Vegas hotel + opaque site + resort fee = T-R-O-U-B-L-E

What do you get when you put a Las Vegas hotel, a mandatory resort fee and an opaque Web site together? If you said “trouble,” you’re absolutely correct.

Ben Huynh made a bid on a Priceline hotel in Las Vegas recently. He got the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, but he also was charged an additional, mandatory $15-a-night resort fee. He appealed to Priceline for a refund, but it turned him down, saying that the fee had been adequately disclosed in its terms and conditions.

Depending on the city and property you stay in, you may also be charged resort fees or other incidental fees, such as parking charges. These charges, if applicable, will be payable by you to the hotel directly at checkout. When you check in, a credit card or, in the hotel’s discretion, a debit card will be required to secure these charges and any incidental fees (phone calls, room service, movie rentals, etc.) that you may incur during your stay.

Huynh wanted to know if that was Priceline’s final answer.

He thinks the site’s actions are wrong:

As you may already know, Priceline.com doesn’t tell you who you have reserved with until after the reservation has been made. Once I found out we had a reservation with Trump Hotel, I did some research on this hotel. I first discovered they charge an additional daily $15 resort fee. If I would have know this, I would have booked my first choice at Ceasar’s Palace.

First of all, many hotels in Las Vegas have a resort fee. That doesn’t make these charges right, but anyone booking a Las Vegas hotel should expect them.

This fact in no way exonerates Priceline from failing to disclose the resort fee before the booking took place. A mandatory resort fee isn’t anything like a parking fee. You choose to drive a car to the hotel and you usually have the option of not parking it on the premises. You have no choice about the resort fee, which is arbitrarily tacked on to your room rate.

Priceline’s disclosure is in no way adequate. If you’re bidding on a room, all mandatory fees should be included in your bid. A hotel can’t raise the room rate by another $15 a night — that’s dishonest.

I asked Priceline to have another look at Huynh case. Here’s its response:

The Trump is everything we promised. It’s a 5-star hotel in the zone the customer selected. We don’t guarantee a casino and we tell people up front that the hotel they get may have extra fees. Which hopefully are more than offset by a really great deal on the room rate.

True, Huynh’s rate of $123 a night — uh, make that $138 a night — seems pretty good. But I looked up a mid-week rate at the Trump for January, and rates start at $109 a night (not including the resort fee).

This isn’t the first time I’ve come across a resort fee problem with an opaque site.

Huynh’s best option is to dispute the fee on his credit card bill. He stands a reasonably good chance of winning.

In the meantime, Priceline should consider changing its disclosure of resort fees. This kind of deception isn’t fair to its customers.

Update (9 a.m., Dec. 30): Priceline has responded to my post.

I went back and read their reservation. The Huynh’s booked a weekend, not a weekday. Instead of the $298 they would have paid elsewhere, they got their stay through priceline.com for $282. Neither number includes the resort fee. While the total amount was small, they did save some money and did not overpay, as your article suggests.

(Photo: jrodmanjr/Flickr Creative Commons)

  • MarkieA

    I guess that I’m just not getting it. From my reading, it sounds like Priceline did indeed disclose the possibility of an extra charge. It’s not clear to me that the terms and conditions were available for viewing until after booking. Is that the situation? If so, then, yes, I agree that Priceline was negligent. If not, this just sounds to me like one more whining customer who didn’t read the fine print and now wants Chris to take on the big, bad hotel for them.

  • Jake

    Resort fees are just another example proving that without legislation corporate America will not just “do the right thing”.

  • Jake

    Sorry, hit “Submit” prematurely…I meant to add that if the “fee” is mandatory it should be rolled up into the room rate, plain and simple. The only reason not to is to provide a dishonest price bump.

  • MikeS

    Specifically to MarkieA but in general:

    The priceline website says: “… you may also be charged resort fees or other incidental fees, such as parking charges. …”

    If they disclosed the amount, maybe OK. How about if the fee were $200 per day? There is nothing that says that cannot happen.

  • Kelly

    “First of all, every hotel in Las Vegas has a resort fee, with one or two notable exceptions. That doesn’t make these charges right, but anyone booking a Las Vegas hotel should expect them.”

