Two months back, Bollywood actor Rahul Bose was charged ₹442 for two bananas by a hotel in Chandigarh. He shared this on Twitter and soon the hotel came under criticism.
A similar incident came to light from the UK where a journalist was charged a whopping USD 99,983.64 (₹71 lakhs) for a pint of beer.
According to a report by India Today, the incident was reported from the Malmaison Hotel, Manchester when Peter Lalor, an Australian journalist was charged this whopping amount for a bottle of Deuchars IPA.
He shared the entire incident on Twitter with a picture of the beer.
See this beer? That is the most expensive beer in history.
— Peter Lalor (@plalor) September 5, 2019
I paid $99,983.64 for it in the Malmaison Hotel, Manchester the other night.
Seriously.
Contd. pic.twitter.com/Q54SoBB7wu
He also explained how he ended up paying the bill in a series of tweets.
It was a quiet Sunday night when I made the fateful purchase. I asked a young barman if he had anything that was not an American craft beer or Eurolager. I wanted something a little British.
— Peter Lalor (@plalor) September 5, 2019
He had no idea. Said he’d only worked 6 shifts at the establishment.
He said he would get the senior bar attendant. She suggested Heineken, so I knew she had no idea what she was talking about. Just quietly, it annoys me a bit when people show no interest in their job, but I persisted politely and opted for the very English IPA pictured above.
— Peter Lalor (@plalor) September 5, 2019
Apparently, he was not wearing glasses at the time he was presented with the bill. He didn’t pay much attention to it that time and later he was in for a shock when he enquired about the bill.
Anyway, I didn’t have my reading glasses when she presented me with a bill for the beer and when she had some problems with the machine I didn’t think much of it, but it was eventually resolved, I said I didn’t want a receipt and she went to leave.
— Peter Lalor (@plalor) September 5, 2019
Something, however, made me ask “how much did I just pay for that beer”.
— Peter Lalor (@plalor) September 5, 2019
She checked, covered her mouth, started to giggle and refused to tell me, saying only there had been a mistake and she would fix it.
I insisted.
She kept giggling, I told her it needed to be fixed and fixed right now. She ran to get her manager who took the situation far more seriously and went about attempting to arrange a refund.
— Peter Lalor (@plalor) September 5, 2019
She told me somebody would be in contact. Three days later I’m still waiting.
Then came the call from home. The sum of $99,983.64 had been removed from our account.
— Peter Lalor (@plalor) September 5, 2019
And, there’d been a transaction fee of $2,499.59 to add to the pain.
The fee has been refunded but not the larger amount.
When The Guardian reached out to the hotel, a spokesperson said:
“We are currently carrying out an investigation into what took place. We have been in contact with Peter to apologise and ensure this has been resolved as quickly as possible.”
