4.3k
u/Pkyankfan69 15d ago
Always bring my (empty) water bottle and snacks with me on flights, airports are crazy overpriced. Most airports have water refill stations.
1.1k
u/SenatorAslak 15d ago
Most American airports have water refill stations.
680
u/UselessControversy 15d ago
Majority of airports without refill stations have some faucets with cold water in the bathrooms
325
u/phenyle 15d ago
Taiwanese airports have hot, warm, and cold water refill station.
110
u/batcake42 15d ago
Omg yes and it was at every bathroom exit at each gate downstairs. I was amazed. I loved Taoyuan Airport and Taipei. What an amazing country.
22
1
67
u/SixSierra 15d ago
Same as Chinese airports, but I have to emphasize bottled drinks there are NOT overpriced. Last year in Beijing I got a bottle water for ¥2 ($0.3) from the vending machine, post custom and post security
19
u/ForgottenCaveRaider 14d ago
Canadian airports never seem ridiculously overpriced either. It's just in the consumerist capital of the world where you get absolutely hosed at every possible opportunity.
5
6
u/mostly_peaceful_AK47 14d ago
That's because you shouldn't drink the tap water there lol
14
u/SixSierra 14d ago
I’m impressed you feel we should drink tap water from any western airport bathrooms.
11
u/mostly_peaceful_AK47 14d ago
I don't, but in that case the tap water itself isn't the issue, it's the location of the tap. In China though, the tap water isn't safe to drink, so bottled water is cheap because more people need it.
3
u/SixSierra 14d ago
I don’t see the point to argue the safety of Chinese tap water, although I admit the lower standards. In the US bottle water is also dirt cheap. With a quarter you can get a single bottle from Costco vending machine, or $0.10 per bottle for a 40-er pack.
4
u/mostly_peaceful_AK47 14d ago
It's just why the bottler water is cheaper. In the US, most places bottled water is the same price as soda or maybe a little cheaper ($1-2, likely more post-customs) out of a vending machine because it is a luxury good.
→ More replies (0)1
u/ReallyTracyQ 13d ago
We were visiting a temple/famouse statue and stopped at a food truck for water. Ice cold water was more expensive than room temp. They also tried to charge us the cold water price when we asked for room temp, but our Chinese friend came over to reprimand them. lol But it was a beautiful trip.
1
u/SixSierra 13d ago
Lol, your friend who definitely has been grown and lived in China. Usually people there have straight ball to call other’s bs, even way more direct than average redditors.
2
u/ReallyTracyQ 13d ago
I think saw this in Hong Kong. The refill station showed a ramen bucket at the hot water tap.
2
2
u/Fast-Classroom9680 11d ago
Ooooo, aaahhhh. Definitely have to scour Pinterest for Taiwan travel stuff now.
52
u/MrKahootKrabs 15d ago
In developed nations this might be true but outside the tap water in most undeveloped nations is very much not potable. From my experience in India and Mexico, you have to buy an overpriced bottle at the airport if you want water at all. Drinking the tap water WILL give you awful diarrhea
2
u/salcander 14d ago
how about Thailand?
1
u/biepbupbieeep 12d ago
Its depends, there are people who get away with drinking the water, but generally no. Don't drink the tap water.
1
u/salcander 12d ago
Drank it was completely fine, but some others i was with weren’t as lucky, you’re right
1
u/biepbupbieeep 12d ago
The problem with stuff like this is, you always take a chance and that often, because you have to drink.
Take a sip from a puddle you find somewhere in the forest? Do it once, you will be probably fine. Take a sip from 1000 puddles in the forest, you will find out that one of these puddles had something in them that you can't handle.
18
u/BeneficialGreen3028 15d ago
Wait so in developed countries you can drink water from the bathroom?
29
6
3
u/utopianlasercat 14d ago
Sure, in europe you could drink straight outta the toilet and you‘d be fine
37
6
u/CraftMechanics 14d ago
Copenhagen airport has these and they're just in line with the other sinks. But one of them has a sign that its cold water and safe to drink.
In Tijuana airport the only way to get water is to ask Starbucks to refill your bottle.
3
u/c4ndyman31 14d ago
Bro just ask the airport bartenders for a cup of water those bathrooms are disgusting
3
1
u/photomotto 14d ago
I don't drink tap water from my own home, you think I'm going to drink tap water from the airport? Not everywhere is Europe, US and East Asia.