    I have stayed at the Circus Circus, Flamingo and MGM and have never payed a resort fee. And I always check the breakdown of charges for everywhere I stay and I have never seen it. The only way I could have been charged it, if it was included in the base room rate and I didn’t know it. So I am very suprised to read the above statement!

  • SirWired

    I’m with Mike… I would be okay if the fee amount were disclosed as part of the T&C. An open-ended fee is just wrong. Really, what stops the hotel from charging a $100/nt “PriceLine resort fee”? That’s one way of recouping low priceline room rates.

    This is separate from the topic of “resort fees” in general, which are indeed stupid. They should absolutely be included as part of the room rate, since they cannot be avoided. Unfortunately, this isn’t something the FTC can likely handle, since lodging laws seem to exclusively be a state-by-state matter, and they universally suck for the consumer. (The outdated list of “innkeeper” laws on the back of every hotel door is truly hilarious, as are the innkeeper liability limits.)

    SirWired

  • Carver

    @Chris

    Living in California, Las Vegas is a common destination stop. I’m quite certain that Vegas hotels, at least near the strip, do not charge resort fees as a rule. In fact having stayed at the Venetian, Bellagio, Planet Hollywood, Bally’s, MGM, Westin, Renaissance,etc. and I have never been charged a resort fee.

    @MarkieA

    This is not a whining person; this is someone who has been taken advantage of by unethical business practices hiding in the fine print.

    As an attorney, I find the priceline disclosure to be woefully inadequate and hopefully illegal. Simply put, the customer should never be in the position of not knowing what the final total for mandatory charges are before agreeing to the contract.

    As both Mike and SirWired have both stated, what’s to keep the hotel from arbitrarily charging $100 per night, or $1000 per night as a hotel fee.

    As Chris correctly states, a parking charge is different in that it is one of the services that you can choose to avail yourself of or not, much like a meal in the restaurant.

    I’d feel better about this disclosure had Priceline provided a cap, i.e. disclosure fees of up to “X” per night may apply

  • Carver

    @Jake

    While I strongly dislike resort fees, I don’t find them to be “wrong” or unethical as long as they are completely and adequately disclosed early on and definitely prior to purchase.

    One thing about resort fees though is that in any given resort area they tend to be roughly comparable at comparable properties. For example, in Palm Springs, the Westin charges $25 in resort fees, while the Marriott charges $24 in resort fees. So when comparing prices, you’re still making an apples to apples comparison when trying to find the cheapest price.

  • Jack Bauer

    I think resort fees are put on by hotels to avoid paying extra taxes! That way they don’t report it as part of their income, but as “other revenue”, which may be subject to a lower tax level…

  • tpp

    @Carver

    The possibility of a fee was disclosed. The amount was not.

    How is that not wrong?

    It’s the same thing as charging for shipping and handling, but not disclosing how much it is before you complete the purchase.

  • BM

    I concur with Carver. I have stayed at many hotels in Vegas, Rio being the last, and have never incurred a resort fee.

  • Charles

    What on earth is a “resort fee” ? $15/day for what ? Can’t they just make it part of the rate? I don’t get it.

  • Doug

    I had never heard of a resort fee until after I used Priceline for the first time. I showed up at the Marriott hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and was charged a $10 resort fee. Priceline declared that it had properly disclosed the possibility of a resort fee before I bid, a position with which I completely disagreed. If other friends had not encouraged me to continue using Priceline, their response to me would have ensured that I never used Priceline again.

    Chris is correct: Other hotel fees, such as parking, Internet, and health club access, are optional, but resort fees are mandatory and should be included in the base price (in any booking situation, but particularly with an opaque booking site).

  • Shag

    Ok, just stayed at the Trump booked thru Priceline and peeved about the Resort fee as well. A couple of points as I’ve done extensive research on this:

    1. Not all Vegas properties charge fees. For a comprehensive list see: http://www.vegaschatter.com/story/2009/4/21/112345/384/vegas-travel/Which_Hotels_Have_Resort_Fees_and_What_They_Include

    2. At the Trump, the resort fee is taxed so it’s closer to $17 (16.80) than to $15. It is mandatory and includes such inane items as daily paper (not always delivered) and two 10 oz water bottles.

