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Resort fees, destination fees and associated issues (points, waivers, etc.)

Old Jun 22, 2019, 9:01 am
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A reminder that the Bonvoy program terms & conditions (section 1.3.c.v) provide:

Participating Properties that have mandatory resort charges, which include internet access, will provide a replacement benefit, to be determined at each Participating Property's discretion.
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Resort fees, destination fees and associated issues (points, waivers, etc.)

Old Feb 14, 2013, 6:00 pm
  #151  
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not even 1 share............

Originally Posted by joshua362
Got to admit, made me burst out laughing. Got to think you own a ton of Marriott stock. Thanks!
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Old Feb 14, 2013, 6:12 pm
  #152  
 
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I don't like the absurd resort fees any more than the rest of you. Nor do I like paying for crummy food on airplanes or all the taxes and surcharges that double the price of my rental cars. But we have done this to ourselves. The buying public is so fickle that they will gravitate to the lowest advertised price, with no regard for the actual total price or the quality of service provided.

No legacy airline could survive pricing plane tickets at what it would take to turn a profit. I hate to say it, but people are too dumb to do the math. So they'll book Airline B who offers a fare $5 cheaper, then end up paying $75 to check a bag, $50 for a decent seat, $20 for a snack box and a beer...

So now hotels are stuck doing the same thing. If a Hilton, a Westin, and a Marriott are all in the same area and offer roughly the same product, the general public will book rooms at the one with the lowest advertised rate. They may not even notice the extra fees tacked on, or if they do they may grumble but that's about it. It's only those of us passionate enough about frequent travel to join and post at a message board like this who notice what's going on and rail against it.

What I'd like to see is MR to come out with a benefit that says plats will have resort fees waived. Think about what a public relations coup THAT would be in the frequent travel blogosphere...
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Old Feb 15, 2013, 5:48 am
  #153  
 
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Originally Posted by jr1202sr
30 is LOW. On a 300 dollar room (pretty average rate for San Juan Resort or La Concha) the resort fee is the following: Mandatory 16 percent resort fee added to rate incl bottle of water in room/local phone calls/wireless Internet and more.


This amounts to about $50 per night resort fee.

Scrubb Island Charges $25 per person per Night.

The new Ritz in San Juan charges a Daily resort fee of USD 95 added to rate
You need to find some new resorts for those fees.
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Old Feb 15, 2013, 6:09 am
  #154  
 
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Originally Posted by BKKLEE
totally wrong which is typical of your responses..............

Marriott has fully disclosed which props are resorts -
https://www.marriott.com/hotel-searc...tedRegion=USTS

from others posting, not all resorts charge these resort fees (they certainly don't here in asia) - they are individual prop charges, not Marriott imposed charges...........
Let's Look at a REAL EXAMPLE of Marriott's Trickery as nobody searches through the link you provided, but rather uses the Search Functionality to find a hotel, rate and Availability.

If you search Orlando you find: Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld

No where in the name does it say it is a resort. NOWHERE. If you look at the website you see don't see RESORT anywhere in any of description of the property except where they substituted explore our resort instead of Explore our hotel. They Removed the word resort from the entire page in all the descriptions and verbiage highlighting the property.

So someone books the hotel only to find out that upon arrival that it is a resort and NO CL is provided or Breakfast provided and there are Resort Fees. Also To Call this hotel a RESORT is a BIG Stretch...REAL BIG.

Now Let's Compare this to another well known resort Frenchman's Reef & Morning Star Marriott Beach Resort . Note the Name has RESORT in it AND all over the hotel website the word RESORT is used to describe the property. ALL OVER THE PAGE. Do you see the difference? Over 7 uses of the word RESORT and Prominently. Why does one Resort get EASILY identified as a resort on Marriott's Site and another (that really most wouldn't consider a resort) does not? Almost as if they are hiding it? You do know the Orlando Property used to have RESORT in their name. Where did it go? BTW this has happened at several Marriott Properties in Orlando.

This is game playing by Marriott. Identify your properties properly and make it clear if you aren't going provide benefits at Resorts and charge these fees. No reason one property is VERY clear and the other is not. Not when it impacts your dollars spent and Benefits Received. Seems Marriott is doing this on properties that they are "calling Resorts", but don't have the typical features of a resort Like the Sea World Hotel and others in Orlando. A Nice Pool only does not make a Resort BTW especially at big convention hotel in Florida.

Let's take it step further. Both hotels have RESORT VIEW rooms ( I have stayed at both hotels)... Guess What Hotel offers RESORT VIEW rooms for sale and which one doesn't? That is right Frenchman's Reef & Morning Star Marriott Beach Resort offers the RESORT view rooms for sale and the SEAWORLD property does not sell Resort view rooms just "guest rooms" which just happen to view the Resort?. So even here the word Resort has been scrubbed. Why does Marriott do this? What would be the motive?

