Is Travelocity in cahoots with hotels that charge resort fees?

Mandatory resort fees, as everyone knows by now, are completely evil. But do the avaricious hotels that charge them have a partner in crime? Yes, they do.

Online travel agencies are helping hotels get away with their misdeeds, say readers like Dennis Lovejoy. He recently booked a package through Travelocity that promised the price “includes items selected, including taxes and fees”. But it did not.

In an e-mail to Travelocity, he described his problem:

I believed my travel was paid in full. Then I noticed on my Travelocity statement that “incidental charges (parking, phone calls, room service or energy surcharges) will be handled directly between you and the hotel”.

I do not believe a “resort fee” that was forced on me is an incidental expense. If I had not been prepaid and needed a place to stay at the time, I may have got lodging elsewhere.

Travelocity’s response?

Dear Dennis,

Thank you for writing to Travelocity.

We understand that you wish to have information on incidental charges.

Per your request we reviewed your reservation for your trip to LAS VEGAS, NV and see that you have been charged only the incidental fees please be informed that you agreed to hotel rules and policies while booking your reservation. You have been charged as per hotel policies and hotel had charged to your card and not Travelocity.

Please feel free to write to us for any further information that you may require. We appreciate the opportunity to serve your travel needs.

Regards,

Marcus T
Travelocity Customer Service

http://www.travelocity.com/

To which Lovejoy answered:

You miss the point. I may have agreed to hotel rules and policies. Other than ordinary incidental fees as described on your Web page, I did not agree to a “resort fee” of over $20 a night that I knew nothing about.

Had I known this info, I would have probably stayed at another place. The fees for your contract hotels need to be clearly listed and published for the consumer to make an educated decision on choosing a hotel. I did not use any of the amenities for the resort fee. I was not interested in them, but told I had to pay them. It resulted in about a 25% increase in my stay at this hotel.

I am writing not because I require information, I am trying to give you some information to make you website and service better. It is a circuitous way for the hotel to make more money while using Travelocity to advertise their rates, have the consumer pay based on that information and then “ding” them with more fees after you have committed. It is kind of like a “bait and switch” scheme.

Technically, it is a bait-and-switch scheme.

Travelocity should be able to keep a full list of resort fees in its database. It already quotes a total price on rental cars. Those surcharges should be clearly disclosed at the time of booking — even when you’re buying a package.

To tell someone that the price of a vacation includes all taxes and fees and then to change the rules of the game is a bad business practice, too.

But not as bad as failing to listen to a customer. Marcus T sent a boilerplate response to Lovejoy that completely sidestepped the issue.

He deserves a better answer.

Update (4/3): And he got one. Sort of. Late yesterday, the hotel contacted Lovejoy, apologized for the misunderstanding, and refunded the resort fee.

  • Joe Farrell

    Corporate America needs to stop ‘standard answer’ number 6 responses. 95% of an answer is non-responsive crapola, like “We’re glad you wrote to us,” and “We’re happy to respond,” and “thank you for having a problem we can respond to” and then not answering the question.

    Are you listening Corporate America? When you do not answer a question, when you dodge a problem and respond with stock answer number 9, you treat your customers like idiots. Trust, that is not an impression you want to leave with your customers. We sent you a letter which are usually complaints or problems. The first step is understanding the question, the next step is providing a reasonably meaningful response.

    When 90% of the response is pablum and fluff, and half the time your people make no effort to understand the problem, you can see why we buy from international suppliers. Further, when ‘Bob’ from the call center in Bangla Desh responds to the letter and sends the wrong sample out because he did not really read the complaint letter, that drives your customers crazy.

  • Jasper

    @ JF: The problem is that 90% of the customers are happy with a standard answer number 11. They feel that someone has looked at their problem, and surely passed their concern over to a supervisor. “Next time things will be better”. Also, that answer usually comes 4 months after the complaint, so the customer has lost his anger, and is busy with other things in his life, and simply doesn’t care anymore.

    And what’s worse is that when you do write back to a non-answer, you either get standard answer 13, or just nothing. And who has the time to keep whining over that extra $35?

