B1

I have a Hotwire reservation for a resort in Phoenix. Their trip reminder tells me to expect a $10 resort fee. But - Hotwire would have had the information at the time they posted the rate and I accepted it. Unlike Priceline, you select a defined item where the price is shown, but the identity is opaque. So if there is a resort fee it should be reasonably disclosed. When they tell you about is right before you go, which is useless. I believe that the class action would have an even better chance with Hotwire. Since they are owned by Expedia, it would be a good basis for comparison.

Colfax

My experience is that Hotwire DOES disclose the resort fee in advance now. This wasn't always the case and the disclosure isn't very prominent, but it's there.

For example, enter a dummy purchase on Hotwire for Rancho Mirage, CA for 3/19/10-3/21/10 and you'll get back a 4* in Rancho Mirage-Palm Desert zone whose first two icons are "Resort" and "Nonsmoking". (The listing can change but that's what's being offered right now.)

Then click "Continue" under the price, as if you were going to purchase, and you'll get a summary page with price, icons, map, reviews, and at the very bottom of the page a "KNOW BEFORE YOU GO" box. In that box it says:

After viewing the disclosure the purchaser can abort the purchase by exiting or making another selection.

Hotwire is able to disclose resort fees in advance because Hotwire knows which hotel you're buying.

Priceline can't disclose resort fees in advance because Priceline doesn't begin searching for your hotel until AFTER you agree to a nonrefundable purchase with potential resort fee.

Let's say there are three Resort hotels in a Priceline zone. One charges $30 resort fee. One charges $15 resort fee. One charges no resort fee. Priceline doens't know which of the three hotels you'll get before they search and they don't begin that search until AFTER you commit. So it's impossible for Priceline to disclose the exact fee, if any, in advance.

What Priceline could do though, and what they should do, is disclose in advance the highest resort fee charged by any participating hotel in the zone, so that the purchaser knows in advance the maximum possible damages.

In this example Priceline could disclose prior to purchase "You may be charged an additional resort fee in this zone, up to $30/night".

After Priceline searches if you end up with the $30 fee hotel you were warned in advance and agreed to it. If you win the $15 fee or the no fee hotel then you got better than you bargained for.

The fundamental problem, imo, is that resort fees are legal. It's difficult to make a case that resort fees are illegal for Priceline customers, but okay for everyone else.

B1

Excellent post - thanks.

TeaEarleGreyHot

Priceline does exactly this. Well, almost. Instead of disclosing the highest resort fee by any hotel "in the zone" they simply disclose the potential for the highest resort fee they know of.

When you hit the contract page on a PL NYOP offer, at the bottom of the page, Priceline has "Important Information" that says, in part:
"The credit card is required for any additional hotel specific service fees or incidental charges or fees that may be charged by the hotel to the customer at checkout. These charges may be mandatory (e.g., resort fees) or optional (parking, phone calls or minibar charges) and are not included in your offer price."

The word "charges" is underlined, and links to a statement that reads, in part:
"you may also be charged... resort fees (which typically apply to resort type destinations and, if applicable, may range from $10 to $40 per day).... These charges, if applicable, will be payable by you to the hotel directly at checkout and are not included in your offer price."

So technically, PL does disclose the fees of up to $40/day. Whether that is a hard ceiling is unclear to me. We might want PL to be more specific about which bids are going to be subject to these fees, but it seems they prefer to hide behind the guise of opaqueness.

Once again, there is just no substitute for doing your homework. If there is a hotel in the neighborhood you're bidding for which charges resort (or other listed mandatory fees), then you can simply not bid there. Not a great solution, but that's how PL plays the game: Love it or leave it.

lewisc

What PL could (and should) do is require hotels load (include) the resort fee with the hotel rate. It's very easy to make the case regarding resort fees and PL customers. PL customers have made a non-refundable pre-paid reservation but have given the hotel a blank check. Other customers have the option of not booking the hotel. Alternatively PL could give a customer 24 hours to cancel a PL reservation if they aren't willing to pay extra fees.


NOT TRUE. There is no way of knowing if a new hotel will charge a resort fee. Lower * rated hotels (dumps) are now charging resort fees.

TeaEarleGreyHot

lewisc,

Let's not get hung up over semantics, just because they charge a "resort" fee does not make them a resort. The name of the fee is irrelevant. The fact that it is disguised is, however, a big issue.

