I've had 5 stays booked through BookAAHotels so far this year. I haven't yet seen any fees ... just taxes which seem to average around 8%.

Resort fees have nothing to do with the booking site.

True, resort fees are not part of your pre-paid fees, but they are added costs that should be considered when booking.

I will try to post some screen shots of the places I have encountered with the extraordinary "taxes and fees" amounts, but I am a noob and need 5 posts before I can post pictures. :)

My very extensive searches over the last few weeks have almost always revealed that those *coughoverinflated* fees show up on lower level/quality hotels touting incredibly good miles. Higher quality hotels with expected room rates, or lower quality hotels with lower miles awarded usually track with correct - just taxes- fees.

Yay! Five posts, and I can show some proofs.

The first is a Vegas hotel for early March that shows when all is said and done, your "$70.16 a night + tax" hotel is actually $179 a night because they charge almost as much as the room rate for tax and fees ($60.38 per nite) and you get to pay a resort fee of $51 a night (don't forget that's taxable too) when you check in.

Room tax rate for Vegas is most likely not 85%.

$350.08 room rate. Plus $301.89 "Taxes and Fees". Plus pay resort fee $225 + tax when you arrive.

If it looks too good to be true, it probably costs more in this case.

The first
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...9c3a597754.jpg


The second example is my sad Golden Goose which turned out to be an even sadder Wild Goose Chase. Taxes and Fees twice the room rate. But hey, no resort fees.
And *that's hard to do!* said no one.
Quality Inn, Central California, Lathrop, about 75 miles east of San Francisco for anyone wanting to know and if you want to pay $350 per 10K.


https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...7ec96a4085.jpg

Is it possible that you bought 2,000 extra miles at the time of the booking and not realize it? The Website gives two options to get more miles. Each option is $40 more. The first one is the 2,000 extra miles option at the time of selecting the room. The second option is the booster option. Given that you think taxes should be $30 instead of $70, just wondering if you ended up buying 2,000 extra miles during booking.

This.

If you are booking through BookAAHotels and selecting a room that is offering points, the tax/fee structure is WAY different that the identical room without selecting a points offer.
The interface is very strange in that the same hotel will either offer points or not depending on your filters/sort method (RocketMiles is MUCH more user friendly)

I stayed at an Indigo in Austin that had a slightly higher tax/fee if you selected the points offer. I only stumbled upon this discrepancy whilst fumbling around with filters and noticed that the Indigo sometimes was showing with a points offer and sometimes without. The non-points offer was identically priced to its direct website, but with a points offer it was more expensive at checkout. Took me a hot minute to notice the tax/fees were the difference.

Edit: i have spent a LOT of time messing around with BookAAHotels and articulating its bugs/nuance is very challenging

I never bother to look at the taxes, fees, and such. I look at the total I will be paying and compare it to the total that I would be paying if booking directly through the hotel or chain. The difference is the cost of the miles (elite benefits hold little value for me). If the net cost per mile is 2¢ or less, I book it through BookAAHotels. My calculation will change if I find in March that these are not all going to count as LPs.

I do not at all disagree with your logic.
My booking happened to get me 4,000 miles for an extra ~$35 in fees. i also paid $25 for the room that got me an additional 2k points, and then was offered the $25 for 2k MORE points and got that too...
FWIW, it hit my AA account as "6,000 BASE" and "2,000 BASE". I will follow you into battle if any of these are not counted as LPs :)

I was just agreeing with the fact that they certainly change the fee game on us for rooms that offer points. And, that the interface has horrid user experience whereby it can offer the same hotel with/without a points offer simply depending on how you have sorts/filters. Additionally, in ALL of my searches (not making a blanket statement, just my personal experience), the points bookings are pay-up-front, whereas the non-points bookings let me reserve and pay at the location.

Yes, I believe it is a racket. The hotel I stayed at gave me folios when I checked out and the price of the rooms booked through AAdvantage were significantly less than what AAdvantage charged me. The taxes did not add up. I called AAdvantage and they said that the hotel was not supposed to give me the folios because it showed the contracted rate that AA has with the hotel and that the price difference is the commission that AA makes. I asked why AA charged me taxes on their commission. They had no answer. but, this might explain the different tax rate you saw. If they are charging tax on the commission, it could be tax in a different state/different rate. Needless to say, I will never book through them again.

This is how every OTA (online travel agency) operates and makes money. Booking.com (aka AA Hotels), Agoda, Hotels Tonight, Expedia, Travelocity, etc all do this same thing. They all get a better rate than any of us end consumers will ever get as they drive a huge amount of traffic.

As long as you're not being charged substantially more than the price of booking direct (and usually AA Hotels is within a few dollars, in my experience) there really isn't a problem.

They need to charge taxes on the base room rate they charge to you. Obviously they're paying less and marking it up.

Not a racket; a broken booking engine. The original post (posted prior to the current incarnation of AA hotels) highlights nonsensical "taxes and fees". The nonsensical taxes and fees continue with the current incarnation of AA hotels. As an example, the first option lists a $100 room and $15 taxes and fees but the second options list a $100 room and $115 taxes and fees. The $100 room with the $15 taxes and fees is the better option...

As to the folio, nothing out of the ordinary. Award bookings are the same setup. The loyalty program received 40,000 points from you and pays the hotel $100. The going rate for the room is $300. Such is the price the hotel pays for the sign on the building.

Sometimes I've found this to be the case, but sometimes not. I'd say it's runs about consistently 50% at my properties.

Two places I'd otherwise choose either one to stay at in May, are $200-$300 a night higher through AAH, than booking direct. They were last year also, so not a one-off.

Either through a decision of the properties, or a decision of AAH, the best pricing available direct is not always passed on as an option to customers.

The thing that's most annoying, is that the best pricing is often available by other 3rd party booking agents, just not AAH.

That leads me to think AAH is purposely not making the best pricing available in these cases, as their targeted profit margins won't be high enough. But I don't know how any of it works on the back end, so that may be completely wrong.

Are u sure those taxes don’t include any fees and maybe someone of property imposes charge (ie, resort or big city).

without a screen capture, we are spitting in the wind and can’t help you.