    The problem is that it works for companies. It hurts them in the end because they loose customers, but they refuse to see that, and keep cutting cost (while jacking up the fees) to create lower prices.

    I know you are no fan of government regulation, but I would be a big fan of a WYSIWYG law. The price they show you in advance is the final price. End-of-story. No BS with adding taxes, fees and surcharges. Aside from the fact that budgeting is impossible these days, all the taxes and surcharges are simply unfair. As a customer from far, you have no clue what the local taxes are, and I haven’t seen a single hotel site that provides a list of their fees and surcharges.

    I wonder in how far it constitutes fraud.

  • Michele N

    I disagree with Jaspar’s first statement–I don’t think “90% of the customers are happy with a standard answer number 11″. I think it is more the rest of the reasons-that they just don’t feel like fighting this garbage constantly. They weigh how much time and effort it will take to get what they want/need or get their point acrossed with the seriousness of the concern and the knowledge that most likely it will go nowhere anyway. So, they drop it. Only when substantial sums of money or injury are involved do most people really pursue anything. And the cycle continues. Its the other 10% who are willing to forge forward, usually more on principle than anything else.

    As for the resort fees, same thing happened to me last year at a hotel in Florida. Nowhere on the booking site did it mention specifically that the hotel had resort fees. I found out at checkout. Had I known, I would have either stayed somewhere else or at least used some of what I paid for! Incidentally, I did look up the same hotel on Travelocity today and now they include the resort fee in the hotel details.

  • Joe Farrell

    Actually, the OP made a deal with TRAVELOCITY to pay the incidential charges. He never made a deal with the hotel to pay the charges. Next time, just say no. If more people told the hotel to shove their charges, they’d stop charging them.

    You CAN dispute the charge after you get home. Via credit card charge dispute process. The claim is that you agreed to the charge under duress, or that it was not disclosed when you checked in. If they do disclose the charge, ask to speak to a supervisor – and detail your objection to the charge. If it is for things you will not use, like parking, or interenet access or the minibar in your room, or an upgrade that the hotel gave you [meaning all guests on 'that floor' pay this charge] then say so. If you a business traveler at a resort and are staying 2 nights and you arrive at 8 or 9pm or later, and leave on the 7am flight 2 nights later, are you really gonna use their spa? A little bit goes a long way.

    In my particular cases, the managers want the business but can’ waive the fee, but what they CAN do is credit you for breakfast for 2 days. You pay the fee but get a meal you would otherwise pay for anyway. There is always more than one way to skin the cat.

    @ JASPER -= I’d agree with a WYSIWYG law, the problem is that hotels are in states which have 52 different laws if you include PR and DC. The feds can easily regulate air fares, but hotels present a different issue of what their authority actually is. . .

  • http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr Allan J.

    1. Would it be desirable to check on the hotel’s own website after seeing the listing on Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, etc.?

    2. What would happen if you did not sign the hotel folio or credit card slip prior to leaving if you did not agree with the charges?

  • Jasper

    @ JF: I wasn’t even talking about a WYSISYG law for only the travel industry.

    Couldn’t the Fed (ab)use the interstate commerce law (again) to enforce a very simply WYSIWYG law on pricing in general? They could argue that you can’t expect of citizens to understand the laws of other states, or even know in what state they are purchasing when they are buying something online. Do you know under what state law your working when buying from United, Amazon or Best Buy?

    I’d love to see the same apply to cell phone, cable, satellite and internet contracts, etc.

  • Ian

    “The Fed” is the Federal Reserve. So no, they couldn’t.

    “The Feds” are the Federal Government. Maybe they could, in cases where the ticket is being purchased from another state.

  • Kevin

    If the Feds inact a law that forces Hotels to discuss all the local taxes and such, how far do you take it? Is the next step forcing all Stores to include all Taxes and such in their advertised price?
    I agree that all “fees” should need to be CLEARLY STATED prior to acceptting the room reservation. Last I checked, most of these places were “Hotels” and not “Resorts”, so how do you charge a “Resort Fee”?