The great rip-off of 'free' hotel Wi-Fi.(Features)

Byline: ROSLYN DEE Award-winning travel writer ros.dee@assocnews.ie

Two summers ago in Crete, we rearranged the furniture in our apartment so that we could open the laptop on a table that was a) jammed right up against the only external wall and b) as close as possible to the glass door that led out to the balcony.

The laptop also had to be positioned at a certain angle on said table and arranged with a couple of inches clearance from the edge of the table on the right-hand side.

What on earth were we up to? Well, actually we were feeding into the Wi-Fi that we were picking up from the small hotel across the road outside our apartment block in Paleochora. A bit hit and miss, alright, but largely, when the very specific arrangement described above was in place, it worked and so - sad, I know - we were able to tune into Morning Ireland if a weekday and Sunday Miscellany, if the mood took us, at the weekend. And we could send emails to our heart's content.

Now I had no quibble with the lack of internet facilities in the apartment itself.

This was a small, family-run set up, it was cheap and cheerful and the owner didn't pretend that she had facilities that she didn't. Nor did she lead you to believe when you booked that certain facilities were available as part and parcel of what you were paying - and then charge you separately for them, which is what far too many hotels still do.

I have a problem with this and in particular with hotels that offer 'free Wi-Fi' and then you arrive to discover that the 'free' Wi-Fi only exists in a tiny lobby area where you couldn't swing a cat, while anywhere else in the hotel you have to pay through the nose for it.

And then there's the other situation - the hotel advertises that it has internet facilities, and actually makes a point of saying that that includes Wi-Fi in all its bedrooms but when you try to connect on your laptop as you relax on your bed or out on the balcony of your room, you discover that if you want to check your emails or surf the web, then you have to part with a chunk of money for the privilege of so doing.

This is exploitation and remains an unhappy factor of life in the hotel business across the world. It's partly, I presume, because, since the advent of the ubiquitous mobile, hotels can no longer charge us through the nose for telephone calls as was their wont in the past - another disgraceful practice.

They still have to get their 'add-on' money somewhere, seems to be the mentality, and so, hey presto, they say, let's charge the suckers for Wi-Fi. (Another bugbear of mine is paying for the privilege of using a safety box to store valuables in your room. Isn't the safety box there, tucked away in the wardrobe anyway, whether you use it or not? Should you really have to fork out money for simply punching in your own password code and shutting and opening the door on a few occasions during your stay?) Often it's the more run-ofthe-mill hotels that provide Wi-Fi for free, while the five-star jobs try to extract every last cent out of you. For someone who has saved for a special occasion splurge and has even taken into account that the mini-bar will be stocked with ridiculously priced drinks, having to cough up for Wi-Fi - and the safety box - is simply unacceptable.

I feel a campaign coming on...

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SPAM SCAM: Checking email in hotels often has a hidden cost