The way some resort fees are broken out and disclosed is commonly referred to as “drip” pricing: Thi

L ike many resort hotels, the Marriott San Juan Resort and Stellaris Casino in San Juan, Puerto Rico, adds a fee to its daily room rate to cover amenities such as bottled water, a casino coupon, local phone calls and wireless Internet.
Resort fees are routinely hidden on travel and hotel sites, but nowhere, as Steve McEvoy recently discovered, are they more dramatically concealed than on such so-called "opaque" sites as Hotwire and Priceline.
When McEvoy booked a room at the Marriott through Priceline, a site that doesn't reveal the name of the hotel until you've paid for a non-refundable reservation, he was told that he'd pay only $150 a night. But his e-mail confirmation said that he'd be billed an extra $22 in fees — that, in effect, the surcharge was part of the room rate. "Is anyone trying to write a law to prevent this from happening?" asked McEvoy, a transportation consultant who lives in Philadelphia.
The lack of disclosure of these extra charges, a longtime source of frustration for travelers, is getting some attention from a group of consumer advocates led by Ed Perkins, a syndicated travel columnist and former Consumer Reports editor. In a letter sent to the Federal cruise job star Trade Commission this week, Perkins asked the agency to rule that these fees are "unfair and deceptive." An FTC decision on the matter would close a loophole that collectively costs travelers tens of millions of dollars cruise job star every year.
The way some resort fees are broken out and disclosed is commonly referred to as "drip" pricing: This means that a company initially advertises only part of a product's cost, then reveals additional mandatory charges later, as a consumer goes through the buying cruise job star process. And hotels aren't the only ones to use this price-tag sleight of hand; you can also find it in the automobile sales and financial services industries, among others.
Drip pricing is a special concern to the FTC. This spring, the agency hosted a workshop on the issue and solicited complaints from consumers, a potential sign that it may soon act to curb this practice.
cruise job star Perkins hopes that the government will start with hotels. One reason, he said, is that negotiating your way out of resort fees and other required surcharges used to be possible. But "increasingly," he wrote, "hotels stonewall cruise job star guests cruise job star on these fees."
A representative for the American Hotel Lodging Association, the trade organization cruise job star for the U.S. hotel industry, said that the organization couldn't speak about the issue until it consulted with its members.
The FTC didn't respond to a request for a comment on Perkins's letter. cruise job star A Priceline representative declined to comment on its resort-fee disclosure practices, although in past cases, the company has said that it believes the way it displays mandatory fees after a purchase is sufficient.
Asked about Priceline's disclosure, a Marriott representative cruise job star pointed to his company's Web site, which prominently shows a resort fee but calculates cruise job star it as part of the price after a room is selected. Marriott can't control how these fees are displayed on Priceline, he added. "We provide the rate and applicable fees," he said. "The online travel agency determines how to display it."
The hotel industry's cruise job star best argument for charging resort fees is that everyone is doing it. If one resort cruise job star stopped, and displayed a true price, then it would lose business to competitors whose rates look cheaper because they don't include a resort fee in their base price.
But fixing the resort fee problem might require creative thinking on the FTC's part because of a layer of other players, notably online travel agencies, which determine how rates get advertised and displayed. It's worth noting that resort fees have survived cruise job star despite widespread public criticism and threats of lawsuits. Simply put, this is one hotel fee that refuses to die.
Perkins said that government action isn't without a precedent. After fuel prices spiked, for instance, many airlines started carving cruise job star out a portion of a true airfare by labeling it a "fuel surcharge" and excluding that amount from their price promotions and displays, he said. The Transportation Department stepped in, forcing airlines to quote an "all in" fare.
Cruise ships stopped cruise job star drip pricing in the mid-1990s after Florida's attorney general investigated "port fees" that covered more than the actual dockage costs. Turns out they also covered cruise job star cruise lines' operating expenses for fuel, fresh water and wages. Six cruise lines agreed to stop drip pricing in Florida.
The timing on the current effort couldn't be better. Not only are hotels and online agencies taking a harder line with guests who grumble about resort fees, but the success cruise job star of these extras is also emboldening some non-resorts to match them. John Kazlauskas, a writer from Los Angeles, recently had to pay a $5 resort fee on a $33-a-night cruise job star motel room in Anaheim, Calif., that he found online. "It is truly ridiculous," he told me.
