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Someone started a petition against resort fees

Someone started a petition against resort fees

Old Mar 29, 2019, 4:40 am
  #46  
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Originally Posted by hockeyinsider
The Sheraton Old San Juan Hotel charged me a daily housekeeping fee when I stayed there.
So I would assume that they don't participate in MAGC...?
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Old Mar 31, 2019, 11:45 am
  #47  
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Originally Posted by pinniped
What is it that gives you this hope? Marriott is presiding over a program merger that has been a complete technology, customer service, and PR trash fire. They don't seem to have any self-awareness whatsoever.

At this point, I seriously feel like I'm being trolled by Marriott. They really do not care.
If you wanted to develop or buy a new hotel they would care, but yes, Marriott is too slanted towards owners/developers and not customers these days. Now back to these crazy resort fees... I wish everyone here would spend as much time calling their elected officials as posting on FT, our government is only as good as the direction we give them.
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Old Mar 31, 2019, 12:07 pm
  #48  
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Originally Posted by itsaboutthejourney
If you wanted to develop or buy a new hotel they would care, but yes, Marriott is too slanted towards owners/developers and not customers these days. Now back to these crazy resort fees... I wish everyone here would spend as much time calling their elected officials as posting on FT, our government is only as good as the direction we give them.
Just to test this theory, I submitted an application on Marriott's business development website for a new hotel. Within 24 hours, I had a vice president of Marriott emailing and calling my burner phone to discuss. Imagine if Marriott's vice president for customer service or whatever responded within 24 hours to guests who had issues. Yeah. Not happening.
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Old Mar 31, 2019, 12:37 pm
  #49  
 
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Marriott Waikiki - $37 joke

Elite member. This Marriott provides a reusable plastic water pouch instead of bottled water. The pouch smells and tastes of plastic. Tossed it out. No high speed wireless. Upload download speed of 10 & 5 mbps respectively. Wont even discuss a leaking toilet - two days, still leaks. Or an elevator that has a five minute wait.
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Old Mar 31, 2019, 12:37 pm
  #50  
 
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Originally Posted by pinniped
The problem is that the entire purpose of a resort fee is to trick and defraud guests. The very reason for its existence to begin with is to conceal - not disclose - the actual room rate. (If there is also a tax evasion "benefit" for the hotel, I'm guessing that's a very secondary benefit - unless this tax evasion works in Las Vegas where most of the total room rate is hidden in the resort fee.)
...
It's not much different than an airline fuel surcharge, given that all jet aircraft consume fuel and passengers cannot optionally decide whether or not they'd like fuel added for their journey. The main difference there is that many governments have stepped up and done the right thing, requiring airlines to disclose all costs on regular revenue tickets, leaving the degree of fraud that airlines can perpetrate to a narrower audience - award travel users, travel agents, and corporate discount buyers. (Some countries have even gone farther to protect these constituencies - Brazil being one, I think.)
The tax evasion benefit, perversely, goes to the guest if it exists at all, since taxes are added on after the fact. Many places in the US have significantly higher lodging tax than sales tax, so if a resort fee were taxed at the lower rate, the guest could potentially save a couple dollars a night. I suspect action on the part of the taxman would do nothing to fix the problem, though--the hotel would just collect the lodging tax on the resort fee as well.

The airline fuel surcharge is a great analogy, and it also points out why it's going to be a long road to getting resort fees banned in the US. Airlines are regulated by DOT, so DOT can easily slap down deceptive marketing practices with some ink in the Federal Register for a new regulation. There's no federal agency with oversight over the hotel industry, though if FTC wanted to call it deceptive advertising they may be able to get the big interstate chains to stop.

IMO, if a couple OTAs and/or one of the huge chains unilaterally banned the practice, the fees would become much less of a problem. The info is already there for the $200 hotel to show a $25 resort fee when I click it in the list--a quick programming change to list and sort that hotel at $225 in the search results would fix it.
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Old Mar 31, 2019, 1:05 pm
  #51  
 
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This is why I use Marriott points for airline transfers and Hyatt for hotel stays
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Old Mar 31, 2019, 1:16 pm
  #52  
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Originally Posted by pinniped
The problem is that the entire purpose of a resort fee is to trick and defraud guests. The very reason for its existence to begin with is to conceal - not disclose - the actual room rate. (If there is also a tax evasion "benefit" for the hotel, I'm guessing that's a very secondary benefit - unless this tax evasion works in Las Vegas where most of the total room rate is hidden in the resort fee.)
State governments could prohibit resort fees - and haven't. The FTC could, at the federal level, prohibit resort fees as 'an unfair and deceptive trade practice' - and hasn't. It's a DOT rule that mandates fuel surcharges be included in displayed air fare prices. So, in the U.S., anyway, we're stuck. You're not going to see hotels.com display all-in prices when booking.com, Kayak, etc., do not.
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Old Mar 31, 2019, 1:19 pm
  #53  
 
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We are on roughly 20 years of resort fees at this point - legislators have no appetite to kill them, and I see this petition as likely to succeed as every other effort.
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Old Mar 31, 2019, 2:25 pm
  #54  
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Originally Posted by hockeyinsider
Most people don't seem to realize Marriott Bonvoy's terms and conditions require a property charging a fee that includes wireless internet access, which you are supposed to receive for free, to provide an alternative amenity. Some properties provide an actual alternative amenity. Others discount the fee. Obviously, most people don't know about this.