    4. The amount is not disclosed at time of purchase.

    Because of 1-4, I chose Hotwire to extend my stay at a different property. There, where one has a reasonable shot of figuring out which hotel is which e.g. 5 star Vegas Strip Condo w/ no casino , non-smoking = Trump = bait and switch = avoid like the plague.

  • Erika

    I’ve used Priceline a few times when I was bargain hunting and each time I found out – after the fact of course – that I was charged more than what I could have received from other sites or via the hotel itself. Moreover, because Priceline does not divulge the name of the hotel until after the sale is made, I typically found myself in a less than ideal situation. (Silly me – I thought a four star hotel wouldn’t have roaches in the bathroom, stained carpets, or peeling wallpaper.) When I tried to address these concerns with Priceline I got a similar message to that of Mr. Huynh. I.E. – “Priceline doesn’t guarantee anything”, “We rated this hotel a 4 star so it must have been a bad day at the hotel” etc. etc. Based on these experiences, and the extremely poor customer service offered by Priceline, I avoid them like the plague.

  • Jeff K

    Ok, Time to set the record straight. I work for one of the “Big” hotels in Vegas…I have somewhat privy knowledge to how this all went down.

    First, In order to understand whats going on NOW, you must look to the past….

    Remember back in the day when Enron was in full swing doing VERY SHADY trades/deals for power? NEVADA POWER COMPANY was one of those clients…We (Nevada, That being Las Vegas) got the “screwed” part of it. ($300 million.)

    Since NPC had to fork out a bunch of cash to pay for power, They appealed to the regulators to hike the power rates to roll the cost back onto those that would be using it….The public, and of course, The Casinos!

    To make a long story short, The “Resort Fee” was actually born with a different name, The “Energy Surcharge Fee.” For every night you stayed in our hotel, the fee was a flat $2.50.

    After a couple of months, the money had been recouped through rate hikes so the rate retreated to its previous level…But now theres a sudden “income” vacuum. The bean counters at our casino crunched the numbers and said, “We MUST hold on to this stream.” But how? Well, For starters, We can offer them a “free” coupon book with lots of offers…We could offer “free” priority Valet parking to our guests that stay here. We could offer “free” use of the pool and laundry facilities too. Thusly, the “ESF” matured into the “Resort Fee.”

    Lets put it to you this way….

    My Casino = 2430 rooms
    Resort Fee…(use to be $5, but SURPRISE it’s $7.50 now)

    2430 X $7.5 = $18,225 A DAY if we are at %100 occupancy.
    That’s approx $546,750 A MONTH!
    It could be as much as $6,561,000! A YEAR!

    *Can’t they just make it part of the rate?*
    Nope! We would NEVER do that. Casinos call other casinos up to 3-5 times a day to find out what their daily,weekly,weekend rates for a room are. based upon how many casinos might be called, (in our case it’s 30) we raise or lower our room rates to compete. Right now rates are around 29-49 bucks (NOT INCLUDING TAX AND FEES!!!) When Jan 30-31 rolls around? Expect to be paying 3-5 times the amount for the room….If you don’t want to that’s fine, because there’s a long line of people behind you that will GLADLY pay the price. Same goes for CES EVERY YEAR. Joe Smith isn’t paying for the company to be staying at the hotel, the COMPANY IS, So JACK THOSE RATES UP!!!!!

    In closing I will say this…When you’re checking in, and you’re tired, and you just want to get to the room and rest….SLOW DOWN AND OPEN YOUR EYES! Those lines that you are putting your initials on and SIGNING at the bottom is stating emphatically that “Yes, I acknowledge that this is my room rate and Yes, I AGREE to pay (insert sum here) RESORT FEE.” If you complain about this when you get your bill at check out, we’ll kindly print out the sheet that shows your initials and say, “I’m sorry, But it appears you DIDN’T have a problem when you checked in.” DONT FIGHT IT AFTER YOUR CHARGED we HAVE YOUR MONEY AND WERE GONNA KEEP IT! Ask nicely BEFORE you get charged and you might have the fees waived.

