Here’s one I can’t work out. Why is it that every $40 motel and budget hotel seems to come with free Wi-Fi and a complimentary, if unexciting, continental breakfast, while at luxury hotels, wireless is an extra $10 a night, and a coffee and bagel is 8 bucks?
It doesn’t make sense to me. The kind of people who pay $290 a night for a hotel room clearly could afford $300 a night for a room with an Internet connection, and charging separately just seems annoying. I’d even go so far as to say it seems tacky to make the customer even have to consider whether to pay another piddly 10 bucks for something that ought to come standard. Sort of unbecoming for a classy hotel.
There’s clearly something fundamental here that I’m missing, because this difference in pricing strategies is very common. I spent quite a while mulling this over the other day, and I only came up with one somewhat bizarre explanation.
Do people like to be charged separately? Perhaps affluent business travelers and vacationers actually enjoy having extra opportunities to spend money? “Of course I want to enable wireless access for an extra $10!” “Ah, what a jet-setter I am, I just spent $20 for an omelette and a mimosa!” It just wouldn’t be as much fun if everything was included in the price of the room.
I can’t really relate to that mindset, and I’m not exactly sold on this explanation, but it’s the best one I can come up with at the moment.