I stayed at the Marriott Moscow Royal Aurora over the weekend, and was subject to a fraud that I had never seen before. The hotel rate was quoted in U.S. Dollars. When I arrived, they told that they had to bill me in Russian Roubles, which is fine, but subject to the "hotel exchange rate" of 1 USD = 32 RUB. The real exchange rate is something like 1 USD = 26.8 RUB.

So this effectively raised the room rate by 20%. We all know about hidden "service charges" and other ways that hotels nickel-and-dime us, but this seems especially sleazy. I guess it's not uncommon; it occured to me that this was probably the first time that I had stayed at a hotel outside the U.S. and had the rate quoted in U.S. Dollars. I am sure that the hotel will say that this is due to exchange-rate volatility, or to cover administrative costs, or due to Russian regulations, or give some other phony excuse. (The exchange rate has remained quite stable for the past year.) We'll see what corporate Marriott says.

Perhaps I should have demanded that if the "hotel exchange rate" was 1:32, then I should be able to exchange my U.S. currency at that rate.