    Sorry for clogging up the tubes, I hope this answers more questions than it raises.

    -The Angry Bellman-

  • Justin

    More reason to SHOP AROUND, READ the fine Print, and more important, DO YOUR homework. Are these feeds ridiculous? You better believe it. Are they illegal. Apparently not. So the next time you book a hotel, use a site that includes everything in the price and check MULTIPLE sites. As was pointed out, he actually got a BAD BAD deal here. The rooms were going cheaper on the hotel’s site itself (According to Chris). Places like priceline AREN’T always a good deal. Don’t assume they are. Simple.

  • woodsideparkbob

    Any fee that is not an option for any customer, e.g., a resort fee that is billed to all guests, should be disclosed as part of the base price. Otherwise is it false advertising or fraud.

    I once complained to the Arizona Attorney General about a hotel that made a reservation for me over the phone an did not disclose their resort fee until I arrived at the hotel. The AG forced the hotel to refund the non-disclosed fee.

  • Ben Martin

    I used to live at Trump International on the 64th floor. Lived there for almost a year. They always had a $15/day resort fee. The problem is, they dont really have a “resort”. The only amenities that Trump has is Room Service, DJT restaurant, and a pool restaurant. There is a spa, which is an additional $15 to visit for the day if you want to use it. The pool is free, but you pay for cabanas and extremely high prices for food.

    The $15 is just juice that Trump gets to keep. Its small enough of a fee that nobody will really create a big stink.

    Bottom line – Priceline should include the fee as part of the daily rate as its part of the daily rate.

    My recommendation? Stay at Palazzo or Encore, both are brand new properties with lower fees, dozens of restaurants, better rooms, and most importantly, resort CREDITS for booking rooms not resort FEES. :) Often you’ll get casino credit, discounts on dinners, etc……

  • Carver

    @tpp

    You need to read my post much, much closer. I was very clear that Priceline’s disclosure was inadequate. The customer does not know how much money he/she is potentially on the hook for.

    We want to figure out how to preserve the anonymity of the hotel, yet protect the customer. The obvious way is to disclose what the maximum resort fee might be; say $25.00. That way, the customer can factor that into his bid and not be surprised. The customer can make an informed and intelligent decision because his maximum cost is known to him.

  • Carver

    I just did some checking and apparantly, more Vegas hotels are beginning to tack on resort fees under a variety of guises. The Westin Casuarina charges $15. But the Planet Hollywood only charges $5.00.

    What was particularly disturbing is that the Westin calls it a Service Charge and thus doesn’t disclose it the way Starwood hotels normally do. Normally Starwood hotels are pretty good about disclosing resort fees early on. The Westin Casuarina doesn’t do so which is shameful.

  • LeeAnne

    I just stayed at the Trump Towers Hotel myself…and yup, I got the annoying $15 per night resort fee, which really adds up when you’ve got two rooms for several nights. That is not chump change.

    But I did know about the resort fee IN ADVANCE because I did my homework IN ADVANCE. When using Priceline, doing your homework means using one of the websites designed for opaque site users, such as biddingfortravel.com. On biddingfortravel, you can usually figure out what hotel you are going to get – or at least narrow it down to a few likely properties. AND you can read input from other people about the hotels that you might get. In the Vegas section on biddingfortravel it makes it clear that you have a good chance of getting Trump, and that they have a mandatory $15 resort fee, so you can factor this into your bid.

    But that doesn’t excuse the practice. I am in the camp that believes this is WRONG WRONG WRONG – that if money is going to be charged that you cannot opt out of, then it should be disclosed as part of the price…not the “possiblity” of some unnamed fee, but an actual amount. Priceline’s supposed disclosure is disgraceful, and I believe it should be illegal.

    (Oh, and Christopher, sorry to have to disagree with you but I too stay in Vegas occasionally, and most hotels there do NOT charge a resort fee. I stayed at the Palazzo last year, purchased on Priceline, no resort fee.)

