Are hotels allowed to directly markup packaged water above MRP without separate service charges?
Stayed at Playsales by Playotel at Indore (Madhya Pradesh, India) recently and noticed something odd regarding bottled water pricing.
We ordered 2 sealed Bisleri bottles through room service. The bottles clearly had ₹20 MRP embossed on them, but the invoice charged ₹38 per bottle (+ taxes), making the total around ₹80.
What stood out was that the invoice only mentioned the bottle charges themselves, there was no separate room service, handling, or hospitality charge mentioned anywhere.
We politely asked the staff for clarification, but the manager was unavailable at the time, so the issue remained unresolved.
I understand hotel staff usually don’t control pricing policies, so this is more about the hotel/company policy itself.
Wanted to ask: Is this actually legal for hotels in India if the markup is billed directly as the bottle price itself?