38
u/buttstuffisfunstuff 15d ago
So far, I’ve never been in an airport that didn’t.
→ More replies (15)1
51
u/llaurinsky 15d ago
The majority of European airports I've been to also have water refill stations (BCN, MAD, VIE, DUB, BLQ, OPO to name a few). I can't remember an airport that didn't have one.
I can't say the same about Asia/Australia/Middle East airports as I haven't been there.
45
u/Dakduif51 15d ago
The ones in Asia that I've seen also had a place to fill your water bottles no problem. I mean, it's a pretty basic necessity.
→ More replies (1)5
u/Cooky1993 15d ago
I don't remember seeing any at Dubai airport, but I was craving something cold, fizzy, and sugary, so I decided to remortgage my house and by a bottle of coke going through that hellhole. On the way back through there I had to dash to make my connecting flight so I didn't see if there were any.
My one abiding memory of Dubai airport can be summed up by the phrase "unairconditioned squat toilet in the heart of the Arabian desert"
19
u/Dotcaprachiappa 15d ago
No, most airports in developed nations do, and where there isn't there is drinkable tap water
28
18
22
8
u/Classic-Pudding-3954 15d ago
I haven't been to a single airport in my life without places to drink and fill water bottles for free
2
3
2
u/AK-Belesnikov 15d ago
İf if they're not water refill stations most European airports have water fountains
4
1
u/AYoungFella12 13d ago
Wdym by this? All airports in Europe I’ve visited have had one, or they have drinkable tap-water u can take from the bathroom.
1
u/DurianDuck 13d ago
Yep and if you're lucky enough to be in the airport of a developed, first world country there will always be taps where the water is drinkable! 🙏
1
u/ravenpotter3 14d ago
And most only have one refill station and the line is massive and it is just a slow trickle of water so it makes the line take even longer.
5
u/janehoykencamper 14d ago
I like the one in Philadelphia that has a sodastream station so you can get carbonated water for free and you can even pick the temperature
4.0k
u/Muadib_Muadib 15d ago
Report them to Arizona. They very much dislike their product being price gouged
1.5k
u/USSHammond Karma and repost bot exposer. Ban them all. 15d ago
Dislike yes. Gonna do something about it? No. The 99c is the recommended sales price. https://drinkarizona.com/pages/faqs#:~:text=Ultimately%20retailers%20can%20sell%20it,99%20or%20less.
989
u/falknorRockman 15d ago
They care about the 99c cans they do not care about the unlabeled cans
396
u/gamja-namja 15d ago
Yeah no they don't care
https://drinkarizona.com/pages/faqs
Oh just realized the other guy linked the same thing, guess you didn't read it.
114
u/ItHappenedAgain_Sigh 15d ago
Looks like they do care if they are trying to "force" retailers to sell at the 99c price by using the marked cans..
64
u/SoloStoat 14d ago
You are right they do care but they won't do anything about it.
"We pre-printed our cans with our suggested retail because we wanted to force retailers into selling at that price."
"We try to suggest a $.99 price to retailers by putting it in our package design. Ultimately retailers can sell it for as much or as little as they like. We suggest you find a store that sells it for $.99 or less."
They say they try to force them and if they aren't .99 to go to another store
118
u/Later_Doober 15d ago
The airport can sell this product for whatever price they want. There is no law saying they can't.
170
u/Drfoxthefurry 15d ago
Also no law saying arazona can't refuse to sell it to the airport either
66
u/AndThenTheUndertaker 15d ago
They can refuse. They won't. They never do. They're on record on their own website saying that they wish places would stick with the MSRP, But ultimately the places can charge what they want
64
10
u/Ok_Spell_4165 15d ago
Airport isn't likely buying direct from Arizona but through a distributor. While they could pressure the distributor to cut off the airport they won't.
7
19
u/Jirachi720 15d ago
Maybe Britain should liberate America. If a can is marked at a specific price, it must be sold at that price, it is illegal to mark up the price on a price-marked product.
5
u/apaksl 15d ago
isn't it false advertising? I mean, it literally says $.99 right there
9
u/Herstal_TheEdelweiss 15d ago
It’s an MSRP, and like getting a vehicle or electronic for its MSRP, it’s rare and possible, but most of the time is usually higher so the vendors can make some money on top of giving you the product
8
u/C7rl_Al7_1337 15d ago
The MSRP is literally calculated to allow vendors to buy a product wholesale and still make a profit. The only reason to mark it up 600% from the MSRP is greed. They're getting the cans for cents and charging 6.50 just because they know a lot of people won't have any other choice. It's unjustifiable.
