Checked bags, seat assignment etc are optional fees whlie resort fee is mandatory. Thankfully we had a ruling on airline related deceptive advertising (wrt leaving out mandatory fuel surcharges) - the precedent for bait and switch pricing in the industry is clearly there. Hope someone will get to hotels and cars next...

I dont think trusting the advertised price puts someone in "not bright enough" category...

It's absolutely bait-and-switch. That's exactly why they do it this way - to draw customers in, because some percentage will just keep going once they've invested the time to complete the booking details.

It also puts the honest hotels at a competitive disadvantage.

It's a deceptive practice and I look forward to the lawsuit that puts it to a stop.

Ok - just a little word of warning here - the posts are getting a bit testy in here - please discuss the subject and not each other. On the subject itself, while the issue of Resort Fee is not exclusively Hyatt, we've decided to let the thread stay in the forum since it's not entirely off topic and could really belong in any of the hotel forums. We've chosen to let the choice of forum by the OP stand. Thanks!!

Peteropny - co-mod - Hyatt

Another reason for resort fees has to do with taxes, in some cases that portion of the bill is tax exempt if it is a separate resort fee, but that would not be the case if those charges were part of the room rate.

I have no problem with resort fees as long as they are transpatently disclosed at the time of booking. Of course, in cases where it really is a bait and switch tactic used by hotels, then I would have a problem with that.

[QUOTE=MikeFromTokyo;25699844]Another reason for resort fees has to do with taxes, in some cases that portion of the bill is tax exempt if it is a separate resort fee, but that would not be the case if those charges were part of the room rate.

I have no problem with resort fees as long as they are transpatently disclosed at the time of booking. Of course, in cases where it really is a bait and switch tactic used by hotels, then I would have a problem with that.[/QUOTE

It's not the resort fee that bothers me. It's that the resorts that I'm staying at shouldn't charge more for things that average hotels give for free. On a businees trip most give me these for free but on a family vacation that cost alot more I need to pay for them.

The Dreaded and Despised Resort Fee
 

Hyatt centric in Miami is charging this fee. And they are not even on the beach.

Thank you for pointing this out. I'm headed to Miami in a few weeks and was considering this property. After reading this, I will happily stay elsewhere.

Here are the terms of this property's resort fee.

A daily Resort Fee of $20.00 plus tax per day will be added to your rate and includes premium internet access, two beach chairs and towels, two welcome bottles of water, use of hotel bikes, world cinema in-room Bluetooth, 24 hour Stay Fit access, and daily newspaper.

My primary concerns over resort fees are two-fold:
1) the creep to add this fee to urban/suburban hotels without resort amenities on-property; and;

2) the charging of elites for services or products via the resort fee which items elites should receive free as part of status benefits (newspaper, higher speed internet, bottled water, admission to hotel gym or workout center, etc). Put another way, what's the point of earning elite status when booking at resort fee properties, if a no-status person can buy these same benefits for $15-$20/day, esp. if the property is not known to upgrade elites readily?

Agree with both of your concerns.

Cheers. Sharon

I haven't stayed at any hotels charging resort fees outside of Vegas lately, but my experience has been that many properties will waive or lower the fees for top elites. I've even had my resort fees waived a couple of times at MLife properties in Vegas, although that's fairly rare especially since I don't have a casino host.

I've had some favorable consideration re resort fees at some HY properties.

At Starwood, corporate policy requires that resort-fee properties designate alternate amenities to be given elites in return for the resort fee. It can be a discount of the resort fee or something else which the resort fee doesn't cover. Thus it's not uniform. It can be a valuable trade-off for the resort fee or it can be negligible. Up to the property.

Makes it difficult to do comparisons between suppliers.

X provides a service for Y$
Z provides a service for Y+$10

X charges a $25 resort fee. Z doesn't. You don't get to see this until you check out. You initially chose X because all things equal, you thought X was cheaper. It wasn't.

Z decides to reduce it's price by $20 but charge a $30 resort fee. Who is cheaper now? (don't worry - it's not a trick question). This then becomes doubly difficult when talking about airlines....

As far as resort fees, I haven't done too many comparisons, but when one property charges a resort fee, all of the other nearby hotels usually charge a resort fee. It's a lot like being charged for parking.

Resort fees are a lot like parking fees in that different properties will charge different resort fees. In Las Vegas, the nicer properties charge higher resort fees so there does seem to be a strong correlation between resort fees and room prices.

The only thing that makes sense to me is to think in terms of total cost (i.e. do not itemize) and to not have an emotional reaction to being charged fees.

Compare the total cost of staying at hotel A with the total cost of staying at hotel B.

Exactly. And DOT has declared this to be an unfair and deceptive business practice with respect to airfares, and requires airlines to show it the full price up front.