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Ringing Up Charges
The Travel Critic · April 13, 1998

Hotels are milking business travelers for all they've got, and I for one am tired of being one of their cash cows.

Their scam is simple: At the end of a trip, place a traveler in a long line where she won't misbehave, sock her with phone and fax charges, fax delivery charges, room service fees, minibar charges and a charge for using the business center. Shame her into paying, and watch the profits pile up.

Need proof? Among occupied rooms at corporate travel hotels, guests were charged $29.35 over and above their room rate in 1995 - a figure that includes phone, food, beverage and miscellaneous charges. That number climbed to $30.35 the following year and $31.42 in 1997, according to PKF Consulting in Atlanta.

"The amount of extra charges to hotel guests is increasing," observes PKF's numbers guru, Robert Mandelbaum. How much will you pay in incidentals? "It does look like full-service hotels-the ones that cater to business travelers-are making their customers pay more for incidentals."

"Making" is the operative word here. Tell me you've never been badgered into coughing up more for surprise extras, right there, right then, and often with a crowd of other guests looking on.

I have. I've been coerced into shelling out more money for calls I don't think I made, movies I don't think I watched, food I don't remember eating, drinks I don't remember ordering and a computer I don't recall logging on to.

Indeed, with occupancy rates near an all-time high, hotels have become more shameless about extracting cash from their guests. Fine print at the bottom of a room service menu warns about a 7 percent delivery charge; the tiny card next to your fax cautions ever-so-discreetly about the dollar-per-page fee to use the machine; the valet parking stub mentions various surcharges in the smallest possible font size.

At checkout, the stone-faced clerk tells you it's all due-tout de suite. What, you didn't know about that charge? Tough luck. Pay up.

Those of you on an expense account shouldn't be too smug. Your company is less likely to reimburse you for these surcharges than it used to be. Take phone calls home, for example.

According to Runzheimer International, 94 percent of companies took care of that in 1994. Two years later, it had dropped to 92 percent. Same for laundry charges, down from 32 percent to 27 percent during the same period. And minibar reimbursements, down from 24 percent to 18 percent.

"Many hotels are beginning to see extra charges as a lucrative profit center," admits Norman Cavin, senior director for brand marketing at Memphis, Tenn.-based Hampton Inn. "They're just now realizing that these are areas they haven't looked at as a revenue source." (Hampton has wisely resisted the urge to squeeze business travelers. Its mid-scale rooms come with free local calls, a continental breakfast-and they don't include any minibars.)

The problem is particularly acute among upscale business travel hotels, which are "constantly adding amenities for which they can charge guests extra," says Mark Mutkoski, a senior lodging analyst at BT Alex.Brown Inc., in New York. "Hotels are making more money from business centers, in-room faxes and printers than ever."

I've got no problem with a hotel turning a profit. Except when it plays a game with me in order to get more. It offers extra amenities with a minimum of disclosure and then shames me into paying the bill at the end. I guess someone in marketing has watched The Sting one time too many.

Christopher Elliott is a travel commentator and author of A Bridge to Nowhere: A Year in the Florida Keys. All e-mailed questions may be edited, condensed or republished at the site's discretion.