Hotel Resort Fees: The Growing Backlash
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What are hotel resort fees and why are travelers upset?
Here's your money briefing. I'm J.R. Whelan at The Wall Street Journal in New York. There's a battle being waged over hotel resort fees. Those extra charges that hotels tack on to the cost of a room can sometimes double or even triple the advertised price. That's infuriating for guests. And now some cities and states are taking a stand.
The attorney general in Nebraska, who's a Republican, has sued Hilton. The attorney general in the District of Columbia, who's a Democrat, has sued Marriott. And I think these suits, this is a coordinated effort with attorneys general in several states across the country. And I think they're really going after the two big companies in this.
That's Wall Street Journal middle seat columnist Scott McCartney. He'll reveal the tricks that hotels use to sneak fees past you and how online booking sites are also fighting back. That's next.
The sweet deal you find for a hotel room can quickly turn sour once you add in the fees.
When and why did hotels start adding mandatory resort fees?
So-called resort fees charged by hotels can significantly drive up the price of a room. Guests have been grumbling about this for a while, but otherwise hotel chains haven't faced much opposition until now. Let's bring in Wall Street Journal Middle Sea columnist Scott McCartney for some details. So Scott, first of all, how did these resort fees first come about?
Well, it really started about 12 or 13 years ago. And I think it was a reaction to the online comparison shopping that so many of us do, where you search for a hotel room in a city for dates you want to go, and up comes a display with hotels sorted by their room rate. And so Clever Hotels figured, well, if you can take $30, $40 out of your room rate and call it a mandatory fee, then you'll be displayed higher and more likely to get bookings And yet you can still collect more money when the guest goes to check out.
Did some hotels get the idea from airlines who had been tacking on fees to their services?
I think this sort of is in some ways the baggage fee of the hotel industry. You know, airlines and others, car rental companies, we've certainly seen fees after fees after fees in the travel business. So, yes, that's part of it. What makes this different is these fees are mandatory. You do have a choice with an airline of whether you're going to check a bag or not. But with these mandatory resort fees, destination fees, whatever they call them, it's not an option.
How do resort fees manipulate online hotel search rankings?
You got to pay it if you want the room.
And we're not talking about a couple of dollars. In some cases, these resort fees can triple the advertised cost of a room.
Yeah, some of these examples we found were just crazy, where there's a hotel in Las Vegas, you know, will advertise the Oyo Hotel, advertise a $23 room rate, and the resort fee is $41.95. So you end up paying three times as much.
Hotel companies, they've gotten kind of creative in how they sneak in the fees during the reservation process.
Yes, and it can be very misleading. On Marriott's website, once you click through, and you have to click through two or three screens to find this, but there may be a room rate. And it'll say in small print in a box, mandatory daily resort fee of whatever, $35 or whatever it might be added to the rate. But it's ambiguous. It doesn't you don't necessarily know if they've already added it or it will be added. Now, some of them do say will, and that's a little bit more respectable, I guess. But at the same time, this is it'll show the room rate and not do the math for you. So so why not add it in? In some cases, hotels are even displaying, you know, sort of the total price, but excluding the mandatory fee.
How do hotels hide or display mandatory fees during booking?
And so you can easily get hoodwinked into thinking this is what it's going to cost me and then get surprised that it's going to cost you a bunch more.
Well, it no doubt frustrates hotel guests, but some online booking companies have seen enough and they're taking action.
Expedia has started penalizing hotels that charge mandatory daily fees in their search results displays. They're trying to, you know, make it a little take away that advantage that encourages hotels to sneak in these really deceptive fees.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What are hotel resort fees and why are travelers upset?
0:05–1:08
2
When and why did hotels start adding mandatory resort fees?
1:08–2:31
3
How do resort fees manipulate online hotel search rankings?
2:31–3:53
4
How do hotels hide or display mandatory fees during booking?
3:53–5:14
5
What are online travel sites doing to discourage deceptive resort fees?
5:14–6:56
6
How are legislators and state attorneys general taking action against resort fees?
6:56–8:10
7
What justifications do hotels give for resort fees and are they valid?
8:10–8:49
Speakers
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