How we check

We answer one question for every luxury hotel: is the drinking water in your room free? Every answer shows where it came from and when we last checked.

Sources

• Hotel notes and listings. Room amenity lists from Mr & Mrs Smith, Kayak, Expedia, Booking.com and the hotel's own site. These tell us what's free; they never tell us what's charged.
• Guest reviews and forums. Google reviews, Tripadvisor, Reddit and FlyerTalk posts that mention water, read with care for what happened, where (room, pool, gym, restaurant) and when.
• Menus. Minibar and in-room price lists from the hotel. A price on a menu is a fact we show; on its own it doesn't make a hotel a Minibar Bandit.
• You. Guests can report what they paid. A photo of the receipt or menu counts most.

How we weigh them

• Mirrors of the same listing count once. Each guest counts once.
• Newer evidence counts more. Policies change; the date on every answer tells you how fresh it is.
• Verified means two independent sources agree, or the hotel itself says so. Likely means the evidence points one way but needs a second source.
• Guests come first. If two or more guests in the last 24 months paid for water or were rationed, and they aren't outnumbered by recent guests who found it free, the hotel is a Minibar Bandit or a Two-Bottle Tease, whatever its listings say. The same goes if the hotel itself says it charges; its word stands until a newer guest report says otherwise.
• Hit or Miss means recent guests disagree: some got free water, others paid or were rationed. Hydration Hero is only for hotels with no recent complaints.
• Water with a meal doesn't count. Paying for water at the restaurant or the bar is normal; we check where each charge happened, and only charges in the room, on arrival, on a transfer, at the pool or in the gym count.
• No information means Mystery Water. We never assume a hotel charges.

Room price bands

Each hotel gets a band for a typical night: $ under $250, $$ $250–499, $$$ $500–999, $$$$ $1,000 and up. We use Kayak's average nightly rate over the last 12 months when it exists. Otherwise we estimate it from "from" rates, which are the cheapest nights of the year: across the 900 hotels where we have both, a typical night costs about 1.3× the Mr & Mrs Smith "from" rate and 1.5× Google's cheapest night, so we scale them up by that much. Bands are a guide, not a quote: prices change by date, room and taxes, so check the live rate before you book. When our sources disagree too much, we show no band.

Corrections

Hotels can ask us to correct an answer. We mark it "under review" straight away and log every change.