This Holiday Inn Makes Elite Guests Pay $3 For Free Breakfast—“This One’s On Us”

Holiday Inn Tampa Westshore–Airport Area gives its top tier IHG Diamond guests a “complimentary breakfast” voucher that says “This one’s on us.” Diamonds get a benefit choice that includes free breakfast. But turn the voucher over, and there’s a mandatory $3 charge. There’s a cash cop-pay for the ‘free’ breakfast. Guests have been reporting this scam at the property for years. $3 is small enough though that most just let it go, annoying as it can be. A reader who selected breakfast as their IHG One Rewards Diamond welcome amenity sent me photos of the voucher. One side thanks them for their loyalty and promises a complimentary meal. The other says: Buffett Breakfast served with choice of coffee or juice A $3.00 service fee will be applied to the bill The fee is mandatory. You have to pay $3 to receive the free breakfast. And the voucher suggest this is a tip for the server. It’s just a surcharge. It’s been going on for years, since the free breakfast benefit went into effect in 2022: In a July 2023 Tripadvisor review an IHG Diamond received the complimentary breakfast vouchers and noted only three breakfast choices and a $3 service fee for each breakfast. An IHG customer service representative apologized, and said managers had taken steps to correct errors. That… did not happen. In a May 11, 2026 Tripadvisor review a Diamond member flagged the automatic $3 per person charge and reported that a manager said it would be written off, and that it was removed at checkout. The hotel’s response apologized for confusion over breakfast vouchers. They weren’t sorry enough to fix it. A separate October 2025 reviewer, reported a $12 service charge ($3 for each of four family members). They said the hotel refunded breakfast and the service charge after they involved IHG. Maybe it was one thing for the hotel to be doing this in 2023 and 2025, as much as it would violate the very notion of ‘free breakfast’ but since December 2025 IHG has barred Holiday Inns from offering a la carte breakfast so guests are no longer even getting as much as when they were complaining about this fee in the past. IHG Diamond members can choose breakfast instead of the other welcome amenity options at participating hotels, including Holiday Inns. Under IHG’s terms and conditions, the benefit covers the member and one registered guest in the same room for each night of their stay. The meal includes a main menu item or full buffet, along with unlimited nonalcoholic beverages. Certain specialty items and drinks can be excluded. That creates another problem with this voucher: coffee or juice. That’s more restrictive than the published benefit also. IHG’s breakfast terms are silent on tax and gratuity. Hyatt handles this much better. Its Globalist restaurant breakfast benefit includes “tax, gratuity and service charges.” At qualifying properties without an available club lounge, the benefit covers a full breakfast for up to two adults and two children registered in the room. When I stayed at the Hyatt Regency Vancouver, the hotel even stamped the breakfast check to make clear that gratuity was included. Guests didn’t have to guess whether they needed to leave something extra. I’ve covered similar games at Marriott properties. The Delta Hotel Daytona Beach Oceanfront altered its breakfast voucher to exclude gratuity. The Royal Palm South Beach did the same and also limited guests to coffee or juice. Topics on this page