Last edited by bdschobel; Feb 15, 2013 at 7:13 pm Reason: extended personal attack, followed by prohibited discussion of moderation
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Old Feb 15, 2013, 7:38 am
  #155  
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and then there are props like the Pattaya Beach Resort Marriott that provide Exec Lounge access(yes, a resort w an EL), upgrades, breakfast in either the lounge or breakfast room and all the rest of the std perks EVEN though it uses the term "resort" and is classified as a "resort"...............

Marriott provided the available link to specifically list out all props that are resorts..........now, YOU might not use the search link I provided which IDs all those Marriott props which YOU consider deceptive trade practices, including your complaint to the FTC which will determine your complaint to be TOTALLY without merit, but that does not mean that others with an ounce of intelligence don't...........

Originally Posted by jr1202sr
Let's Look at a REAL EXAMPLE of Marriott's Trickery as nobody searches through the link you provided, but rather uses the Search Functionality to find a hotel, rate and Availability.

If you search Orlando you find: Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld

No where in the name does it say it is a resort. NOWHERE. If you look at the website you see don't see RESORT anywhere in any of description of the property except where they substituted explore our resort instead of Explore our hotel. They Removed the word resort from the entire page in all the descriptions and verbiage highlighting the property.

So someone books the hotel only to find out that upon arrival that it is a resort and NO CL is provided or Breakfast provided and there are Resort Fees. Also To Call this hotel a RESORT is a BIG Stretch...REAL BIG.

Now Let's Compare this to another well known resort Frenchman's Reef & Morning Star Marriott Beach Resort . Note the Name has RESORT in it AND all over the hotel website the word RESORT is used to describe the property. ALL OVER THE PAGE. Do you see the difference? Over 7 uses of the word RESORT and Prominently. Why does one Resort get EASILY identified as a resort on Marriott's Site and another (that really most wouldn't consider a resort) does not? Almost as if they are hiding it? You do know the Orlando Property used to have RESORT in their name. Where did it go? BTW this has happened at several Marriott Properties in Orlando.

This is game playing by Marriott. Identify your properties properly and make it clear if you aren't going provide benefits at Resorts and charge these fees. No reason one property is VERY clear and the other is not. Not when it impacts your dollars spent and Benefits Received. Seems Marriott is doing this on properties that they are "calling Resorts", but don't have the typical features of a resort Like the Sea World Hotel and others in Orlando. A Nice Pool only does not make a Resort BTW especially at big convention hotel in Florida.

Let's take it step further. Both hotels have RESORT VIEW rooms ( I have stayed at both hotels)... Guess What Hotel offers RESORT VIEW rooms for sale and which one doesn't? That is right Frenchman's Reef & Morning Star Marriott Beach Resort offers the RESORT view rooms for sale and the SEAWORLD property does not sell Resort view rooms just "guest rooms" which just happen to view the Resort?. So even here the word Resort has been scrubbed. Why does Marriott do this? What would be the motive?

Last edited by bdschobel; Feb 15, 2013 at 7:13 pm Reason: edited quote only
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Old Feb 15, 2013, 8:13 am
  #156  
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First of all, I believe pretty much all resort fees are unethical and serve only one intent: to trick and deceive the guests. Maybe some side benefits of defrauding commissioned travel agents or corporate discount clients, but I don't know about that firsthand.

If we don't want governments eventually outlawing the practice, then maybe one of the quality brands in the marketplace will step up and say "This is immoral, and we're banning it throughout our system." Sadly, it doesn't seem like any are willing yet - maybe because this issue hasn't gone big with mainstream media. Start charging garbage fees at crappy Courtyards, and maybe it will.

The Marriott list of resorts is fine for identifying the list of properties where they are withholding elite benefits. That's the purpose of that list to me: Marriott is clearly saying "Golds, Plats - we do not want your business here." OK, that's fair game, their choice, and a huge reason I added SPG Plat and HH Diamond when before I was only Marriott Plat. But that list doesn't correlate to the list of properties that charge resort fees and - more importantly (and perhaps the only factor that really matters) - the resort fee does not show up clearly on the initial search page when I'm looking at hotel rates.

Originally Posted by BKKLEE
would is ease your pain for the props to just raise their rates and bury these "fees" into their new higher rates????????
Yes. That's precisely what should be done by an ethical hotelier. Charge whatever rate the market will bear, but do it transparently and ethically.

I wish the law would force this upon all hotels, but since it won't it's a shame that one of the major brands hasn't stood up and enforced it for their own properties.
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Old Feb 15, 2013, 8:23 am
  #157  
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Originally Posted by pinniped
Yes. That's precisely what should be done by an ethical hotelier. Charge whatever rate the market will bear, but do it transparently and ethically.

