waited so long for an overworked hotel worker to restock his minibar and answer his question, that he “had already (out of thirst, in the desert) consumed (fortunately only one) bottle of water.

“Fortunately, the Starbucks downstairs sold water for only $7.45.”

To make matters worse, the travel website noted that the minibar restocker found “food crammed in the fridge from two guests ago” because of labor cost-cutting.

The X news account Las Vegas Locally shared the column on June 16 in a tweet that has earned 146K views and the expected social media response.

“The minibar is a punishment for choosing that hotel,” commented @ericcervantez.

“It really seems like a hotel could make a killing with high occupancy at normal room rates by ditching the resort fees, ending the predatory pricing of incidentals like the water, and marketing heavily on the basis that they won’t nickel and dime or lay traps for you,” added @solidfreez.

“Vegas wants folks to visit them in the desert & then their reward is to get price gouged after they’re trapped there,” wrote @MarkRingo12. “Guests should get a refrigerator stocked with free waters/ sports bettors/gamblers should get free drinks/comps.”

Even From the Wing‘s blogger played pile-on MGM Resorts, which operates the Aria, editorializing that the corporate giant has “clearly given up on any idea of hospitality,”

“This is the perfect example of the kind of out of sample cost that make people feel cheated on a Las Vegas trip, leaving customers with a bad taste in their mouth. And that is dangerous heading into a Las Vegas downturn,” Gary Leff wrote.

Visitation to Las Vegas declined for the fourth straight month, according to the May numbers from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

MGM Resorts International, which operates the Aria, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.