Hotel Adding Sneaky Service Charge
Jun 3, 2022, 3:29 am
#1
Original Poster
Join Date: Jun 2018
Programs: British Airways, Hilton
Posts: 44
Hotel Adding Sneaky Service Charge
Mrs BC and I are just back from a few days at a rather smart hotel near Leamington Spa, England. We booked a dinner, bed & breakfast package.
We were asked to pay our accommodation cost on arrival leaving just our drinks to cover at the end of the stay. No problem there but at no point were we advised that they add a service charge to everything including the accommodation. We booked through Relais & Chateaux and there was certainly no mention of a service charge there. There was also nothing about it on the email confirmation. We’ve since looked at the hotel website where there’s a tick to agree the booking conditions but no link to read them. Presumably the terms are hidden somewhere on the site and the service charge deep within them. I wonder why we weren’t advised about the charge when checking in and paying for the accommodation? A cynical person could conclude that the charge is better hidden at the end of the stay amongst the drink charges.
When we queried the charge we were told that it had been recently introduced as some other hotels were doing it !!!! We declined to pay the charge but it made an unpleasant end to what had been an excellent break.
Is this a worrying new trend for hidden pricing?
https://onemileatatime.com/insights/hotels-discret...
https://www.headforpoints.com/2021/09/13/uk-hotels...
We were asked to pay our accommodation cost on arrival leaving just our drinks to cover at the end of the stay. No problem there but at no point were we advised that they add a service charge to everything including the accommodation. We booked through Relais & Chateaux and there was certainly no mention of a service charge there. There was also nothing about it on the email confirmation. We’ve since looked at the hotel website where there’s a tick to agree the booking conditions but no link to read them. Presumably the terms are hidden somewhere on the site and the service charge deep within them. I wonder why we weren’t advised about the charge when checking in and paying for the accommodation? A cynical person could conclude that the charge is better hidden at the end of the stay amongst the drink charges.
When we queried the charge we were told that it had been recently introduced as some other hotels were doing it !!!! We declined to pay the charge but it made an unpleasant end to what had been an excellent break.
Is this a worrying new trend for hidden pricing?
https://onemileatatime.com/insights/hotels-discret...
https://www.headforpoints.com/2021/09/13/uk-hotels...
