Eujeanie

Note they don't say "how much" of an F&B credit.

jtp1947

"Quote" I also believe there should be all-in pricing in the room rate, but I suspect the lobbying will not make this happen.

There is a box you can check on marriott.com which will bring up all in rates.

DELee

"Ooh, look, the total rate doubled."

David

Out of my Element

This was a $20 credit for the two of us. And the amount of the fee was posted when we booked our recent July stay in mid or late May of this year.

Eujeanie

Oh, ok, so the $20 was essentially used up (provided you wanted to eat/drink at the hotel). So the popcorn and whatnot else was truly "free". That's not a bad resort fee. I resent the ones that give you stuff you don't want or don't need or already included because of status.

Out of my Element

Exactly. We used the credit one day at the coffee shop that has breakfast stuff on weekends (lounge was closed) and ate at the burger place at a table alongside the river the other day, because it actually is fairly well rated and we didn't have time to go elsewhere. And they don't seem to "count" the popcorn bags because I got a pair our second day to find out she had already gotten a pair of bags

Counsellor

That seems to be from the page for that hotel. I'm talking about the explanation of Marriott's program generally.

As I mentioned in my initial post, I couldn't find it (the concept) mentioned or described on the Marriott site, and the CSR when I called Marriott claimed not to be aware of such a thing. If Marriott sponsors or supports this add-on after the reservation has been made, one would expect them to explain it somewhere in their description of the Marriott program. Or does Marriott just allow hotels to add random fees at will? How about an added "clean carpet" fee, or a "Front Desk Birthday Party" fee? Are there any limits whatsoever?

GrayAnderson

The limits are probably dictated by customer resistance and "voting with your wallet". In general (and probably due to their size), Marriott has shown itself to be quite uninterested in fighting this fight.

MSPeconomist

If the destination fee was implemented after you made your reservation and you didn't make any changes to the reservation, you should politely insist that the hotel remove the fee for your stay.

nologic

Weston St. Francis says that their $25 day destination fee (which comes to $29.06/day with taxes and fees) and provides a $25/day F&B credit needs to be spent ont he same day as charge and cannot be accumulated and bulled towards a common stay.

This was undisclosed and is counter intuitive (in fact none of the "rules" or benefits regarding destination fee were disclosed at check-in).

Who would think that if you pay $29.06/day for a daily benefit of $25 in F&B credits that you cannot aggregate the credits towards F&B at any time throughout your stay...if you stay two nights and are charged $58.12 and want to use a $50 F&B credit, you can only use $25 on one day and need to apply the other $25 to credits on the next next day. If you snooze, you lose.

applesauce

That's how it normally works. It's a daily fee. Are these fees dumb and annoying? Yes. But you agreed to it.

Occasionally, usually at nicer hotels, they will offer some flexibility, e.g. let you shift it forward or backward one day and combine and in exceptional cases let you apply it across the stay. I don't know about other hotels but at Marriotts the automated audit usually happens at 9am so the credit needs to be used by then or get manually adjusted at the front desk.

nologic

To me, a DAILY destination or resort fee references how it is charged. If it comes with a F&B credit, there is no inherent implication that it must be spent on the same day as charged and that the F&B credits cannot be aggregated. To me, it's counter-intuitive, insulting, and sleezy. But if they properly disclose it, all I can do is complain and call it out, and/or not stay in the future.

But that wasn't the case here. This is not something that I agreed to as part of the booking process. I agreed to a $25 per day destination fee. There is no mention of a restrictive F&B redemption requirement for such credit(s) in the rate details on the website when booking, nor was there any such explanation provided at check-in. Frankly, I am not sure that I even "agreed" to 16.4% in taxes and fees on top of the $25, which was not disclosed (neither the fact that the daily destination fee was subject to taxes and fees or the amount of the taxes and fees).

In the end, they retroactively applied a second $25 F&B credit as a "one-time courtesy", but that's not my basic point.

applesauce

You did agree to it. Rarely do hotels state on advance what the fee covers. Be thankful it included a f&b credit rather than fresh air?

You are simply mistaken on your interpretation of "daily." It means just that: it's charged and to be used daily. Are fees sleezy? Yes. Is it insulting or counterintuitive? No.

Taxes are never at your discretion. The prevailing rates at time of stay will be applied. It even says so on the reservation page as well as in your confirmation email.


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rylan

Am curious how hotels can get away with also charging taxes/fees on top of the 'destination fee'. You aren't actually receiving any tangible good or service for the destination fee so how can it be taxed?

cbn42

The tax is calculated based on the total price. If the "destination fee" were tax-exempt, then hotels could sell you a room for $1, tack on a $199 destination fee and bypass the tax entirely.