Free breakfast is a common feature of many hotel brands, especially in the limited service category. You’ll find it at Hampton Inn, Best Western and Holiday Inn Express among numerous others.
Here’s the thing: I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hotel actually check that you’re a guest before giving you access. If you look like you belong there, you can park in the lot, walk in, and eat.
I stayed at the Aloft near Dallas Love Field and selected breakfast as my Marriott elite member amenity. Breakfast was served in the Element hotel next door. I simply walked into that hotel and no one checked that I was a guest or eligible for breakfast. I could have taken the elite check-in bonus points and still had breakfast!
In a sense, I’m surprised that so few people show up at these hotels and have breakfast! Then again, maybe people do?
Here’s a woman on TikTok explaining and millions of people have watched this: “They make it so easy to get the free hotel breakfast when you’re not staying at a hotel.”
@itssofeeyuh
Most limited-service breakfasts, though, aren’t going to be so good that you’d show up for it if you aren’t already on premises. But if I was nearby, and hard up, maybe I’d go for a meal justifying it like hero Jean Valjean steals the bread in Les Miserables.
It’s likely that I could get away with this, as a middle-aged white business traveler who knows his way around hotels. I simply feel comfortable in a hotel lobby, like I belong. But if you stand out, and don’t look like someone who stays in the hotel and knows your way around the lobby you might get questions. So a free breakfast hack only for those who don’t need the free breakfast?
Some hotels – notably Hyatt Places – have tried to verify eligibility for free breakfast. Hyatt keeps changing who is entitled to free breakfast, and to which items at breakfast. Though when they made breakfast only for loyalty program members booking direct properties didn’t actually seem to enforce it much.
Our local Hilton, about a half mile away, has a first-rate breakfast for guests. We go on bacon days. We just pay the $15 they charge for non-guests. For this, I get unlimited coffee and juice (good ones!) toast with PB, scrambled eggs, potatoes, bacon, greek yogurt with fruit and nuts. Plus a bagel with cream cheese to go. I’m set for the day. They also have make your own waffles, hot oatmeal, a variety of cereals, breads and pastries, hard boiled eggs.
I get a feeling they don’t verify the actual stay because they’d rather folks eat everything up than waste it. If it becomes a problem, then they may change things.
Support your local hotel!
One hotel I stayed in (several times) actually had the breakfast in one if their “suites” buildings and you needed your key card to get in. No one could just walk in.
Another hotel gave “tickets” at check in — one for each morning of your stay and you had to turn in your ticket in order to enter the breakfast area
Yet another hotel I stayed in made you show your key card and case.
Those days of walking into a hotel and grabbing a free breakfast if you’re not a guest are over! Lol
I’ve often wondered about this. However, you can probably only get away with it once or twice. If a local hotel starts seeing the same face every – say – Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. They might get suspicious!
But, could you be driving down to Florida on I-95 and jump off to scam the Hampton Inn breakfast…I guess you could.
At the Residence Inn I stayed a lot at in Las Vegas, I’d regularly see people who weren’t guests at the hotel at the breakfast. Sometimes these were policemen (which I guess was approved) but often it was homeless or nearby construction workers. Only once did I see them actually remove a non guest from the breakfast area.
Granted, ever since the pandemic, the Residence Inn breakfast has been worth what you paid for it.
The breakfasts really aren’t good any more. Garbage food – not wven tasty. Who would want it?
“a middle-aged white business traveler”
Was the omission of “portly” intentional?
I would think that this narcissist bragging about how to steal from an entity would open her up to a big “watch list”, have her arrested and jailed.
I’ve also wondered this often. The Hiltons (Hilton, Doubletree) I’ve stayed at recently started asking for room numbers even if you are paying. Maybe other reasons for doing so. Scheduled to stay at an Embassy Suites soon, that’ll be a good test.
“But if I was nearby, and hard up, maybe I’d go for a meal justifying it like hero Jean Valjean steals the bread in Les Miserables.”
To Tik Tok influencers stealing breakfast: I know Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean was a friend of mine. And you sir, are no Jean Valjean.
It all depends what city (and more importantly what area of a city) you go to. Staying in the burbs? Nobody checks. Staying near a port with cruise ships? You get checked (or issued a ticket). But yes, I’m a middle aged white guy too and could get away with it, but I don’t… Because I’m spending money at the local place with wayyyy better food and not trying to squeeze juice from a stone.
@Dom – “portly” would not, in fact, be accurate
During a remodel project, I stayed at a Quality Inn close to my home that was popular with interstate travelers. Every breakfast was catered for full capacity but guests mostly were back on the road early and this left an immense amount of untouched food. Management welcomed police, Fedex, and eventually even the unhoused to partake of food that would have been required to be thrown away. Our homeless get vouchers for clothing and are very clean. In fact, unlike the airport early morning crowd, nobody reeked of alcohol or body odor. It wasn’t a Four Seasons brunch but was treated as such by those who were grateful.
Ah, petty theft! …the horror! *clutching pearls* won’t anyone think of these poor small businesses?!
(Ignore the generalized corruption, insider trading, and graft by our politicians and large corporations…)
I’m glad they found someone that will eat the garbage they serve.
Based on how breakfast at the limited service brands in the US has declined since Covid, I might be tempted to instead go behind the local Walmart and munch on the cardboard boxes they are discarding. Likely similar taste, texture and nutritional value.
Recently stayed at HP Baltimore Inner Harbor. You can keep their free breakfast. One day in the “cooked” items section next to the bacon and sausage where one would usually find cooked pancakes or french toast, they served cold limp toaster waffles. It was as if they went to Costco and bought a large box of frozen waffles and left them out on the counter. The eggs were worse and cold. I can usually make due with generic bagels or English muffins (as I did in my teens); however, one day they only had white bread in all 4 drawers of the bread dresser. The horror!
I’ve been seeing more properties check you into breakfasts now to make sure you’re a guest.
This is no different from any other form of theft. It’s easy to walk into a store and take something without paying. Or maybe it isn’t these days, but it used to be. Upstanding people don’t do this unless they have permission (for example taking a cup of coffee if meeting a colleague). Otherwise it’s stealing.
Hyatt Place San Jose (CA). I stayed with points. “You’re here on points, there will be no bill.”
They invited me to breakfast. They asked for my room number, which I gave. I later got a bill for the breakfast.
Whatever.
No worth the effort to fight it.
I’ve seen hotel staff chase a guy back to the street after he made a move on the breakfast room.
Generally, free breakfast is garbage and served in a place that you’d have to take a car to get to, or look out of place on foot. You might get a free breakfast, but you’ll spend more in gas than it’s worth.
Go ahead and try it.