I am going to provide this information as objectively as possible to get opinions. I may want to pursue legal options if this is standard practice in hotels because I believe this borders on fraud.

Recently, I had a two-night stay at Four Point Elysee Place in Nice, France booked at the rate of 123 Euros/night on spg.com. The booking process, rate details and the confirmation only mentioned Euros not US dollars.

I paid by a US bank credit card at the end of the stay. I didn't read the credit card slip carefully at the time other than to note that the amount mentioned in Euros on the slip was consistent with the total bill. There was also a US$ dollar amount in the slip but I didn't pay much attention.

I was surprised to find in my credit card statement a dollar amount that seemed larger than what the typical exchange rate at the time should have implied. I checked with other purchases in Nice on the same day with the same credit card and they all had a better exchange rate. So I went and investigated the receipts from the hotel.

Here is what the hotel had done:

They had converted the Euros to US dollars using their own exchange rate (presumably the high rate that you normally pay for exchanging currency at the hotel) and charged my credit card in dollars, in effect forcing me to exchange currency with them at their "arbitrary" exchange rate. The credit card slip had the lettering in it that said cardholder in it will be charged in US dollars. In effect, they would be getting from the credit card company, much more than the Euro amount that I had booked for. Doesn't this seem like fraud? Did I agree to something when I booked that allows them to do this?

First, I have not encountered this situation (at least I don't think so) in many hotels and certainly not in any shops or other credit card usage areas. Second, there is no need for them to charge me in US dollars since they can submit to the credit card in Euros to get the exact Euro amount (minus the bank charges they have agreed to) rather than force me to exchange at their arbitrary rates.

If this is a standard practice by Starwood properties for bookings via spg.com for international hotels (which I didn't think was the case), there ought to be a class action lawsuit against them to stop this. If it is just this hotel, then the hotel should certainly be taken to task by Starwood and spg.com ought to be responsible for charging me only what I had agreed to in the booking.

In the grand scheme of things, the difference in the two amounts are not so great that it is worth my time to pursue legal options for that alone, however, it really concerns me that they may be getting away with what I certainly believe is an unethical practice if not outright fraud and I am willing to spend some time to ensure that they stop this.

What do you all think? Have you experienced something like this before? What would you do in such a situation?