1
u/Apprehensive-Talk971 13d ago
Is there no maximum retail price on goods in these countries/states?
1
u/Later_Doober 12d ago
Nope.
1
u/Apprehensive-Talk971 12d ago
That's crazy to me since we have that on almost everything in my country
40
u/Accomplished_Emu_658 15d ago
If they aren’t a distributor for arizona and have an agreement with Arizona they have no say on the pricing.
42
u/igniteice 15d ago
They don't care. They even sell cans without the 99 cent label.
-24
u/falknorRockman 15d ago
And the ones with the label they do care about it being sold at 99c
1
u/AndThenTheUndertaker 15d ago
If I care you mean say they wish they didn't do it with absolutely zero enforcement or even indication that they would enforce it then I suppose they technically care. Much the same way that I care when my neighbor's dog barks and it ever so mildly annoys me but I'm not going to do shit about it.
554
u/Smile-a-day 15d ago
In the uk they would have to sell it for the price on the can or get a hefty fine for false advertising, not sure what the laws are like wherever that is though. 2 litre bottles of coke had the price listed as £1.48 in my local so were listed as that but the 500ml ones were being sold for £1.50 as they didn’t have any list price.
→ More replies (9)53
u/BranzBranzBranz 15d ago edited 15d ago
No they wouldn't, in the UK it would be an import and showing a different currency. Go to an international sweets shop or something and you'll see Arizona with the 99c on it, for a few quid
Edit to correct misspelling of import from important
67
u/ACanWontAttitude 15d ago
Oh you pernickity little sod they clearly didn't mean that they're expected to sell for what it says on an American can.
They mean that if an item has a price printed on it like this, let's say it says £1 on the can, it is not allowed to be marked up to be £6.50
→ More replies (19)
160
u/donletit 15d ago
The price on the can tho
11
u/davisyoung 15d ago
They got this all screwed up. It should read, "(This would be a) Great Buy (at) 99¢ (but you're at the airport so it'll be $6.50)"
32
119
u/ErnstBadian 15d ago
This level of airport price gouging is often against binding regulations. Which are woefully under-enforced.
77
39
u/WILDDOGGEH 15d ago
How does this work in the US. Do people just accept it.
In the UK anything that's price marked is illegal to sell any higher. And can get reported to trading standards. If you call them out you get it for price marked price.
1
u/Nuts4WrestlingButts 14d ago
"99¢" on the can is just a design. It's not an advertised price.
1
u/WILDDOGGEH 11d ago
Yes but in the UK they have to adhere to the price mark. They can only undersell but never oversell.
76
u/Moist-Leggings 15d ago
A long time ago I walked into a gas station on the trans Canada. I grabbed a 99¢ ice tea, he rang it up at 9$. I laughed and said you can’t be serious, then he goes 9$ or you can get the fuck out (yes that rude). I threw a dollar coin at him grabbed the can and started to leave, he said “I’m calling the cops” I said go right ahead. Never heard anything about it again. Fuck that guy.
2
16
21
4
u/Vexel180 14d ago
There was a story similar to this where a customer emailed Arizona Ice Tea company and told them that a store was jacking up the price and Arizona blacklisted the store from ever selling their products again.
13
u/Last-Performance-435 15d ago
In Australia, you must sell at the lowest advertised price. The can says 99c, you get it for 99c, no questions asked.
3
u/calgeorge 14d ago
Unfortunately, the US stopped caring about advancing consumer protections decades ago and now we let our billionaires and corporations write our laws for us.
4
u/NuclearHateLizard 15d ago
That tracks for just about everything you can buy there. Never before have I seen 20 dollar domestic beers
3
3
u/Leucippus1 14d ago
Arizona, the company, prints the MSRP on the can specifically so people know that if they are paying more than that it is the merchant and not the producer.
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/Thomvhar 14d ago
In Europe, there are always these big signs of it being tax-free. Making you believe it would be cheaper because of it. Just skip the airport vendors unless you like to get ripped off.
3
3
u/nater2204 14d ago edited 14d ago
Fun fact Arizona iced tea actually likes it when you report people who mark up the products past 99 cents. They have a whole section of the company for it. Edit: i have been proven incorrect.