Although no one tracks resort fees by hotel, they're part of a class of extras referred to as "ancillary" fees. A recent New York University study projected that the American cruise job star hotel industry would earn nearly $2 billion in ancillary fees this year, nearly quadruple the $550 million it collected a decade ago.
Ideally, the government would require hotels, as it did airlines, to include any mandatory fees in their prices. But even if the FTC only issued specific guidance on how and when to disclose the fees, it would mark an important cruise job star step toward solving one of the most vexing problems facing hotel guests today.
The 4% that voted no probably have a vested interest in this. *cough* No desk clerk should be made to explain those charges, especially in the face of an angry guest. You want to sit there and add fees, fine. Roll them up in the room rate, or be man/woman enough to stand at the desk and explain cruise job star to a pissed-off guest why you re choosing to nickel and dime them.
We are a society that would bite our grandmother on the arm for a $1.00 discount, many knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Shoppers literally will book a $2000 package with one supplier over another for a $25 difference, cruise job star totally ignoring any service or amenity differentials.
A major reason for these ancillary fees, be it airline tickets, hotels, or automobiles, is that these fees lie outside the amount on which tax is paid. In some cases, hotel room tax can be as much as 17% or more, based on the room rental cruise job star cost. A $5.00 ancillary fee (resort fee) that was rolled into the room rental would become a $6.00 fee to yield the same profit because of this tax. Checked luggage fees, premium seating fees, etc. are likewise not subject to federal airline ticket taxes. By making so many items a la carte and not part of the taxable amount, the funds available to operate airports are significantly reduced. I am amazed that congress has not acted to roll up all these amounts to preclude this tax avoidance. Does someone have compromising photos of key legistlators or something? LOL
There are actually 143 people who think it s better to be surprised with additional fees? I think you know you ve made it as a writer if the opposition regularly trolls your site looking to take part in your polls, not to take part in the discussion but to skew the polls. Sad, really, that they re more concerned with THAT than actually doing the right thing.
Unfortunately, these arbitrary fees seem to be the wave of the future and are here to stay. The resorts and hotels charging these (and, yes, it s pretty much all of them) are making a fortune on them and there s no reason cruise job star to stop. It used to be your room rate covered everything Now, it seems it only covers the four walls.
These resort fees need to be embedded into the hotel rates, particularly with respect cruise job star to the priceline quotes. It is good that Marriott shows them in their quote, but even better if they don t have them.
When they break out fees, do we demand a refund if the service doesn t work? For example, if they have a $35 bed fee and the bed is hard, or a $20 television fee, does one take that badk if the TV is of poor quality?
I ask this because there s an upcoming conference that I would normally attend. It is a technical conference and at every technical conference I ever go to, the internet works extremely slowly because of all the techies on it. Although this is expected, I have a huge problem with this hotel s resort fee which is for internet, amongst other things and I am very sure that they willnot be in a position to deliver it.
I am actuallyplanning on not going to this conference because of the resort fee. It isn t the amount of money, it is the ethics of forcing someone to pay for something that s optional and they don t need..and that you can t deliver. Thoughts?
There are, believe it or not, still plenty of hotels, even in touristy places like Hawai i and Jackson Hole, that don t charge resort fees. The best way to fight these fees is to simply refuse to patronize establishments that charge them. Go a step further, and e-mail the establishments you passed over telling them that they didn t get your business because of their practice of charging deceptive resort cruise job star fees.
But to answer the question at hand I m not a Big Government guy at all, but absolutely yes, the government needs to step in and regulate this. If a fee is mandatory, it needs to be included in the base price. Period. Anything less is nothing less than deceptive advertising.
Interesting you ask. The fuel surcharge across the Atlantic (or Pacific) is about 500 bucks and that has not stop me or others from traveling by air. If I can afford cruise job star to pay for the fee, then so be it. It the affordability that matters.
The hotel industry's best argument cruise job star for charging resort fees is that everyone is doing it. If one resort stopped, and displayed a true price, then it would lose business cruise job star to competitors whose rates look cheaper
It reminds me of Nordstrom s department-store chain. In Oct and Nov, when e