    As for whether or not to use Priceline, you simply can’t say that it’s *never* a good deal, but nor can you say it *always* is. You just gotta do your homework…and sometimes you luck out. My stay last year at the Palazzo, purchased on Priceline, saved me literally hundreds of dollars over the cheapest price for the same room that I could find elsewhere. As for my recent stay at Trump, I found it for cheaper on another discount-hotel site than I could have gotten on Priceline (and I knew exactly how low I could go on Priceline, from my research on biddingfortravel.com). Not only that, but the rooms were cancellable with no penalty on this other site – which worked out well, as I had to drop one of the nights, and I got a full refund! If I’d bought on PL I would have been stuck with that last night.

    Resort fees are nothing more than an unethical money-grab by greedy hotels trying to pull the wool over their customers eyes. I firmly believe they should be either made illegal, or made optional. If they are not optional, there is simply no reason to separate them out from the room rate…other than to try to attract customers with a falsely low room rate.

    What’s next? Will hotels advertise a rate of $15 a night, and when you show up to check in, tack on an extra $20 for housekeeping, $10 for electricity, $15 for sheets/blankets, $20 for hot water…all of which are mandatory??? It’s the same principle.

  • Bill

    I recently went to Las Vegas and stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott Las Vegas South. There was no resort fee. It looks like the statement “all hotels in Vegas charge a resort fee” was a not correct at all.

    That said, why can’t priceline disclose the resort fees? Realistically, they should be added in to the room rate, because for all intents and purposes, it is a part of the price paid for a room.

  • Christopher Elliott

    @LeeAnne, true enough. I’ve fixed the post to reflect the fact that many hotels, but not most, have resort fees.

  • LeeAnne

    @Christopher – thanks, and hey nobody can get it 100% right all the time, eh? ;-)

    @Bill – I agree that Priceline should include the resort fee in their pricing. Having a vague “disclosure” about the possibility of some unnamed amount being tacked on by the hotel does not cut it. As others have pointed out, this leaves the customer open to ANY rediculous amount being slapped on, which renders Priceline’s prices essentially nothing more than an estimate. Priceline states that your bid is “the price you want to pay for your hotel room”, not “the price you want to pay for your hotel room, not including any amount the hotel might want to charge you additional once you get there”.

    In fact, here’s the language directly from PL, from the “more info” link about the Name Your Price option: “The price you name is per night and does not include priceline’s charge to you for taxes and service fees. We will calculate this additional charge and provide you a summary of your “Total Charges” on your contract page before you submit a request. Your credit card will be charged if, and only if, your offer is accepted by priceline.”

    That right there puts PL in the wrong, in terms of charging ANY additional fees that weren’t disclosed in the “Total Charges” summary. How can someone be assumed to have agreed to pay something, when they weren’t told that they are going to have to pay it?

    If Priceline wants to remain on the right side of basic business ethics, while maintaining the opaqueness of the hotels they are selling, then what they need to do is factor “resort fees” on ALL properties that have them, into the price. So if someone bids $100 on Trump, and PL knows that Trump charges a $15 resort fee, then PL should be working under the assumption that the actual bid is $85 + resort fee.

    Not doing that is, as far as I can tell, completely illegal. I do hope that the OP disputes this with his CC company, and wins. Maybe that will get PL to stop this unethical practice.

  • Carver

    @leanne

    I don’t think what Pricelie is doing is necessarily illegal. Its certainly unethical. But as you and others have pointed out, there are several ethical ways around this.

    1. Priceline hotels waive resort charges
    2. The bid includes resort charges
    3. Priceline discloses the maximum additional resort charge

    But the current system is probably legal but really smells.

  • econobiker

    If you think this is a scummy non-disclosed fee just pretend to be a new customer to a cell phone company and ask about the “regulatory recovery fee” or what state,local or sales taxes you might be charged…

    The company won’t be able to tell you ever…

  • Steven

    ANOTHER reason I don’t use these discount web sites. In this case, the cost winds up being MORE than staying at the place booking directly! Dumb!

    I want to know WHAT I am getting and WHAT EXACTLY I am paying. I can’t do that with the “opaque” sites.

