When goodwill gets turned into a business
Originally written in Chinese. Translated with AI, reviewed by Gary. Read the Chinese original →
I came across an article about how hotel breakfasts have been turned into a freebie-farming hustle. I'd heard of similar things before, but after reading how they actually do it, I still thought: wow, so that works too.
Let me be clear first: this isn't about the people of any one country. Anyone in e-commerce knows that every country and region runs into this kind of mess. This time it just happened to be hotels in China that got reported, and those hotels and their staff are innocent victims.
How the cheap breakfasts are "farmed"
Here's how it works.
On Xianyu, China's second-hand marketplace, people sell hotel breakfast vouchers at unbelievably low prices. According to the report, breakfasts at some chain hotels go for just seven or eight yuan, and some sellers list brands like InterContinental and Sheraton at twenty or thirty yuan. Some listings even say "no stay required" and "valid nationwide". By comparison, the report says a non-guest at the Hefei InterContinental pays 168 yuan per person through official channels. At first glance, you might think it's a member with spare benefits, or someone who got a special package and is reselling it cheaply.
In fact, some sellers have no vouchers at all. Some give you a room number and tell you to just quote it and walk in to eat. Others ask for your name, phone number and room number, then pretend to be you and complain to the hotel: the room isn't clean, the facilities are faulty, the drain is blocked. In short, they manufacture an unhappy stay and then ask the hotel for breakfast as compensation. You think you've bought a discount voucher, but the seller is really using your identity to "fight for" a free breakfast from the hotel.
The article had one rather awkward case. A woman travelling on business with her boss found the room didn't include breakfast, so she bought some on Xianyu. The seller asked for the guest's details. She felt something was off, read the reviews, suspected the seller would get compensation through complaints, and quickly asked for a refund. She thought that was the end of it. But the next day, her boss still received two free breakfast vouchers, and the hotel even called to apologise for the blocked drain in his room. The boss was baffled: when was my drain ever blocked? Only then did they realise this is how the so-called cheap breakfasts are "farmed".
Think about it, and the logic of this business is quite unusual. The seller doesn't need to prepare food, rent a restaurant or hire staff. He takes the money and bets on whether the hotel will give way. The hotel provides the breakfast, the front desk handles the complaint, and if something goes wrong, the buyer is the one arguing with the hotel at the restaurant door. Now hotels have started fighting back. The Hefei InterContinental publicly declared that breakfast vouchers sold on these unofficial platforms are invalid and the hotel can refuse entry. It's come to the point where a hotel has to put up a special notice explaining who's allowed in for breakfast.
The staff wanting to fix things were right too
But from the hotel's side, I completely understand why staff give the breakfasts away. Aren't we always saying customer service should have warmth? Don't follow the SOP for everything; don't make the front desk escalate through layers of approval over every small problem. We want companies to give the front line some authority, so they can judge on the spot, offer a breakfast, give a bit of compensation and take care of the customer. I think that intention is very good. The hotel is right to empower its staff, and the staff are right to want to sort things out. When a guest genuinely has an unpleasant stay, a little understanding and compensation can make them feel much better.
It's just that people with other intentions understand this too. One breakfast may not cost the hotel much extra, but arguing takes up staff and managers' time, may disturb other guests, and could even earn a bad review. The staff think: never mind, give them two breakfasts and settle it. The other side thinks: so that's all it takes, let's try the next hotel. Each hotel gives way just a little, and in the end those small concessions are pieced together into a business that can be repeated over and over.
In e-commerce we run into similar problems. Refunds, compensation and after-sales service all exist so customers can buy with peace of mind. If the product really has a problem, of course we should take responsibility; if the service wasn't good enough, we should improve.
But when people deliberately exploit these arrangements, merchants are put in an increasingly difficult position. You don't want every normal customer to have to explain a lot and provide lots of proof because of a few people, but if you keep giving way, someone really is bearing the cost. Over time, the company adds a few more checks, staff become more and more cautious, and customers start to wonder why service has become so troublesome and so impersonal.
I think that's the real pity in all of this.
What's lost isn't just a few breakfasts, but the trust that could have existed between people.
Wanting service with warmth, and wanting staff to have room to use their judgement and solve problems, is not wrong. But when someone treats that goodwill as a money-making opportunity, in the end it's normal customers who have to go through extra steps, and the staff who wanted to help who no longer dare to be flexible. One of the hardest things in business is probably, after going through all this, still finding a way to keep the heart that wants to treat customers well.