Can I refuse to pay large service fee?

Have a question? Ask our expert Simon Calder

A hotel in Bath added a 19 per cent charge to a £48 dinner bill for two (istock)

Q We booked a special two-night deal at a hotel in Bath and were shocked to see that on a dinner bill of £48 the service charge applied was £9. That seems excessive. Have you any idea how they could justify it, and would we have been able to refuse to pay it?

Name withheld

A I calculate the tip as 19 per cent, which would be nothing unusual in the US but of course is way higher than the norm in Britain. So I think there’s something else happening here.

From my experience of hotel prices in Bath, dinner costing under £50 for two looks very low, particularly for those of us who enjoy a drink or two with the meal. I speculate that the hotel has added in something for free – perhaps a bottle of wine. If the wine normally sells for £24, and the recommended 12.5 per cent service charge used by hotels and restaurants was applied, that would yield £9 on top of the £48 bill. It may be that the hotel’s practice is to do this. But it certainly should have told you by saying ahead of the meal that a 12.5 per cent charge would be applied to the full value.

As it is a service charge, and not part of the legal contract between you and the hotel for the supply of dinner, you are at liberty to reduce it or remove it altogether. But while I am not the world’s most generous tipper, when the bill in a restaurant is reduced by way of a deal I always aim to leave a gratuity based on the full price – and in cash, rather than by card, in the hope that it all goes directly to the staff.

Every day our travel correspondent Simon Calder tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder