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Hotels adding ‘resort fees’ in New York

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If you’ve ever stayed in Las Vegas or at a US beach resort, you have probably been subjected to ‘resort fees’.

These are, without a doubt, the biggest scam in the hotel business day.  If they weren’t a scam, they wouldn’t have been banned in pretty much everywhere else in the world.  They are a hidden fee – hidden to the extent they are not included in the price shown when searching for a hotel although they are disclosed later – covering, well, nothing in particular.

A typical example would be a $39 per day ‘resort fee’ to cover ‘use of the hotel pool’, internet, local phone calls and some water in your room.  These are all things you would expect to be included in your room rate, and you cannot refuse to pay the fee if you don’t use any of the ‘benefits’ listed.

This Wikipedia article is a good primer on the topic.

A reader recently told me that he had been hit for a ‘resort fee’ in New York.  I found this hard to believe but a bit of research pulled up this article.

One of the New York hotels with a ‘resort fee’ is the Crowne Plaza Times Square.  A quick search for 25th January showed a room available for $135.  This is the number that is used if you rank hotels by price on the IHG website or a third party site like Expedia.  Click ‘rate details’ though and it turns out that a $30 per night ‘resort / service fee’ is added mainly for wi-fi – which should be free to all guests signed up with IHG Rewards Club anyway.

Your $135 headline price becomes, with taxes, $188 per night.  Quite a difference …..

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Comments (90)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Duncan Stevenson-Price says:
    16 Jan16 January 03:32

    Our hotel in San Antonio had about an $8 resort fee per night, covering pool use and WiFi. I did know this when booking, but easy to forget. A bit of a shock when the final bill wasn’t zero!

    • Nick says:
      16 Jan16 January 08:57

      It could be that the fee dad added after you booked, in which case refuse to pay or if it’s too late, just request a charge back

  • Lumma says:
    16 Jan16 January 04:27

    Quick question, the 4 BA flights needed to get the silver status along with the tier points, does this include Iberia flights as well or is it strictly British Airways flights only?

    • Martin says:
      16 Jan16 January 06:04

      Must be BA metal

    • John says:
      16 Jan16 January 06:19

      Iberia flights are valid as long as they are also sold with an Iberia flight number or a BA flight number.

      So a LAN codeshare on Iberia doesn’t count, but the same flight could count if it is marketed by Iberia

      • Lumma says:
        16 Jan16 January 06:47

        Thanks. As an example I’ve saw a flight from Malaga to Heathrow via madrid. The first one has an iberia flight number but says it’s operated by iberia express. The second has a BA flight number but is operated by iberia. I believe i would definitely get the segment for the second flight but do you think I’d get it for the first leg?

        • Leo says:
          16 Jan16 January 09:43

          I flew from MAD to PMI in September on Iberia Express booked via Iberia – with IB code. I couldn’t fathom as to whether it would count as eligible at the time but it did very quickly show up on the BA app, so the answer should be yes.

    • Andrew says:
      16 Jan16 January 07:19

      It can be a flight marketed with a BA flight code – even if not BA metal.

  • Brian Cohen says:
    16 Jan16 January 04:44

    Thank you for the link, Rob. I appreciate it.

    According to ResortFeeChecker.com, there are at least 38 lodging options in New York City which charge a resort fee or facility fee of some type:

    http://www.resortfeechecker.com/hotel_resort_fees_new_york_ny.html

  • Monopolies commission says:
    16 Jan16 January 05:16

    Whaaa…I think an email would have been good – some of us cant access facebook or twitter regularly. 🙁 Those flash deals would have been great for my mum!

    • Kathryn says:
      16 Jan16 January 06:00

      I get Twitter to ‘push’ HfP tweets to me, normally so I can click through the articles when I wake up without cluttering my inbox, but in this instance I was in the middle of dinner when the sale tweet came through. Never been so happy to get a tweet!

      • the real harry1 says:
        16 Jan16 January 06:45

        what ‘push’ app do you use please?

        • Waribai says:
          16 Jan16 January 07:07

          You just adjust the settings for HFP on twitter to allow it to send you tweet notifications then go to the twitter settings on your phone to allow Banner notifications to appear. That way you won’t miss an HFP tweet

          • Crow says:
            16 Jan16 January 07:52

            Single most useful tip I’ve read all year! Thank you!

          • Waribai says:
            16 Jan16 January 09:46

            No worries. You just have to be selective who you allow to send you tweet notifications otherwise it gets a bit annoying!

          • Nick says:
            16 Jan16 January 23:48

            Yes, great feature. I do it for trump tweets!!

    • Rob says:
      16 Jan16 January 08:47

      It’s not that simple unfortunately. Sending a HFP email manually is a very complex process which requires me to be behind a desk with a laptop. I can stick links on Twitter and Facebook with my phone irrespective of what I am doing or where I am.

      That said, it is fairly rare for me to put stuff on Twitter or FB which is not on the main site.

  • susan says:
    16 Jan16 January 06:57

    Resort fees are a scam but no more than non-tax “carrier imposed fees” on flight redemptions.

  • susan says:
    16 Jan16 January 06:58

    Or “gratuities” on cruise bookings.

  • Neil says:
    16 Jan16 January 07:34

    Hi folks. I booked a Japan trip ex. Pisa on the last Qatar sale and am travelling next month. At the time of booking I was able to select our seats for all legs bar the final Doha to Pisa leg. Even now the situation is the same. I spoke to Qatar customer services a few months back who said they couldn’t help and the seats could be chosen at checkin at the airport. Anyone know why this is? When I manage my booking, my wife has a seat number a signed, I just have a dash. Should I be concerned?
    Thanks

  • Mr Bridge says:
    16 Jan16 January 08:02

    The resort fees were covered by Rip Off Britain Holidays last Friday, its on Iplayer:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b088rymq

    There was a US senator who was campaigning to outlaw these charges, but in the meantime, they are spreading like wildfire.

    The law states (us law) that you do not have to pay the charges if you weren’t made aware of them before you booked, and what the charges were for, however this includes small print and T+Cs.
    The BBC revealed the worst offender for hiding the charges was lastminute.com

    Hotels.com displayed the resort fee under the main ‘total’

    • Mike says:
      16 Jan16 January 09:07

      I’ve been looking at hotels in Miami for Easter and it’s at epidemic proportions there. Hotels are expensive in Miami at the best of times but this resort fee is an outrage. Some of the hotels are charging $50 a day to cover wifi, chairs on the beach, beach towels and water. Ryanair without the wings.

      • Leo says:
        16 Jan16 January 10:51

        We paid a resort fee in South Beach which included the use of beach chairs, towels etc. Certainly some of the beach services there are run by third parties so you would have to pay to use them if not included in the resort fee anyway etc. I didn’t feel so bad about this and used the beach chairs accordingly – dawn till dusk! In Key West we paid a completely spurious resort fee where you got nothing above what I would have expected to have been included anyway. And we paid separately to use beach loungers!

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