Here's the FlyerTalk thread: Replacement Benefit when Wi-Fi is included in resort fee

Here's the applicable provision of the terms and conditions:




The Sheraton Old San Juan Hotel charged me a daily housekeeping fee when I stayed there. I've made a point of not staying there again, despite getting an amazing suite upgrade.
In the SPG days, the alternative amenity for Plats was supposed to be of equivalent value. I'm not sure Bonvoy still has this requirement.

I was charged a daily housekeeping fee years ago at the Caribe Hilton betweeen San Juan, PR, and the airport. It was twenty-five cents per day, but still was annoying because it wasn't mentioned anywhere, so that guests were presumably tipping housekeepers without being aware of the fee.

I've also been charged AC fees in Italy (even when the AC wasn't operating), in room safe fees (regardless of whether or not it was used) in Texas, and baggage porterage fees (even though there were no bellhops working when I arrived, so I had no choice but to deal with my own luggage, again not disclosed so that one would presumably also already have tipped the person for carrying the luggage) in Vegas. Ridiculous!

I would also argue that it would make more sense if at least part of the resort fees were charged on a per person rather than per room basis as they tend to cover stuff that is of a nature that twice as many people use twice as much of the amenity, etc. For instance, it covers usage of the gym, beach, pool, internet by each guest as well as things like water where two people would consume twice as much on average.
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Old Mar 31, 2019, 2:39 pm
  #55  
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Originally Posted by HNLbasedFlyer
We are on roughly 20 years of resort fees at this point - legislators have no appetite to kill them, and I see this petition as likely to succeed as every other effort.
Maybe at the federal level in the United States, but I wonder if it would be possible to outlaw them at the state level even in a token small state with no resorts.
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Old Mar 31, 2019, 2:53 pm
  #56  
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HMMMM.....it could be good advertising for a state (even one without resorts) to new able to claim no resort fees when attempting to attract conventions and leisure travelers, and forcing hotels to move resort fees into room rates would result in more lodging tax being collected, so that would seem to be a win for everyone.

However, with most people booking online and traveling from out of state, and many/most hotels being owned and managed by entities that cross state lines, would the federal government have jurisdiction, IIRC under the interstate commerce clause of the constitution? IANAL and I don't know which side would win, but I could envision long and costly litigation over this. I'm thinking of an analogy with airlines that fly entirely within a single state being regulated by that state (PSA California days, for example, or when whatever LCC started in Texas) but there not being any exceptions AFAIK for flights within a single state.

Of course if the regulation would apply only to some hotels, that could create an even bigger mess when consumers try to compare prices.
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Old Mar 31, 2019, 3:13 pm
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Originally Posted by MSPeconomist
However, with most people booking online and traveling from out of state, and many/most hotels being owned and managed by entities that cross state lines, would the federal government have jurisdiction, IIRC under the interstate commerce clause of the constitution?
It is my understanding, from a Federal level - the FTC has jurisdiction over Hotel Resort Fees - who's position is - they are legal if disclosed. For instance, if you got charged a resort fee that was not disclosed - you would complain to the FTC.

You could also complain at a State level - for instance, in Hawaii - you can complain to the Office of Consumer Protection - who have stated they can fine a property $10,000 if the fees were not disclosed - I'm not aware of a single property in Hawaii ever fined over resort fees.

Hawaii at a State level seems to have more of an appetite to tax resort fees rather than eliminate them - Senate Bill 380 is moving its way around the legislature and not far from being passed - so expect a resort fee AND be taxed on it in Hawaii.
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Old Mar 31, 2019, 3:19 pm
  #58  
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This has gone wildly OT and become yet another rant about the fees themselves, not whether a petition to benefit a couple of people who think they are more valuable than they are, is a good idea.

Bottom line on the rant is the same as in all the other threads, at least as to the US:
1. No federal or state law or rule prohibits resort or other fees.
2. Sole requirement under general federal (FTC) and state rules is that fees must be disclosed.
3. The use of fees, whether called "resort" or something else such as "destination" or "amenity" is increasing across the spectrum. Not just Marriott. Inference is that the fees are not hurting business. Particularly so as the number of properties increases, leaving people fewer options.
4. Eliminating the fees and requiring the property to quote an a.i. price would likely mean that the total cost increases because taxes which are calculated based on the room rate would increase. In a jurisdiction with a 7% hotel tax and a $40 fee, that amounts $2.80 per day. So, winning is losing.
5. The comparison to air carriers does not work. No US carrier charges a carrier surcharge and, tickets sold in the US market must be quoted a.i. But, that is a DOT rule and DOT lacks authority over hotels.

All of this means that the issue has been dead for 5 years and likely to be going into the future.
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Old Mar 31, 2019, 4:38 pm
  #59  
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Originally Posted by HNLbasedFlyer
You could also complain at a State level - for instance, in Hawaii - you can complain to the Office of Consumer Protection - who have stated they can fine a property $10,000 if the fees were not disclosed - I'm not aware of a single property in Hawaii ever fined over resort fees.

Hawaii at a State level seems to have more of an appetite to tax resort fees rather than eliminate them - Senate Bill 380 is moving its way around the legislature and not far from being passed - so expect a resort fee AND be taxed on it in Hawaii.
And Hawaii wonders why their tourism has declined.
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Old Mar 31, 2019, 5:34 pm
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Originally Posted by hockeyinsider
And Hawaii wonders why their tourism has declined.
Hawaii experienced yet another record tourism year in 2018 - its 7th in a row I think.

https://www.bizjournals.com/pacific/...d-in-2018.html
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