    IF you use these, be prepared for the surprises, folks.

  • Greg

    Priceline is a company with a history of shady dealings.

    Consider that they are one of the 88 Web stores that sold their customers financial information to one of three marketers–Vertrue, Affinion and Webloyalty–firms that are now under congressional investigation. http://tinyurl.com/y9j6vbt

  • Mike

    @ Jeff, I really appreciate you offering your input. However, in this case, the fees were NOT disclosed up front as suggested by the priceline website. as others have said, the hotel could just tack on a $100 a night fee for using priceline.

    Also, resort fees should just be made illegal. The amenities that the hotel offers contribute to its rating and desirability to travelers and vacationers. The pricing that they give their customers should include all charges the hotel deems necessary to operate their property and make a profit. If a hotel beilds a new golf course on its property, don’t start charging me an $80 a night resort fee. Charge me more for the room and explain to the customers that it is because the amenities include golfing. After all, I am sure the hotel touts that as a benefit to staying there.

    An example of this would be Motel 6. They offer low room rates and tell you up front that they offer internet service for $3 a day. (it’s optional) Other places just offer the service and roll that charge into the room rate, which is just fine. I would object strongly to an itemized add on charge of $3 for internet service.

  • Charles

    @ Jeff, you provide a lot of interesting information, but I can’t believe your hotel, if it has a casino attached to it, is making that kind of money off the “resort fee” because there’s no way you’re charging that rate to your high rollers, celebrity guests performing their shows and staying in your “star suites”, or even your middle-of-the-road gamblers who get a free room once in a while.

    A nice revenue stream, sure, but even at 100% occupany all year long they couldn’t possibly be pulling down $ 6.5 million from it. Still even if it is half that, not bad. I still think its ridiculous that it can’t be built into the rate.

  • larry bradley

    To Erica, You were not “charged more than you could have received from other web sites or the hotel itself” at priceline.com. You BID more than what you could have paid elsewhere. This tells me that you did not do ALL of the proper research before placing your bid such as using biddingfortravel.com and betterbidding.com as well as looking up the rates of all possible hotels on their own web sites.

  • Kevin M

    I think one reason no one’s mentioned thus far for hotels to charge “resort fees” is simple: I believe commissions to travel agencies are paid on the room rate, exclusive of incidental fees. Hence, knocking $15 off the room rate but recovering it via a “resort fee” means that $15 isn’t in the commission base.

    The fees have the added bonus, of course, of being tacked on top of opaque-site bids – as several folks noted, if hotel A levies a resort fee of $15/day, it can accept a slightly lower bid than hotel B, with no resort fee, might be willing to accept – and yet still net more money. It’s a sleazy practice.

    \LeeAnne noted above about doing your homework and seeing what’s out there, so that when you make a bid on these sites, you have a pretty good idea of what you might be getting. But that defeats the purpose of opaque sites, which is supposed to save you time shopping around by simply naming the price you’re willing to pay for set accommodations. You don’t have to be an attorney billing $200/hour for your time to be worth a considerable amount; if I’m going to spend two hours researching alternatives, I’m going to want to decide exactly where I’m staying and know exactly how much I’m paying.

  • Disneynut

    This is a particular problem with opaque sites that use the ‘bidding’ model where the hotel details aren’t revealed until after payment is made. Other “undercover” hotel sites let you see the hotel details before you book it. At a site I checked this week the Trump Las Vegas, while undercover, plainly listed the $15 resort fee under the details section before you book. In that case, I think it’s fair to expect the guest to pay it. (Although it should be added to the room night charge, if you ask me.)

  • http://www.cockam.com ajaynejr

    Half of the blame goes to Priceline because they can’t or won’t tell you exactly how much it is going to cost you.

    Half of the blame goes to the hotels. Any charge that applies to all rooms at the hotel and is not the same (either in percent or in dollars) for all other hotels in the vicinity should be part of the room rate.

    My recommendation: Bid insultingly.

    This way you will still be below the competition.

