“$23 for a Bottle of Fiji” — Las Vegas Hotel Guests Call Out Price Gouging at Mini Bars

If you've spent a considerable amount of time traveling and staying in hotels, then you'll know there's a significant price hike whenever it comes to pre-stocked mini-bar items that many hospitality companies will leave for their guests.

But some hotels take this practice to new heights, like installing "smart" refrigerators in guests' rooms that don't allow customers to even use the fridges for their personal use, because if you take any of the items out of the fridge the automated system registers that as you attempt to take something out to drink/eat.

There have been several TikTokers who've called out this practice, especially at some particularly notable establishments in Las Vegas. Like the Venetian, which not only has its rooms outfitted with smart refrigerators, but also with trays that calculate which items are taken off of it.

TikToker @dutchworld_americangirl posted about how she felt she was hoodwinked by the mini bar after accidentally forking over $12 for a single bottle of water one night when she was thirsty. She was equally shocked by the prices of other items in the fridge as well.

"So mini bar prices are always crazy but I was expecting 8.00 for a small water, not 12?!?! And 10.00 for a can of diet coke?!?!" she wrote in a caption for the video.

She's not the only person who was shocked by what a Las Vegas minibar was charging for water.

TikTok user Rob Leathern (@rleathern) uploaded a viral clip showing what the hotel he was staying at expected guests to pay for a single liter of Fiji water: $25.75.

This was one of those TikTok videos worth of the Kreepa "Oh No" sound that's been used and abused on the application.

Most recently, in January of 2024, TikTok user @uptin also had his own run-in with a Las Vegas mini bar, and he went into great detail with his TikTok followers to show them just how much the hotel was charging for items on both the smart trays and the smart fridges.

He was startled to see that the hotel was charging $14 for a box of M&M's candies. A bag of Cheez-Its was $12 — big bottles of Fiji? $16, with the smaller bottles, cost $12...and the "generic" bottles of Venetian bottled water, he found, were retailing for $11 apiece.

But instead of forking over the exorbitant fees that were being charged by the Venetian, he decided, instead, to simply walk to the CVS pharmacy across the street and get a bunch of snacks that ended up costing less than just a couple of items he would've purchased from the Venetian mini bar.

But that's not all: the Bellagio also has some pretty high prices for its offerings in its rooms, which were evinced by TikTok user @doesntpayfullprice, who played a game with his followers where he would name a product and then give them a few seconds to try and guess how much the hotel was charging for it.

A single can of Coca-Cola from the Bellagio room's mini-fridge, according to Jimash was a whopping $13. A large, Snickers shareable size bar, he asked his friend, Ashley, off-camera what she thought the candy bars cost. Her guess? $5. But the actual price of the chocolates? $9.

One of the most staggeringly expensive things inside of the refrigerator at the Bellagio, however, was a "CBD Kit" that came in at a whopping $100.

When it comes to the snacks just lying on the tray in a guest's room, it only makes you wonder what the hotel's intentions behind leaving them there are.

It's not difficult to imagine that some executives at the hotel speculated there would be folks, who, upon stumbling drunkenly into their room, might crack open a few of the snacks amid a stupor.

One TikToker who responded o @uptin's video said that they make sure to always request that the refrigerator and all of the mini-bar snacks be taken out of the room prior to their arrival to avoid any potentially pricey accidents.