What I mean by doing "homework" is that one should (by internet searches, etc.) in advance identify ALL POSSIBLE HOTELS in the geographic zone one is bidding in. This is important because one should do comprehensive rate research for the precise dates one is bidding, in order to prepare a sensible offer. And while doing that rate research, one should then learn (by hotel websites, or by calling all potential hotels and asking) what additional charges may apply, such as required resort fees or required parking fees, or required energy surcharges. This is completely feasible. And it is not that difficult. It is easy to find out what hotels exist in a particular geographic area. Whether they are actively participating on PL is less important because one should assume that any hotel of the correct star-rating should be a potential win on Priceline.

I'm not saying I like the situtation with resort fees and other hidden charges. I despise it. I believe it makes sensible shopping very difficult, and those merchants who engage in such practices are doing so to hide more fundamental problems with their product. When you buy a ticket on Southwest Airlines, for example, you know exactly what additional fees you will have to pay: none. It gives me great confidence in that airline.

AsiaTraveler

Exactly. And PL already does this (or at least did when I was last underage five years ago) with underage fees on car rentals- your bid included both the base rate AND any underage fees. Of course if you didn't disclose your age properly in the bidding process I'm sure they could hit you but if you did...it was already accounted for. So the technology is there. There's no reason why they CAN'T...

Colfax

It's not technology or programming issues that keep Priceline from bundling resort fees in with the room rate.

It's more because the participating resort hotels would never consent to such an arrangement. They'd sooner drop out of Priceline, and it's the Priceline customer who would be hurt, more than the hotels. We'd have to book the same hotel through other more expensive channels...and STILL pay the resort fee.

If resort fees are waived for Priceline customers it will take about three seconds for word of that to get out to the hotel's full price customers, many of them loyal repeat visitors who belong to the hotel's affinity program. Very reasonably the Marriott Elite and Hilton Honors customers will demand that their resort fees be waived too, as a matter of fairness.

Technically the Priceline customer's resort fee wasn't really waived, it was just added to the room rate. But if there's no $30 line item for resort fee on the Priceline customer's bill that will be interpreted on the street as "Priceline customers don't have to pay resort fees."

Resort fees are lucrative and legal. Hotels aren't going to give up a fee they successfully collect from 90% of their customers in order to appease the 10% who are already paying the lowest rate and have the least brand loyalty. They'll drop Priceline first.

Resort fees are a ripoff. Nonetheless Priceline room rate + ripoff resort fee is almost always the best rate you'll find anywhere for that same hotel.

And btw, Priceline would love for resort rates to go away too. Priceline's transaction fee is based on the room amount, resort fee excluded. Priceline earns more on a $100 sale than they do on a $70 sale with $30 resort fee collected on the side.

If Priceline had the leverage to make hotels quit charging resort fees I think they would use it. Some here feel Priceline has that leverage, and I don't think they do.

lewisc

There is no way to predict when/if a 3* hotel will decide to add a resort fee. Your point made some sense when resort fees were limited to resorts.


I'm not suggested resort fees be waived for PL customers. The fee should be included in the hotel rate. It would be very easy to include the verbiage in the hotel description. We get confirmation with the hotels address and other information. No reason why it couldn't say something like the your bid includes the resort fee.

Under the present system a hotel could have a high $40 resort fee. That hotel could have the lowest PL rate (get a lot of PL customers) but have the highest cost to the PL customer (when the resort fee is included).

Assume a person "wins" a resort with a $70 bid. Assume the resort fee is $40. Is it reasonable to tell a customer the hotel accepted his price and charge his credit card? PL says, or at least used to say, something like reservations are non-refundable because we found a hotel who agreed to your price.

PL could tell hotels to include the resort fee in the loaded rates or don't particpate.

It might not be easy to program but PL could adjust the hotel rate by a resort fee in determining if our "bid" was accepted. PL would charge our credit card a lower amount (hotel rate less the resort fee) and we'd pay the balance (resort fee) at check in.

mikew99

I'm not sure I buy this reasoning. Hotels use Priceline to sell distressed inventory. Hotels with high resort fees could drop out, but there will always be other hotels with low or no resort fees, and those hotels will be given to Priceline customers instead.

