Junk Fees Are Easier to Spot… But Still Hard to Avoid
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Here's your money briefing for Wednesday, September 18th. I'm J.R. Whelan for The Wall Street Journal. There have been widespread calls to eliminate junk fees. You know, those charges that get tucked into the bottom of your hotel bill or plane ticket. The good news? Those fees are now a lot less hidden than they used to be. The bad news? You're still on the hook for them.
After many years of feeling frustrated at that checkout screen, some consumers say even just seeing the total price from beginning to end feels like a win. They don't feel duped. But at the same time, there are some other people who wish that they had gone farther.
We'll talk with our travel reporter, Allison Poley, about what else is being done about junk fees and what you can do about them on your next trip after the break.
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What are 'junk fees' and where do they commonly appear on travel bills?
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It's becoming easier to spot so-called junk fees when you travel, but avoiding them is another story. Wall Street Journal travel reporter Alison Pauley joins me. Alison, fees get tacked onto a lot of prices we see, but what are junk fees?
Junk fees are those ambiguous, vague charges that come at the end of your bill that you're not totally sure what they're for. You might see it at the end of a hotel bill. There will be a resort fee, but you don't really know what you're getting for that resort fee. It could be... $40 a night, it could be $70 a night. You might see it at the end of a rental car transaction where there is a service fee added to the bill, but there's no specification about what that service fee is for.
What do companies say is the reason for these fees?
Companies do say that there are benefits given with these fees. So with a resort fee, for example, a hotel might say this includes access to the pool or the fitness room or a food and beverage credit. And so we're giving you things along with charging this fee where consumer advocates argue that those things that are given, for example, should be included in the initial price that consumers see.
Last year, in a State of the Union address, President Biden called for a ban on these fees.
We're going to ban surprise resort fees that hotels charge on your bill. Those fees can cost you up to $90 a night at hotels that aren't even resorts. What kinds of laws have been passed?
Since then, there's been a bunch of regulations from various angles. So, for example, the Transportation Department has taken a look at fees related to airlines. So they're looking closely at seat assignment fees because families want to be able to sit together without paying a bunch extra for that. They're also looking to make fee displays more transparent in terms of checked bags or the cost to change or cancel a flight. So there are federal rules that have been proposed along those lines. But there are also bills on the state and national level. In California, for example, two bills went into effect that target mandatory fees. So these are fees that you have to pay. They're not optional. And the California bills are saying that these fees that consumers must pay when they check out have to be disclosed from the time the initial price is advertised.
So are people actually seeing a lower price as a result of these rules?
They are not. And so the California attorney general put out some guidance that said this isn't meant to affect the price. It's not meant to make sure prices are higher necessarily or lower necessarily. It's just meant to for people to know exactly what they're paying so they're not surprised by added fees at the end of their transaction.
Has it raised questions whether these fee transparency rules are actually helping consumers?
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