Resort Fee Add-on Scam

[DandyDon]

You can prepay the room and tax, but still get hit for Resort Fees on arrival or departure. They'll be mentioned in the fine print of the contract with some. I think most are more open to avoid escalating problems.

 

[Mike]

Resort fees have always been disclosed to me, either at the time of booking and on the receipt or at the time of check in. I've never gotten a surprise resort fee at check out.

 

[Shasta_man]

$300 for Texas to Vegas?! We used to pay $298 RT for California to East coast, but now it's over $200 to fly from SF to LA for the times most of us can fly i.e. weekends.

 

[DandyDon]

I met a Padi instructor running the hotel Garrett once had here in Lincoln NM.

No guests gunned down in over a hundred years, and they don't feed jail inmates here anymore.

 

[WOODMAN]

Here's something a little different for you guys along this subject- My daughter just came up on a business trip from Miami (and to visit the folks) and the plan was for her to stay at one of the downtown hotels here in MPLS, as we live rather far out and she didn't relish the commute. Alas, things changed. When she got to the hotel, first she balked at the better than $20/night parking charge, but what really got her was the security deposit (!) They actually wanted $250 from her credit card (that was more than the 2 night corporate hotel rate for the stay!) in advance, with a vague promise to refund any "unused" portion to her card 2-3 weeks after she left. They even had a neat little card printed up to 'explain' this. A security deposit for a hotel stay? Has anyone else heard of something like this? I have traveled a lot and have never come across any chicanery like this. Needless to say, the commute to the free family hotel got very appealing all of a sudden, and home she came, still steaming about this. What's your take on this? Woody

 

[Mike]

Never heard of such a thing. Does your daughter look like she's in a rock band and going to trash the hotel????

What hotel brand is this?

Giving a credit card for charges for incidentals such as room service, movies, your mini-bar and such is pretty typical, no chance this is what they were doing and just putting a hold on $250.00 on her card in advance to make sure she had the limit available on her card?

 

[DandyDon]

Never heard of such a thing. Does your daughter look like she's in a rock band and going to trash the hotel????

What hotel brand is this?

Giving a credit card for charges for incidentals such as room service, movies, your mini-bar and such is pretty typical, no chance this is what they were doing and just putting a hold on $250.00 on her card in advance to make sure she had the limit available on her card?

Not with a "vague promise to refund any "unused" portion to her card 2-3 weeks after she left." Something is very fishy there.

 

[Tigerman]

No way I would allow anyone to hold $250 of mine for 2-3 WEEKS... I would accept (and expect) to prepay one or two nights of my stay as a walk-in, but thats abot it.

 

[DandyDon]

friend visiting LAS next week sent me this useful link. hotels with no resort fees @ the bottom of page,,,,,,,,

Resort Fee Popup

Interesting, but after driving to Death Valley, Yosemite, and other parks between - 1,000 miles in 6 days, we don't want to commute from some outlying hotel. They want to stay on the Strip. If we were flying out of Lubbock, I might just come back 2 nights early and miss that part - but we're driving down to Abilene to save on air, and I might as well try to enjoy Vegas with them.

You guys have it all wrong. The resort fee is a way for the hotel to avoid paying hotel tax.

So that's how a hotel sale for $45/night becomes $90/night with taxes and fees? They are taking this Resort Fee game to new levels here.

I'm trying to book here, and yeah yeah - some of you say to book direct with the hotel. LISTEN: Sometime it costs more to book at the hotel's own site! I have a large number of tabs open so I can compare Hotel.com rates with direct rates side beside, for a few hotels - and direct can be a lot more than thru Hotel.com! They don't like us looking too long and hard tho and a tab will delete info after a few minutes.

I narrowed it down to Treasure Island, but the online sites didn't give me all the info so I phone - and that helped, but it got off to a bad start: I WILL NOT PRESS #1 FOR ENGLISH IN THIS COUNTRY, unless I am dealing with an American Indian property - as I guess they might have a right to ask for such. My objections meant I had to press 0, then the usual next menu - so I didn't accomplish anything there, but it's a personal issue.

After that, the agent was quite helpful. $14/night cheaper at Hotel.com than direct with the hotel. (For those who keep telling others it's always cheaper to book direct, you're wrong - but I am sure the hotels love you. :kiss2: )

 

[Tigerman]

You dont book at their site, you call/mail them. Also, if they sell the rooms cheaper through hotels.com/booking.com etc theire idiots as those sites charge a comission (normally 10+% of what you pay), which means charging the same direct makes them more money than selling through the booking

I work with this for a living and there is VERY few offers you can find that a hotel is not willing to match or undercut in order to get the booking direct and avoid paying the comissions.
Large tour ops can get some very low prices for certain promotions, but your not likely to see all that discount as a customer and the hotel is likely to have such promos themselves for the same periods, although you may not find them at OTAs such as the ones mentioned above..