Just when we thought the resort fee epidemic was under control, along comes a recession and ruins it for everyone.
Resort fees — those mandatory extra charges tacked on to your hotel bill to cover everything from beach towels to exercise facilities — are wrong on many levels. They’re nothing more than a sneaky way of raising your room rate. But until now, they’ve been in plain sight. Good hotels don’t charge them, but the bad hotels that do are up-front about them, at least.
Or were.
When Elvera Penner checked in to the Quality Inn & Suites Anaheim Resort, she had confirmed the rate carefully, like she always does. And then — bam!
We came up against this surprise $3.15 per day resort fee when we checked out. We asked to see the printout we had signed when we checked in — when they take your credit card imprint — and lo and behold, the resort fee was not included in that either! The manager grumbled mightily, but did remove the resort fee.
It may have been Penner’s case that prodded Quality Inn to clearly disclose the fee on its Web site. Either way, the surcharge is now highlighted in red, so it’s hard to miss.
Quality Inn should include all fees in the base price of its rooms. If it doesn’t, it needs to clearly disclose any required fees at the time of booking and when guests check in.
If a hotel doesn’t do any of these things, you should ask to have the charges removed. And what if it doesn’t? Talk to your credit card company.
As the economy staggers along, expect more hotels to try to slap a resort fee on your bill. When they do, put up a good fight. It keeps the whole lodging industry honest.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Resort fees are evil. They cannot be justified under any economic or business principle and as such represent pure extortion.
Resort fees are doubly evil because usually
1. You don’t get any loyalty points for them
2. You still pay them when redeeming award nights
3. They’re often excluded from packages and specials
Wholly unethical!
resort fees are just asinine – they’ve got you trapped because you’re already there. transparency is a huge goal for ethical transactions – we should all work toward that!
If resort fees are not disclosed in the contract, then I am not obligated to pay them. It’s really that simple.
Next time a hotel pulls this crap, do just like the Penners did. Refuse to pay. If the clerk balks, ask to speak to the manager. If the manager “isn’t available”, then inform the clerk that after your credit card company removes the charge, you will write a letter outlining exactly what has happened, including names, dates, times, etc., and send it to the county’s District Attorney and copy it to the hotel’s consumer affairs office at the corporate headquarters, the state’s Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commission, and maybe the state’s US Attorney’s office as well, explaining exactly what is going on. That ought to do it.
Yes, but in the retail and hospitality business, transparency is the last thing they want. The less you know, the better off they think they are.
We got hit with a resort fee at the quality inn and suites in Kissimmee near Orlando. We made a reservation on Expedia. I printed out the res via pdf and saved it my desk top. The ‘resort fee’ was in fact disguised as a ‘in room safe insurance fee’ of $2.50 a day. It was not disclosed on the confirmation – but – after I complained it now miraculously appears on the confirmation pages!
When I checked in I was asked to sign a form – I actually took 30 seconds to read the form which had the standard ‘you break it you bought it’ language and, the disclosure of the fee. I told them that I refused to sign the form unless the fee was deleted. They simply took the form back unsigned. End of problem.
I go to check out and the fee is there. I object. The person states that everyone pays it – I point out that I never agreed to pay it. she harrumpfs and goes and gets the form – its not signed. She gets confused. I ask to speak to the onduty manager – the front desk manager saunters over. I say no – the manager please. “Manager not available.”
“Ok, are you aware you are selling insurance without a license, which is a felony in Florida?”
“What?” Dumb look from the front desk manager.
“Well, Sandeep Anoosh, you are going to be named on the complaint to the Florida department of insurance for illegally selling insurance. Do you want to remove the insurance fee?”
“I’ll take it off.”
I pressed it and asked for the insurance policy. “There is no insurance policy.” “Well, then, Mr. Anoosh, what are you selling then? Are there limits or conditions to coverage – or is anything we put in there covered?”
“I have no idea Mr. Farrell, [and here is the key words he used] IT IS JUST A FEE!”
After I returned home I did file a complaint with the Florida department of consumer affairs – and they ARE investigating it after I spoke with an investigator and referred them to the hotel website which now clearly state you have to pay for “in room safe insurance.” His remark was – they can’t sell insurance – or what something thinks is insurance. We’ll see what they call it next.
When I spoke to a reservation agent at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi MS and asked about the $5.35 resort fee she stated that “all resorts are charging it.”
“Then why not increase the price of the room?”
“Because not everyone has to pay it,” she said.
“Oh, who doesn’t pay?”
“People who get complimentary rooms.”
Well, DUH!!
I would honestly feel better about paying a higher nightly rate for a room at a hotel if it meant that the hotel wasnt charging stupid fees. When I see a room that says 100 doller a night I want to pay 100 dollers a night (plus government tax) instead of a room that says 100 doller s anight and after fees turns out to be like 130 doller a night…