Colfax

Last October I bid for a 2.5* in Rancho Mirage-Indian Wells-Palm Desert zone and got upgraded to the 3* Indian Wells Resort with a $20/night resort fee, not included in my bid. The Indian Wells really is a resort, btw, even though rated 3*. It has golf, tennis, and a resort sized pool. It's just a very past its prime resort, and Priceline usually rates those faded properties 4* or 3*, even though they're still resorts.

So I stayed at an Indian Wells resort for $58 instead of $38. Still a good deal. I ended up using Add a Night to stay over, and paid the $20 again.

But there have been a few stories of hotels that definitely were NOT resorts charging a resort fee. The most notorious example is probably the FlyerTalker who got charged an extra resort fee at a 2* Ramada in Florida, iirc. (Does anyone remember the details, like hotel name and amount of resort fee?)

Still I think examples like the 2* Ramada are few and far between, and not something most Priceline users are ever likely to encounter. That doesn't diminish the insult if/when it happens to you.

The "big picture" is that I don't evidence that "resort fee abuse" is a growing or spreading problem on Priceline. Someone will be able to cite an exception but imo the hotels charging resort fees today are basically the same hotels that charged resort fees five and ten years ago, and before Priceline existed. (I remember my father complaining about hidden resort fees in Miami Beach in the 1960's.)

When someone reports a resort fee on Priceline it's almost without exception in a locale where resort fees are common and expected--Hawaii, Caribbean, Scottsdale, Palm Springs, etc. I don't see people reporting resort fees in Kansas or at downtown business hotels or suburban hotels or airport hotels anywhere.

So the theoretical 2* Ramada or Comfort Inn that charges a $40 resort fee is sort of a red herring, imo, and in an outrageous situation like that I think Priceline would be likely to intervene and make the hotel drop the charge or leave Priceline.

In some resort areas it's not uncommon for even 2* hotels to charge a small resort fee--$5 or $10--and I think Priceline customers who bid for low quality hotels in those areas shouldn't be shocked to get one. The full paying customers at those 2* hotels get them too.

As an aside, twice I've won hotels on Priceline that charged me a "safe fee" for an in room safe that wasn't included in the bid price. The fee was something like $2 or $3 a day. One hotel waived it when I complained. The other hotel refused and I didn't pursue it.

But I agree with you, lewisc, that Priceline could do a better job of disclosing the resort fee.

JBLUA320

One thing that ticks me off is if you bid 4* you can still get stuck in resorts. This happened to me on my past Cancun trip. Apparently, PL internally ranks Resorts above 4* but below 5*, so if you bid 4*, you could be "upgraded" to a potentially inferior resort. The 4* Priceline properties for Cancun looked really nice, but I got stuck in a resort because it ranks resorts higher than 4*.

lewisc

Colfax--You're contradicting yourself. Five and ten years ago hotels like Ramada Inn didn't charge resort fees. Five and ten years ago resort fees were more predictible. A ten dollar resort fee for resorts in certain destinations. We now see $40 fees. A $40 fee dramatically affects how much a customer will bid.

You were happy with your upgrade to the Indian Hills resort. A person bidding on a 2 1/2* property doesn't expect to be paying a resort fee. Some customers who bid $38 won't be happy with a resort fee that increases their hotel rate by almost 50%. That person might have bid at a higher star level if they were wanted to bid $58.

I suspect many people don't expect to be paying a resort fee with a 3* hotel.

Your example illustrates how PLs present policy is unfair. PL would probably lose if a customer in that position complains to BBB and/or state AG.

edited to add a person who bid $38 for a 2 1/2* property might have booked conventionally rather then pay $58 for a PL bid.

mikew99

I do feel it's time for Priceline to take some action and consider some of the ideas presented in this thread. It's one thing when resort fees were $5, but they have crept up since then, as hotels boil the frog slowly. I foresee the time when the resort fee charged by a hotel exceeds the bid amount!

As long as resort fees stay at the level they are, I don't see anything changing. But if the hotels get too greedy, then people will start to complain to their government, and then the hotels might find themselves facing new (and unwanted) regulation. Of course, they'll b#@$ and moan, but they'll have only themselves to blame for that.

lo2e

Not sure it would/could ever happen, but I could just imagine PL telling hotel X that chooses to no longer participate that hotel Y has agreed to roll their "resort fee" into their PL rate. Boy, wouldn't that be nice...