So who really socks it to ya with fees? Airline and hotel complaints, compared

The following exercise is highly unscientific, journalistically questionable, yet somewhat entertaining. In trying to determine which industry is socking to travelers with fees in the worst possible way, it’s down to two contenders: airlines and hotels.

(Yes, car rental companies have a place in this discussion. As do cruise lines. But I’ll get to them soon enough.)

So I decided to query my “in” box, which contains all of the complaints I receive. And here’s where it gets a little unscientific — my email also contains all of my other correspondence, which includes my interviews of experts and sources on the topic.

I’ll let that slide.

Anyway, the results are pretty revealing.

Here are the number of emails with “hotel fee” in them. Bear in mind that it’s just September. We still have four months to go in 2010.

And airline fees?

Here’s a side-by-side comparison:

As you can see, airline fees are the clear winner. I mean, loser.

Food for thought.

(Photo: the wamphyr i/Flickr Creative Commons)

  • carver

    No great surprise. Airlines have monopolistic power which is why they can behave the way they do. Hotels can’t behave nearly as badly because of numerous options for travelers. For example, there are 53 hotels that are considered airport hotels just by LAX.

  • Steve

    Not only do the airlines have more of a monopoly, but there are such huge differences between buying an airline ticket and renting a hotel room (some of which aren’t the airlines’ fault, like dealing with the TSA) that it’s not at all surprising to me that there are more complaints about airlines in general. As far as fees go, the only hotel fee that really bothers me is the resort fee, as I feel that any fee I can’t avoid paying should be folded into the base price.

    If staying at a hotel was like flying, that $119/night reservation at the Holiday Inn Express would be fully nonchangeable and nonrefundable. A refundable rate? That would be along the lines of $399/night for the exact same room. When you made your reservation, you’d have to specify the name of everyone in your party and that would also be nonchangeable; if you booked a room for you and three friends, and then one backed out of the trip and was replaced by another, too bad – he has to pay, but the first guy doesn’t get his money back. You’d also be limited to bringing one piece of luggage into the room, and each additional one would be $25. And those little bottles of shampoo and conditioner in the bathroom would cost $2 each, but you wouldn’t be allowed to bring your own if you opted not to use them. ;)

  • Carver

    @Steve

    And if you decided to leave early, not only would there be a change fee, but they’d reprice the entire stay and charge you more money.

  • Sharon

    i have found that many hotels do charge you if you decide to leave early. A practice that irritates me to no end. Several times I have had to change my travel plans and have been “held hostage” by ridiculous “early checkout” fees of up to $100 by different hotels. Another fee that I find irritating is the “parking fee”, especially when it is not disclosed on the website when you are making your reservation. I have actually had to phone hotels to find out what the parking charge is because it simply is not disclosed anywhere on their website. That is not acceptable to me. Many of us drive our own vehicles when traveling, and if a parking fee is charged by a hotel, it should be disclosed, up front, just as plainly as their room charge is.

  • Carver

    @Sharon

    I haven’t noticed any hotels charging the so called early checkout fee lately. It was popular a few years ago, but it seemed to have disappeared. Perhaps enough folks hated it.

    I disagree though about the parking fee. Its an avoidable fee, so while I prefer that a hotel disclose the existence of the fee and its amount, it’s not a big deal to me.

  • Sharon

    I don’t see how a parking fee is an avoidable fee, if you are driving your own car on a vacation. And 30 to 50 bucks per night, added on to a hotel rate may not be a big deal to you, but to a family on a budget, it is a huge deal. I just made reservations for a trip to Wisconsin and Chicago in mid October. 9 of the 11 hotels that I checked had early checkout fees.

  • Carver

    @Sharon

    The parking fee is avoidable because you can make alternative arrangements. I took a family vacation to New York and we choose to use public transportation.

    Another time, a friend visited me in DC and the hotel charged $25 per night parking. He found a cheap parking lot around the corner for $5 per night.

    Similiarly, in San Francisco, you can park your car in any number of lots for far cheaper than the hotel garage. I’ve done that the few times I’ve stayed in San Francisco. I stayed in the SF Hilton. Directly across the street is a public parking lot that’s way cheaper than the hotel.

    That’s why I say its avoidable. As opposed to a resort fee that there is literally nothing that you can do to avoid paying it short of not staying at the property.

  • Carver

    @Sharon

    Perhaps early check out fees are more common in those areas. I haven’t seen one in years.

  • Sharon

    I don’t mean to belabor the point of parking fees, but the last time I tried to avoid the hotel parking fee and park off-site, I was burned by in and out charges by the public parking and the other (private) off site parking sites. So while the initial parking fees may be cheaper, if you want to take your car out to go anywhere, then the charges start all over again. At least at a hotel valet park, you have in and our privileges, and pay the same 30-50 bucks, regardless of whether you take your car out or not. I still think that hotels that charge for parking ought to disclose that fee, then the potential guest can make the decision about whether or not to use public transportation (often not an option in our situation), or utilize another parking option, or make a reservation at another hotel with cheaper parking fees, or no parking fees.

  • Steve

    @Sharon: can you elaborate a bit on the early checkout fees? I have noticed them before but have not had a situation where I would be charged. Are they structured such that they replace what you would have paid for the rest of the stay (ie, you book three nights at $99 each, with a reservation that’s refundable up to the day of check-in, and then after checking in you realize you have to leave after two. So you pay $198 for the first two nights, then a $50-$100 early checkout fee because you didn’t stay for the third night), or are they structured as a pure penalty (ie, you book the same stay but it’s nonrefundable/prepaid, so not only do you still have to pay $297 for the three nights, but there’s also an early checkout fee)? If it’s the former, I think it’s reasonable so long as the fee isn’t more than the cost of one night’s stay; if it’s the latter, I’m in complete agreement with you that an early checkout fee is ridiculous.