Kimpton Facilities' Charge
 

Noticed today that Hotel Monaco DC is now adding a $7/per nte facilities charge to bookings.

Perhaps I never noticed before but this seems like something new and I've stayed at this property for years.

Has anyone noticed this? Is it new? All Kimpton properties? What is it?

Its an attempt by the hotel owners to game the OTA search results with a lower base rate - eg a "resort fee" Sadly all the Kimptons in DC have the fee from what I recall.

Surprisingly they only dinged you $7/night from their website they're supposed to be charging $21/night - http://www.monaco-dc.com/faq/

I believe Monaco Seattle used to have a similar fee, but waived it for Karma members in an attempt to get everyone to sign-up when Karma first launched. And I think Shorebreak and Zamora also ding you with resort fees.

I've never been offered any of the things mentioned in the FAQ link. Initially assumed it was to cover the wine hour and possibly raid the minibar. However, don't tell me those things are complimentary if they really aren't.

I am going to pull my bill from a stay last year and review. I am also going to query my upcoming res with Karma and the property. Thanks for the info.

I despise this kind of practice by hotels. Unfortunately government regulators haven't gotten in the way of hotels doing this. These are "resort fees" by another name.

When I first started using Kimpton properties in DC -- and even for many years after that -- I never saw these fees on the invoices.

I do have to wonder how successfully guests now can ask to have these fees removed.

That's a shame because the Monaco was I believe the sole holdout amongst the DC Kimpton properties with the bogus facilities charges which I first saw at the DC properties either last year or in 2015.

Update: Monaco DC waives charge for Karma members. Assume this might be the case for other properties but that's only a guess.

Interesting data point, thanks. I've actually never been charged at Kimpton DC properties when booking with my Global Business Program number, but at the same time, it doesn't show up in the confirmation screen total amount when booking under that code, so I'm not sure if that has more to do with the rate code itself.