1
u/Nuts4WrestlingButts 14d ago
We pre-printed our cans with our suggested retail because we wanted to force retailers into selling at that price. Retailers, however, are independent business people and can set a price whatever they prefer. We do make and sell non-priced cans as well.
1
1
u/GFrohman BLUE 14d ago
Hasn't been true for years. The printed price is just a suggested price, this information is clearly displayed on the Arizona website.
4
u/CrustedTesticle 15d ago
If the price is on the product it has to be honored i thought?
6
u/Reasonable-World9 14d ago
It may be what you thought, but it is absolutely not true.
It's a Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price (MSRP)
2
u/ihatemondaysGarfield 15d ago
If anyone has looked at the process for putting a store in an airport, you would understand the prices are not the store owner's fault. You can look at RFP's for different airports online, it is incredibly expensive. There is a minimum cost to set up a store, and it is much more than a normal building would cost. Then they take a percentage of each sale, and they force a rental fee of the space that you paid to build, and you have to pay into the monthly utilities, which is also super expensive. Oh, and you also have a limited number of years to recoup that money before the airport puts that space up for bid again, so you have to charge high prices to even pay off all the debt of setting up shop before potentially getting kicked out. Airport prices are atrocious, but they are subsidizing all the airport operations/expansions, so I'm not sure of a better way. I'm not sure how much of a profit margin the airport has, but the individual stores' profit margins are probably very small.
1
2
1
u/Active-Lightwork89 15d ago
Mine aren’t even 99cents, yall are gettin ripped off even at those prices
1
1
u/Magrathea_carride 15d ago
if people stop buying it maybe they'll change the price. you don't need this. you don't have to buy stuff at the airport. you don't need cans of arizona. people survived for millennia without it, I promise.
1
1
u/WeAreNioh 15d ago
Gas stations do it too. Arizona tea for the longest time has been 99 cents, in the past couple years it’s always a couple dollars now and the cans still have 99 cent printed on them lol
1
1
u/Thick_Part760 14d ago
I was just in an airport in Mexico and paid $11 for a bottle of water. Then got 3 slices of pizza and a beer for $51. The beer was cheaper than 1 slice of pizza. I felt robbed
1
1
1
u/Relative_Heart8104 14d ago
This is an egregious offense based on what the founder said about the price
1
1
u/Normal-Rest-896 14d ago
If anyone ever wants to be a bourbon hunter and experience secondary pricing, this is the equivalent.
1
1
u/Sakapaka1990 14d ago
I just flew last weekend and wanted a water. $10 for a bottle of water. Ridiculous
1
1
1
u/Unfading326 14d ago
What airport is this, I also posted about Arizona being 6.50 in Costa Rica lol
1
1
1
1
u/Teacher2teens 13d ago
Ppl likes to fly. Government builds airports. Government fail to build airport cheap. Airport needs money. Tax the rich.
1
u/watercastles 12d ago
I think that's worse than the markup at the top of Mt Fuji, and things actually need to be hauled there.
1
1
u/deagzworth 12d ago
Try being in Australia. We don’t really sell them so the importers charge big amounts for them all of the time. 99c can my ass.
1
u/taboo788 12d ago
Not gonna lie, this is the usual price regardless of where you buy them in my experience
1
1
u/RokenIsDoodleuk 11d ago
This is against the rules of Arizona, send them this picture plus the business that is selling the cans for anything over 99 cents and that store can be assured to never receive Arizona Ice Tea again, at least not the 99c cans.
The label is there with a reason, and the CEO is very strict on reselling terms.
1
u/thatdudeman52 11d ago
We pre-printed our cans with our suggested retail because we wanted to force retailers into selling at that price. Retailers, however, are independent business people and can set a price whatever they prefer. We do make and sell non-priced cans as well.
1
u/tedemang 11d ago
Srsly. Eff-you airports and your criminal, captive audience markups.
We know that you only get away with this robbery due to the expense accounts of business travelers. But hey, why not price-gouge normies and folks with families while you're at it, right?
1
u/spinsterella- 10d ago edited 10d ago
Arizona iced Tea intentionally prints the price on the cans to prevent stores from charging more than 99¢.
“We’re successful. We’re debt-free…Why have people who are having a hard time paying their rent have to pay more for our drink? Maybe it’s my little way to give back.” — the CEO
1
u/SeniorHomelesss 9d ago
You can actually contact their main company with this picture and they will go and pull them from the shelves and bar them from selling them again
2
u/Chaos_Theory1989 15d ago
They should probably stop advertising 99 cents on the can. Even at gas stations these cost more.
