To think hotels should stop charging extra for wi-fi?

[EightiesChick]

It's just mean when a Premier Inn or Holiday Inn or whatever charges you on an hourly rate for this. Basically it's a Ryanair-style trick to get more money out of you for what is now a basic expectation if you are staying somewhere. McDonalds and loads of cafes/restaurants don't charge, so why should hotels? It's not as if it's even consumption-based; they'll be paying for the service to be available for their own use anyway.

It's worse when really expensive hotels do it.

Rip off. If it is there it should be free of charge even if only in public areas. I especially hate it when expensive hotels charge.Perhaps someone can tell me whether or not costs vary after the original costs of having it in the first place.

I'm really intolerant of wi-fi charges in hotels, on trains and motorway services. It's the behaviour of greedy bastards.

It's a pain, but most of them seem to do it. Try putting it on expenses.

A friend of ours regular goes away with work and will stay in a more expensive hotel because the wi-fi is included so he doesn't have to pay the extra himself somewhere else.

I hate it too, being there with kids you can't exactly leave the room at night, need to keep the TV off and lighting down so the net is about all I can do. The costs are stupid too. It's like £3 an hour or £10 for 24 at Premier. I get a 24 hour card in the evening when I'm staying one night and they always question it, but if I have a 3 hour card I'm limited to what I can do, at least I know that whatever time I feel like logging on I will have a connection.

My partner once stayed at a Premier for a week with work, paid for it and it didn't work once for the whole week!

I would (and have) if I was staying for work reasons! But we're staying to visit family, and since DS will be sleeping in the same room, surfing the net - and probably doing some work as part of that, since I'm overloaded with work right now - is going to be my quietest activity of choice for the evening. No doubt they count on people putting it on expenses and therefore not really complaining about the cost, but it is greedy.

This is why you should stay in tiny B&B's who offer lovely individual rooms, delicious breakfasts and umlimited free WiFi. and an unhomogenised outlook on life.

Not that I run a tiny unhomogenised B&B or anything.

Totally agree. The extra charges for WiFi are like the rip off charges for using the telephone that used to be applied.

I am deeply intolerant of it and negotiate it for free before I go. I also choose hotels with free WiFi in Reception areas which is a good compromise solution.

dweezle
can i come and stay?
out of interest, where is your tiny B&B? i love tiny B&Bs.

I stay at 2 different hotels in Manchester every year for fairly extended periods.One The Willowbank in Fallowfield has free wi-fi 24 hours.The other ,The Renaissance on Deansgate, charges £15 a day!!!!The answer for me was a dongle which has come in handy in other places too.