Hotel folio charges a guest for ‘air not consumed’ in an unopened minibar

A Dubai hotel folio included a charge described as air not consumed in the minibar, at a unit price that suggested someone had thought about it. The guest had not opened the fridge. The sensors, the hotel later said, had opened a philosophical question.

The tourism department logged the complaint. The hotel refunded the line and said it was a mapping error from a ‘presence of cooled volume’ field. That field should not have been a field.

YES IT'S REAL has the complaint summary and the hotel’s statement. The guest is unnamed. The air remains unconsumed, as air does.