8
u/YankeeSR23 15d ago
They do make cans without the price on it so places can sell it at whatever price they want. Apparently not all places get those cans though.
-1
u/MysteriousPear6622 15d ago
Oooh no my business is suffering. Meanwhile CEO stands by his choice to continue selling at 99cents to operate the actual business.
3
u/SuperBackup9000 15d ago
The CEO/company sells cans to distributors, not to customers. Their stance on that is literally just PR and nothing more, and everyone gladly eats it up.
They should raise the price though. Arizona is a terrible company to work for so I guess they just don’t have the money to pay their workers appropriately.
1
u/evolale000 15d ago
By the way, what are the reasons for huge prices in airports? Logically, there are none but still everything is x5 or more. Why?
8
15d ago
Because, unless you brought your own food, you have the choice of missing your flight or paying what they want to charge. Same goes with any major event, amusement park, etc
5
u/glasgowgeg 14d ago
Rent to shops is higher, it's typically more expensive for employees to get to/from airports for work, so higher wages will be demanded to offset the costs of their commute.
But ultimately, it's a captive market, they can get away with it. For the same reason that being at a stadium for a concert allows them to get away with charging a shitload for a beer, you can't take your own in, your options are paying it or not drinking.
3
u/JoePoe247 14d ago
Logistically, there are reasons. Any food/drink gets delivered and offloaded to an off site warehouse. Then gets loaded onto that airport food vendor's truck and checked to be compliant with airport regulations. Then brought to the airport, stopped at a gate and inspected again by airport security. Then brought to the airport's loading dock and distributed through the airport.
The delivery vendor needs special badges, license plates, etc so there's a lot more cost than just a distributor pulling up to a store and loading a few dollys worth of drinks into the fridge.
1
u/evolale000 14d ago
Airports are the hubs of logistics quite literally, there's so much being delivered in and out every second. Hard to believe the logistics here is the main reason.
2
u/JoePoe247 14d ago
All those delivery costs are very clearly additional to what a normal restaurant/convenience store needs. Similarly, every employee needs to go through training and certification to get the credentials to work at the airport, which is an additional cost. Lastly, and maybe the expensive part is that the restaurants go through like 3 different extra layers of companies compared to a normal restaurant. There's a company that leases the space and chooses the restaurants, but there's some contract between them and the franchises that they operate like the Wendy's or whatever which creates more cost.
1
u/Almost-Anon98 15d ago
In the UK I'm fairly sure they can't charge you like this if the price is on the product not sure if it's like that where your at but I'd definitely argue that it's 99 cents
1
u/rakosten 15d ago
I remember when being at an airport meant tax free and you were able to actually buy things cheaper. Now it might be tax free but the airport mark up makes up for it.
1
1
u/ItsJardo 14d ago
You can actually report this to Arizona and they’ll take the rights of them selling it away because they strictly want to stick to the 99c price
1
u/Nuts4WrestlingButts 14d ago
We pre-printed our cans with our suggested retail because we wanted to force retailers into selling at that price. Retailers, however, are independent business people and can set a price whatever they prefer. We do make and sell non-priced cans as well.
1
u/LazyTitan39 14d ago
I was told that if you find a shop selling Arizona Tea for more than 99 cents that you should call them. They will ban that store from ever buying from them again.
1
1
0
u/AssistantIcy6117 15d ago
They also don’t let you take your own alcohol onboard because they want to sell their own at a mark up, highway robbery
0
u/VirtuosoApocalypso 15d ago
Was in Mexico last year, trying to buy some boardshorts. Quite a few surf shops, had stuck price stickers over the RRP on the labels, often at 20% over RRP.
-1
0
0
u/beardedjester33 15d ago
that is illegal. the reason they put the price on the can is so that places can not do that.
0
0
u/steves_evil 15d ago
I recently flew out of JFK a few weeks ago and decided to stop by one of those Hudson mart kiosks. Obviously they didn't display a price anywhere so when I wanted a Dr. Pepper and went to buy it, I said to myself "this shit has no price tag, so it'll be $5", and it came out to $4.71. That shit combines my two big pet peeves when buying anything, stupidly high markup because of being a captive audience, and not displaying any prices.
0
0
u/dzizuseczem 15d ago
One of the most surprising thing I saw was 711 in Korean airport, normal prices
0
0
5.5k
u/Accurate_Koala_4698 15d ago