hotsnakes

Who has been to the RC Osaka lately? I was there last year on a working holiday and almost fainted when I logged on to the lobby wireless. The hotel was booked to the gills, my room was not ready, and I had to get online. It was something like $12 or $15 an hour.

So very tacky that my usual stress remedy of room service-supplied soba noodles and tempura barely helped. Next time I will stay at the perfectly acceptable Comfort Inn for $60, wired access included!

The eminently classy Seiyo Ginza charges something like $12.95/day for wired IIRC. This is the upper limit of what I can tolerate, but it's still disappointing from such a nice place.

It seems the real horror stories come from Europe though.

Pickles

This defines the word "tacky". Especially a place like the Trump, no irony intended. The Wynn in Las Vegas does that too (they charge you to deliver a received package) which I think is just plain bad form.

horseguy

It's funny you should mention the Four Seasons. At the Four Seasons at Maui, they will still nickel and dime the guests with these kinds of charges even when one is staying at a $2500 per night suite. This kind of silly nickel and diming is one of the two main reasons my wife and I never rent rooms like that anymore. IMHO, if I'm paying 3-5 times what a standard room costs, that should include parking, internet, local phone calls, etc..

karenkay

just chiming in to say how much it chaps me when the Very Expensive hotel i've booked on holiday does this. we had this experience at the mo chiang mai and it annoyed the heck outta me. for $795 a night you can throw in the internet, thanks!

i'm typing this now on the free wifi at la casa que canta in zijuataneho. funny, they say they don't have wifi in the rooms, (it is free in the lobby and there are free computers in 'the internet room') but it works just fine. ^

Rane

I styed at Kämp hotel (Starwood Luxury Collection) in Helsinki, Finland. They carged me 10 euros = 15 USD for the use of gym. It is a very small, in-house, one room gym.
I have never before been charged for the use of gym in a luxury hotel. I can understand gym charge in a lower category hotel but not in very expencive 5*.

rfrost

I share your views, but the Kamp is not the only one that charges. IIRC, the Ritz-Carlton in Chicago (a Four Seasons hotel) used to; I think they may have dropped the charge now. I'm quite certain the Berkeley in London charged me when I stayed there a couple of years ago.

RichardInSF

Actually, I've found that annoyance charges in general are more common at luxury hotels than at lower level accomodations. I think they figure they have rich folks or expense account folks staying there and can get away with it more easily.

DADISGARYK

rich people (i am speaking for others, not myself )...hate those incidental charges as much as everyone else

Sanosuke

These charges also can be observed at a lot of hotel properties in Japan. :P

Sanosuke!

RichardInSF

Totally agree. The European and Australian tendency to charge US$30+ a day for internet access is my prime irritant.

thegeneral

The colloquial term for it is 'nickel and diming'. They charge you for every little thing. As someone pointed out, it's generally nicer hotels that do this. The worst example of this I have seen (not in the luxury category obviously) is the O'Hare Hilton charging you $5 to get the toothbrush kit out of the minibar when even the Comfort Inns in the area do this for free. Didn't make for a happy guest when I was stuck there without luggage.

In the end, it's really the manager who makes these decisions. I'd advocate anyone to write the chain directly and complain about it. Charging for a gym that was likely put there to get the checkbox of on site fitness facility on a booking website is a bit much. Some sites who have excellent modern fitness facilities charge as well, but at least then you're getting some value for your money. In the end though, it really should be included in the room rate. It's just a hotel manager trying to get revenue that they can't get in the room rate given their market.

jackthebox

These charges may be annoying when you want to use these facilities but think about it: They keep the hotel rates for everybody down. If internet and gym was included you would pay for it indirectly via a higher hotel rate.

RichardInSF

Well, heck, then why not an extra charge on a per-towel basis? Or a per-light electrical charge, it could be done with a meter on each lamp? If that doesn't define luxury, I don't know what does.

The expectation at the high end is that some things should be routinely included. These include the gym and internet access to me, even if I don't use them, I get annoyed seeing that there is extra charge.

ralfkrippner

Thanks to a suggestion by another flyertalker I have merged the threads Gym charge and Nickel and dimed into one thread for housekeeping reasons. The redirect of the other thread will vanish in the next days.

ralfkrippner, co-moderator

daysleeper

My partner and I just returned from a trip to Japan and spent the last few days in the RC Tokyo on Club floor. The service lived up to our expectations and the stay was very enjoyable. But one thing was rather unpleasant: We were using the pool (which was free) but upon entering the spa the staff confronted us with a fee of 2.100Yen (13€, 20$) per person for using a locker. Of course, they were very nice, but this didn't make it any better.

I would have happily paid it for using the pool, if I knew about the fee beforehand but asking for a locker fee and stating the use of the pool is free ist just wrong.

What do you think? Any other "annoying" fees in Luxury Hotels you can think of?