Originally Posted by
KRSW
What do you think "reasonable" extra fees are, if any, and what amount would be reasonable?
When flipping through the Marriott site, I see a hotel which is asking $128/night. PLUS $25/day for a "resort" fee, PLUS $22/day for parking. So the fees create an almost 40% markup on the advertised rate. Adding insult to injury, the property is a ratty 1970s Sheraton in need of an overhaul. Likewise, there's plenty of parking and many nearby hotels are offering free parking. It just feels completely misleading at this point.
Resort fees, destination fees, amenity fees, recreation fees, meal packages, and other fees along those lines are reasonable if they're voluntary and the guest sees value in accepting the deal.
Such fees are unreasonable if they are mandatory. If a fee is mandatory, it should be part of the room rate. Such fees make booking more complicated and deprive the guest of loyalty points (such as Marriott Bonvoy points). Widespread mandatory add-on fees are a relatively new phenomenon in the U.S. lodging industry. I can only assume that such hotels and resorts don't play it straight and really don't want my business.
Charging mandatory fees is a slimy practice.
Parking charges can a justified, but not always.
It's reasonable for downtown hotels, where only a fraction of the guests have cars and where parking requires expensive parking structures, to charge for parking. As a guest, if I'll have car, I'm likely to have other parking options nearby. I can decide if I want the convenience of using (and paying for) the hotel's parking facility or parking my car a block or two away, usually at a lower cost.
On the other hand, there are suburban hotels that were built with plenty of parking spaces but that now see their parking lots as new revenue sources. Almost all guests have a car. Some guests don't, but that just means some empty spaces in the lot. The parking lot is part of the hotel's cost structure anyway. We used to call such suburban lodging "motor hotels," and parking was, of course, part of the room rate -- along with a bed, a shower, and a TV.
At suburban hotels that now charge for formerly free parking, guests have a choice of paying, usually at an above-market rate, or dealing with the annoyance of finding other overnight parking (if there even is any in the area), while leaving empty spaces in the hotel lot. Some hotels use unattended gates for this, with guests using key cards to enter and exit, but these don't always work. Others just add a parking fee and you're supposed to go back to your car to leave a ticket on the dashboard, under the threat that your car will otherwise be towed. It's annoying. It's hostile to guests.
It should be a lot easier to see destination fees and parking fees on Marriott.com.