Would You Partake in a Complimentary Breakfast If You Are Not a Guest At a Hotel Property?

A number of mid-range hotel properties offer a complimentary breakfast in the form of a buffet as part of the room rate for guests who stay at them. Would you partake in a complimentary breakfast if you are not a guest at a hotel property?

Would You Partake in a Complimentary Breakfast If You Are Not a Guest At a Hotel Property?

Most hotel properties that offer a complementary breakfast to guests as part of the room rate are part of the following brands:

• Best Western
  • Best Western
  • Best Western Plus
  • Best Western Premier
  • GLō
  • SureStay by Best Western
  • SureStay Collection by Best Western
  • SureStay Plus by Best Western

• Choice Hotels
  • Clarion
  • Clarion Pointe
  • Comfort Inn
  • Comfort Suites
  • Country Inns & Suites — in North America and South America
  • Econo Lodge
  • Park Inn — grab and go breakfast items with coffee in North America and South America
  • Quality Inn
  • Sleep Inn

• Drury Hotels
  • Drury Inn & Suites
  • Drury Plaza Hotel
  • Pear Tree Inn

• Hilton
  • Embassy Suites
  • Hampton
  • Home2 Suites
  • Homewood Suites

• Hyatt Hotels Corporation — Note that you must be a member of the World of Hyatt membership program — joining as a member is free of charge — to participate in complimentary breakfast at the following brands:
  • Hyatt House
  • Hyatt Place

• InterContinental Hotels Group
  • Holiday Inn Express
  • Staybridge Suites

• Marriott International, Incorporated
  • Element
  • Fairfield Inn & Suites
  • Residence Inn
  • SpringHill Suites
  • TownePlace Suites

• Radisson
  • Country Inn & Suites — outside of North America and South America

• Red Roof
  • Red Roof Inn

• Sonesta
  • Sonesta Essential
  • Sonesta ES Suites

• Wyndham
  • Baymont by Wyndham
  • Hawthorn Suites by Wyndham
  • La Quinta by Wyndham
  • Days Inn by Wyndham — free breakfast item
  • Howard Johnson by Wyndham — free breakfast item
  • Microtel by Wyndham
  • Super 8 by Wyndham — free breakfast item
  • Wingate by Wyndham

Breakfast at many of the aforementioned brands can range from a free breakfast item to a full breakfast buffet which includes hot items. Guests are free to choose whatever items are offered; and they can eat as much as they want during the time that breakfast is available.

To be honest, complimentary breakfast buffets may offer lousy options, barely decent options, good options, or even very good options in rare cases — a number of the food items are not all that healthy — but they usually are not anything over which to get excited…

…but on the other hand, they are convenient; and they can help guests save money on food — especially when they are traveling with families. Filling up on a complimentary breakfast buffet can potentially keep an active person going without needing food until dinner time.

The area of the hotel property where breakfast is served is usually towards the rear past the lobby area where the entrance is located — or it could be located to the left or to the right — but accessing it is usually rather easy. For years, people have reported that freeloaders who are not paying guests come in from outside and just help themselves to breakfast without paying a single penny. This can cost the hotel property money — but how much of the food is thrown out anyway at the end of the offering of breakfast?

Also, patrolling who is allowed at these complimentary breakfast buffets can also consume a significant amount of time for employees — and can be costly if a security guard is hired…

…so some hotel properties simply allow the interlopers to fill up — as long as they do not blatantly abuse the privilege.

Final Boarding Call

I cannot recall a time that I took advantage of a complimentary breakfast buffet at a hotel property — but if I found myself in a scenario in which I was meeting a friend one morning who is staying at a hotel property that offers a free continental breakfast buffet and I was hungry, I would consider asking a member of the staff permission first and not simply “dive in” to the free offerings.

At a Hilton hotel property in Cyprus which I was staying later that day, I arrived after 3:00 in the morning due to a very late — or early morning — flight. I asked the person behind the front desk if I could simply sit quietly in the lobby and access the Internet with my laptop computer — which I would have been perfectly content doing — until I can check in. To my surprise, he offered to immediately check me in to a room and said I can partake in the buffet breakfast at no charge. I really should have been charged an extra day rate for that generosity.

My experience at the Holiday Inn Vilnius hotel property was exactly the opposite — and rightfully so, in my opinion — but asking never hurts. That hotel property actually had one of the best breakfast buffets that I have ever experienced…

…and before anyone accuses me of doing this as a standard freeloading practice, those were the only two times during my years of travels when I arrived at a hotel property excessively early and requested to simply be in the lobby to access the Internet — and not expect anything more.

So — would you partake in a complimentary breakfast if you are not a guest at a hotel property? If so, under what circumstances would you do so? If not, what are the reasons?

All photographs ©2024 by Brian Cohen.