{"id":35867,"date":"2017-07-21T05:39:23","date_gmt":"2017-07-21T05:39:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=35867"},"modified":"2017-07-21T05:58:04","modified_gmt":"2017-07-21T05:58:04","slug":"hotel-resort-fees-hidden-charges-bemoaned-by-travelers-are-climbing-higher-than-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/lifestyle\/hotel-resort-fees-hidden-charges-bemoaned-by-travelers-are-climbing-higher-than-ever.html","title":{"rendered":"Hotel resort fees, hidden charges bemoaned by travelers, are climbing higher than ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hotel resort fees, hidden charges bemoaned by travelers, are climbing higher than ever<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Tamara Myers thought that her hotel bill at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino would come to $415. At least that\u2019s what Otel.com, the website through which she booked the room, promised her.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the site glossed over a small detail: a mandatory daily \u201cresort fee\u201d payable at checkout, which added $306 to the folio.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gotcha.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI did my due diligence,\u201d insists Myers, who lives in Indianapolis and works for the military. She\u2019d made the reservation for her 88-year-old mother, who was caring for her brother in Las Vegas. \u201cThe fee was listed nowhere on Otel.com.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mandatory resort fees, tacked onto a hotel bill after an initial price quote \u2014 and sometimes even later, as with Myers \u2014 are on the rise again. A total of 1,026 domestic hotels charged a resort fee for the first half of 2017, a 14\u2009percent increase from just six months ago, according to new research from Resortfeechecker.com, a site that allows travelers to look up resort fees at hotels worldwide. The average resort fee, which covers everything from \u201cfree\u201d WiFi to access to exercise facilities, now stands at almost $21, a jump of 8.7 percent from last December.<\/span><\/p>\n

The biggest increases came in large metropolitan cities, including New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles, where resort fees are up by a whopping 70 percent in six months. \u201cUntil recently, most hotels in these cities didn\u2019t charge a fee,\u201d says Randy Greencorn, publisher of Resortfeechecker.com<\/span><\/p>\n

No wonder, then, that frustration with resort fees is reaching a boiling point. They\u2019re difficult to fight once they\u2019ve been added to a bill. Government action on the fees, once thought to be inevitable, has stalled.<\/span><\/p>\n

Resort fees are classic travel industry sleight-of-hand \u2014 you\u2019re quoted one price, you pay another \u2014 yet for now they remain perfectly legal. How so? Hotels are only required to disclose the fee before the booking is made, but not when the initial price quote is made. The Westgate\u2019s site warns that a resort fee of $29.95 plus tax a night \u201cmay\u201d apply. A search for a weekly room rate in August shows a price of $781 for a standard \u201cSignature\u201d room. The next screen downplays the final room rate, which, after taxes and resort fees, comes to $1,192, a 53 percent increase. You have to click an arrow to get a price breakdown.<\/span><\/p>\n

Otel.com shows an asterisk and refers to resort fees under \u201cHotel Information\u201d on its booking page. \u201cSome hotels do charge a resort fee which must be paid to the hotel directly,\u201d it warns. \u201cOtel.com is not responsible for resort fee charges and has no control over their implementation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A Westgate representative said that the hotel does not contract directly with Otel.com. \u201cAll of our direct booking partners and our corporate websites clearly mark the presence of our resort fee, consistent with nearly every other major resort in Las Vegas,\u201d said Jeff Klein, a resort spokesman. Klein says it has contacted Otel.com and asked it to \u201cmake this right with the customer.\u201d I did, too, but received no response.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s how it goes with most attempts to claw back a resort fee. Apparently, hotels and their intermediaries feel as if asterisks and hard-to-find disclosures are adequate, and they are interpreting the government\u2019s silence on the matter as a tacit endorsement of their practices.<\/span><\/p>\n

Only a few months ago, resort fees were headed for extinction. The Federal Trade Commission signaled that the fees as they are currently advertised by most hotels were \u201cunfair and deceptive.\u201d The agency was poised to announce a policy shift that would require resort fees to be included in the initial price quote, according to multiple sources.<\/span><\/p>\n

But after the presidential election, the federal government cooled on further regulating the hotel industry. A national investigation of resort fees, led by the attorney general for the District with participation of 46 state attorneys general, is underway. In June, the D.C. attorney general sent a subpoena to Marriott, requiring it to produce documents related to its investigation into whether its practice of charging \u201cundisclosed or poorly disclosed\u201d resort fees violates the District\u2019s consumer protection laws.<\/span><\/p>\n

Marriott says it \u201cfully\u201d discloses resort fees to consumers before they complete their booking on any of its direct channels. \u201cWe have been cooperating with the District of Columbia\u2019s request for information in accordance with their investigation into industry resort fee disclosure practices,\u201d says John Wolf, a spokesman for Marriott.<\/span><\/p>\n

But until a state, the FTC or a court declares these fees illegal, they\u2019re bound to continue multiplying, industry observers say. It\u2019s a source of frustration for travelers and embarrassment for tourism officials. I contacted representatives in the top three cities for resort fees \u2014 Orlando, Miami and Las Vegas \u2014 after the Resortfeechecker.com data was released. Officials in Orlando and Las Vegas declined to comment, and Miami did not respond.<\/span><\/p>\n

There are a few quick fixes. The first is obvious: Review the fine print, especially if you\u2019re booking through a third party. Discount hotel sites may intentionally conceal resort fees, or they may not have access to the most current resort fee information from the property. You owe it to yourself to check with the hotel before you make your reservation.<\/span><\/p>\n

In some cases, resort fees can be avoided by joining hotel loyalty programs, Greencorn says. \u201cSign-up takes only a couple of minutes and can be done online. Before booking, travelers should check with their hotel directly to see if they provide this benefit to its members.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

These are only stopgap measures, but they should help you avoid unpleasant surprises until the long arm of the law catches up with hotels that charge resort fees. It\u2019s only a matter of time.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/lifestyle\/travel\/hotel-resort-fees-hidden-charges-bemoaned-by-travelers-are-climbing-higher-than-ever\/2017\/07\/20\/a56256d0-68b1-11e7-a1d7-9a32c91c6f40_story.html?utm_term=.48d1666d2f21<\/span><\/p>\n

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