I wish the law would force this upon all hotels, but since it won't it's a shame that one of the major brands hasn't stood up and enforced it for their own properties.
I'm hoping that as resort fees (which, as we've seen with the Parker Meridien in NYC, have now migrated beyond "resorts") continue to spread, the regulators will get involved, much as they have with requiring airlines to include all taxes and fees (including those ridiculous fuel surcharges) in advertised fares and in the fares that are displayed on their websites. If this would be applied to the hotel industry, the first screen displaying room rates would have to be inclusive of the resort fees.
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Old Feb 15, 2013, 8:23 am
  #158  
 
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Originally Posted by BKKLEE
and then there are props like the Pattaya Beach Resort Marriott that provide Exec Lounge access(yes, a resort w an EL), upgrades, breakfast in either the lounge or breakfast room and all the rest of the std perks EVEN though it uses the term "resort" and is classified as a "resort"....
SSSHHHHH! Don't go drawing attention to it
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Old Feb 15, 2013, 8:35 am
  #159  
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Originally Posted by OU812
Currently staying at the Courtyard VA Beach North. Just noticed the website for this CY and the CY VA Beach South added a parking charge of $5 per night from Memorial to Labor Day. Currently parking is free. According to FDC, they will also be charging a resort fee here that will include parking, local and nationwide long distance calls, premium internet, and towels at the pool for $20 per night. Anyone that doesn't want to pay the resort fee will still have to pay for parking. The fee will not be waived for elites.

Regards,

RIP...
Do you mean that even people who don't have cars parked on the property are being charged the $5 parking fee?
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Old Feb 15, 2013, 8:41 am
  #160  
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Originally Posted by dw
YES, for three reasons:

1) I don't believe we earn points on the resort fees, whereas we would if it were included in the base room rate

2) Corporate discounts don't get applied to the resort fees

3) We still have to pay the resort fees on award stays

Of course, the properties are well aware of this. These "resort fees" are basically the hotel equivalent of airline YQs (fuel surcharges)
4) Hotels don't pay travel agent and booking commissions on resort fees.
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Old Feb 15, 2013, 8:50 am
  #161  
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Originally Posted by dw
I'm hoping that as resort fees (which, as we've seen with the Parker Meridien in NYC, have now migrated beyond "resorts") continue to spread, the regulators will get involved, much as they have with requiring airlines to include all taxes and fees (including those ridiculous fuel surcharges) in advertised fares and in the fares that are displayed on their websites. If this would be applied to the hotel industry, the first screen displaying room rates would have to be inclusive of the resort fees.
That would be a good starting point. It would satisfy the primary consumer rights issue - the paying guest having complete visibility to costs in the initial list of search results.

There would still be the issue of properties using resort fees to effectively devalue the rewards programs, much like programs like BA have done for many of their own airline awards.
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Old Feb 15, 2013, 9:13 am
  #162  
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Originally Posted by pinniped
There would still be the issue of properties using resort fees to effectively devalue the rewards programs, much like programs like BA have done for many of their own airline awards.
Absolutely, I fully believe they are here to stay (and will spread), just like airline fuel surcharges. Which is why I find it so hard to believe there are those who are either apologists for the hotels when it comes to this issue, or simply dismiss it.
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Old Feb 15, 2013, 9:36 am
  #163  
 
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If state and local taxes on those fees are not being paid they then they are ripping of the taxpayers too who rely on those fees to fund schools, parks and stadiums.

Last edited by jr1202sr; Feb 15, 2013 at 9:41 am
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Old Feb 15, 2013, 9:47 am
  #164  
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Bottom line is along the lines of FTC's warning to some hotel chains. So long as the full mandatory price is disclosed, I could care less. If that were to become a uniform rule as it is for air carriers courtesy of DOT, the entire issue would go away.

This is all about the ability to advertise a $300 room for $200 + $100 fee. While I would hope that most on FT could add the numbers together without a disclosure, it's an annoyance.

As to non-mandatory fees which may the stay a la carte, that again gets to our obsession with finding the cheapest item which turns out not to be cheapest.
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Old Feb 15, 2013, 9:57 am
  #165  
 
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Originally Posted by dw
Absolutely, I fully believe they are here to stay (and will spread), just like airline fuel surcharges. Which is why I find it so hard to believe there are those who are either apologists for the hotels when it comes to this issue, or simply dismiss it.
It's not hard to believe. EVERY travel forum has one apologist, championing and defending that brand's choice of clearly customer unfriendly practices.

The "resort fee" should be included in the room rate as part of that rate. If it is mandatory, then it unquestionable should be part of the room rate.

Everyone hates them, but most folks grin and bear it. And like bag fees, it is becoming a very annoying industry standard. Marriott following the rest (or leading) plus $$$.
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