Half board, breakfast only, or nothing: how to actually run the numbers

The same fork in the road shows up at every booking: room only, breakfast included, half board, all inclusive. It looks like a matter of personal taste, but it's really a calculation, and the variable that actually matters isn't how much you want to spend. It's where you are.

On a remote island, or in a mountain refuge only reachable on foot, half board is close to self defense. If every bottle of water arrives by boat or on a mule's back, an a la carte dinner can cost as much as two nights' stay, and the half board supplement pays for itself. There, the right question isn't whether it's worth it, but how much the alternative would cost.

Where half board loses

The picture changes completely wherever you can walk somewhere else to eat. In a city hotel, or on a coast with ten restaurants five minutes away, half board ties you down during exactly the hours you'd rather be out. And let's be honest: the half board menu is rarely the kitchen's best work. Plenty of places run a reduced menu for guests on the plan and save the real menu for people paying separately. Paying to eat worse is a bad deal no matter how many stars the hotel has.

All inclusive deserves its own conversation, because it only really works for people who drink. The real value sits almost entirely in the alcohol: anyone having two drinks a head plus wine at dinner easily earns back the supplement. Anyone who barely drinks is just handing the money to the hotel. Watch the exclusions printed in small type too. Lobster, certain vintages, specialty restaurants are nearly always carved out, and that's exactly where the resort claws back the margin it seemed to have given away.

My practical rule is simple. Island or refuge with no alternative: half board, almost always. City or coast with restaurants within walking distance: breakfast only, or nothing. All inclusive: only if your bar habits actually justify it. And whatever you choose, compare the same hotel with different board types across a few sites first. It happens more often than you'd expect that half board on one channel costs less than breakfast only on another, one of the odder, and more useful, quirks of hotel distribution.