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Watch your hotel bill for some new, unexpected & unwanted charges. (Image: Hilton)
We all know about those irritating “resort fees” that hotels list separately from the room rate, but are mandatory whether you use the included services or not. But apparently resort fees are just the tip of the iceberg these days, as more and more hotels come up with new hotel fees for amenities and services that used to be free.
That’s according to a new report from Bjorn Hanson, a professor at NYU’s Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism who tracks hotel industry trends.
Hanson reports that some of the newer hotel surcharges are: an early check-in fee; a charge to guarantee a specific type of room or room location; fees for holding onto your bag after you check out of your room but before you leave; and charges for unattended parking on lots surrounding suburban hotels.
These are in addition to fees we’ve seen creeping onto hotel bills lately such early departure fees, reservation cancellation fees, fees for sending or receiving packages or faxes, room service delivery charges (in addition to the tip), and automatic staff gratuities.
Related: Irritating resort fees are here to stay
The travel industry website Skift.com recently noted that guests at the Bellagio in Las Vegas who want to make sure they get a nonsmoking room, a high floor, a pool view and so on can pay up to $30 a night extra for the privilege. (For some reason, Las Vegas hotels seem to be at the vanguard of the fee movement.)
As the airline industry has learned in recent years, most of the revenue from added fees goes straight to the bottom line: “Fees and surcharges are highly profitable,” Hanson says. “Many have incremental profitability of 80 to 90 percent or more of the amounts collected.”
His research indicates that hotel fees collected have doubled in the past decade, from $1.2 billion in 2004 to almost $2.4 billion in 2014.
The Federal Trade Commission has warned hoteliers that all mandatory fees must be disclosed up-front, but it has never taken any action to prohibit or regulate them. Hanson notes that by separating out various mandatory fees from the room rate, the hotel industry also avoids paying local hotel taxes on the amount collected.
Readers: What hotel fee irritates you the most? How do you handle it when charged a fee you don’t like? Please leave your comments below.
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Not really. There are way more non-smokers than smokers. Making non-smokers pay, knowing they hate smoke more is more revenue for the hotel.
What a heartwarming story. Love it!
It all depends on your status at a hotel. I am gold with Marriott and in July on a trip to London, by flight got in an hour early. I had reservations for the airport Marriot, got there at 12:45 and was told that I had to pay an additional 30 pounds for getting the room before the 2pm check in time. Since I had until 6 pm to cancel the room, I call up the Sheraton Skyline just next door and got a room at a cheaper price, a last minute fare. I then cancelled the Marriott reservation and walked next door to the Sheraton and enjoyed a lower rate.
People have to start doing stuff like this because there is no loyalty with these hotels anymore.
Destination fees are usually imposed by cities to help pay for their tourism promotion.
If the hotels could just figure out that smokers would pay a little extra to be able to enjoy a cigarette in their room, all this foolishness would go away. It’s pretty obvious.
Charges for things you want or use are fine, I’m all for that. Check in early? Paying a fee is better than having to book the room for an entire night before you arrive. Checking out late? Great, it’s a nice perk to be able to come back and shower/change before an international flight; I have no problem paying for the privilege. I’ll be happy to pay a bag-holding fee, but the bellman won’t get a tip. Fees for things I don’t use? Deduct them from the bill, please. You say they’re mandatory? If they’re mandatory, the belong in the room rate. Deduct them from my bill, please. This can add 30 minutes to your checkout time, and you have to repeat yourself many times, while smiling, but if we don’t stand up to this bullying, we’ll get run over.
Having to pay extra to guarantee a non-smoking room is just WRONG! (but having smoking rooms is actually worse)
I saw this post and immediately went to check the latest reward redemption reservation that I made for a hotel in Charleston, SC. I found this sentence buried in the fine print at the end:
“In addition to the room & tax rate quoted, please be aware that a $1.00 per night, per room Destination Fee will be applied at check out.”
What in the world is a Destination Fee?? This is getting ridiculous.
I knew how things worked in Vegas, then I began to research visiting Atlantic City. Even in January, when it’s freezing outside, there’s a resort fee at all motels and hotels. One can’t enjoy the outside pool, sit on the beach or walk the Broadwalk.
Now if you’re talented and lucky enough to play professional sports, you really get shafted. Most communities/cities now tax what players on the visiting team earn while in-town. Plus, often there’s a ‘bonus’ tax on the hotel bill, designed to ream out of town visitors.
I refuse to stay anywhere that charges an extra fee (except for parking in hotels in urban areas) but even then if I can get away with street parking or an offsite lot I will do that. The FTC should crack down on all these as they should have done with the airlines. No surprise that Las Vegas hotels are at the forefront of charging extras, it goes with the territory (you make millions, you’ll nickel and dime to make a few extra dollars)
No contest. The resort fee.
How much more dishonest could a hotel be than hiding the true cost of its rooms in the small print, in order to show up better in price comparisons? Oh, I know. Then saying it has free Wi-Fi. Just despicable.
“If you become a resident, perhaps there are issues with eviction restrictions, etc., they wish to avoid.”
Exactly. Landlord-tenant laws kick in & in some places it can take several months to evict you for nonpayment, etc.
If you become a resident, perhaps there are issues with eviction restrictions, etc., they wish to avoid. But as for checking you in and out every 7 days, I suspect that’s mostly because they’d like to incrementally collect money from you rather than waiting until the end and discovering the large charge won’t go through.
As far as not wanting to collect taxes on fees, well, why aggravate the customer any more?
They all annoy me; resort fees, wifi charges, early/late checkin/out fees, bag holding fees parking charges……, they are all junk fees and a cash grab in my mind. If Hoteliers feel there are legitimate costs that they have to pass to customers they should factor these into the price of the room, charge a per night charge and stop the cash grab which forces customers to evaluate every action they take during vacation. They would be wise to pay attention to how people feel about airlines. As anyone, and I bet that most will tell you they hate dealing with an airline, that they are greedy pigs, and that is is like rolling the dice when you deal with them. You never know what you will get. That is not how you want your customers to think of you or your brand. I don’t want to have to spend time thinking and factoring in things like what if I want to come early? where will i park, how much is hotel A vs. hotel B going to charge for parking? Will hotel A charge me for towels at the pool? It makes planning difficult, frustrates customers who are on vacation and would rather relax without constant price evaluation. Frankly his pricing behavior makes me leave the property to spend money. I don’t like giving my money to businesses that I feel are making a concerted effort to trap me and rip me off.
I guess I don’t mind so much if the fee is disclosed before I commit to anything, but I’m amazed at the number of hotels in the U.S. that charge a “room safe fee” (even if you don’t use the safe) and don’t inform you until you check out. You’d think the hotel would be required to disclose this at the time is reservation is made. Once I was even charged a room safe fee even though the safe in my room had broken and could not be opened.
And I don’t get why the hotels are so eager to avoid state taxes. Don’t the guests pay these? I have heard that under Texas state law if you stay in a hotel for more than 30 days you are considered a permanent resident and are exempted from hotel taxes. As a result, if you stay a long time in some Texas hotels, they will secretly check you out and check you back in again every 7 days to reset the clock. I never understood this. If the guest is paying the hotel taxes, why does the hotel care whether taxes are collected or not?