  • David Z

    Our travel agency sometimes get this complaint. A problem here is the hotel doesn’t always tell us if they finally charge a resort fee or what-not, and that’s inspite of our periodic checking with them.

    We give partial refunds in cases where our web site, say, indicates parking is free but it’s verified the hotel charges for it. Case to case.

  • Kirk

    What concerns me most about this situation is Priceline’s response. Just the fact they didn’t say something to the effect of, “We’re investigating ways of disclosing resort fees prior to bidding…” but instead gave a fresh-faced answer to a respected travel writer tells me that Priceline may not be the best company to give your money to when you have a choice.

  • Ken Zablotny

    Add me to the list of resort fees that are charged by the property and NOT disclosed to the customer (bidder) on Priceline. I bid on Tucson Golf club last summer and there is nothing in the bid fine print or in the final price that tells you that you will pay a RESORT FEE. You never hear about this until you get your credit card bill and find it charged…long after you have left the property.
    Priceline needs to alter their site and fully disclose each fee that is additional with each individual resort that they represent….I did dispute the charge with AMEX and they credited my account, but the resort would not budge on giving me the money back….Last time I will stay there and will go out of my way to tell others also….

  • http://www.travelnwrite.com Jackie Smith

    We just spent a week in Las Vegas and both hotels we stayed at — booked through Expedia.com — levied resort fees. The first three-night stay at the Suncoast in Summerlin was $5 per night and included in-room single, paper-cup coffee and use of the safe in the room. We moved to the Palazzo on the Strip where the resort fee jumped to just under $14 a day but included wi-fi and use of the spa facilities. It seemed a lot until we compared it to a previous stay at Wynn (across the street) where we paid no resort fee but use of the exercise facility was quoted at $25 a day per person and internet connection was $14 daily.
    Expedia clearly points out the resort fee as part of the booking process. The funny part is that we opted not to book the Red Rock Canyon resort because its resort fee was $25 a day bringing the real rate up to $155 – I’d written a blog entry complaining about resort fee add on’s . . .silly us, they all do it!

  • Alicia B.

    Over Mother’s Day weekend, we paid for a suite at the Palazzo as a wedding gift for my best friend and his new wife. When I checked them in the clerk reminded me about the $17 p/n resort fee and when I asked her what it covered (spa/gym access, internet, water, newspaper) I told her that none of this would be needed or used and I asked if the fee could be waived. Because she couldn’t do it she got her manager who, after I explained that this was my friend’s honeymoon night, she graciously waived it. Although I don’t think this is the norm, I do appreciate the extra effort.

    I do not think we should be charged for extras we don’t utilize. If I want to enjoy the spa, then fine charge me. But if I don’t use the spa or the internet or if I have my own water and newspaper, then I don’t want to be charged for it. Just because there are some guests in the hotel that will utilize those things doesn’t mean ALL guests should be charged for it.

    But people, please read the reservation fine print especially with Priceline and Hotel.com…getting your money back in this day and age is like pulling teeth from a toothless person…it’ll never happen :)

  • Tim M

    The family of hotels that owns Caesars Palace don’t have resort fees. This includes Caesars, Flamingo, Paris Las Vegas, Bally’s,
    Imperial Palace and Harrah’s Las Vegas. http://www.hoteldealsrevealed.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=434
    This is a good list for resort fees.

  • http://yahoo.com bouzaglou gilda

    sorry but it is ripe off to charge 20.00 dollars a day for resort fee . i would not go to vegas any more and if i go i will stay out of vegas thank you

  • http://lasvegashotel.uni.cc lasvegashotels

    Also, resort fees should just be made illegal. The amenities that the hotel offers contribute to its rating and desirability to travelers and vacationers. The pricing that they give their customers should include all charges the hotel deems necessary to operate their property and make a profit. If a hotel beilds a new golf course on its property, don’t start charging me an $80 a night resort fee. Charge me more for the room and explain to the customers that it is because the amenities include golfing. After all, I am sure the hotel touts that as a benefit to staying there.

    An example of this would be Motel 6. They offer low room rates and tell you up front that they offer internet service for $3 a day. (it’s optional) Other places just offer the service and roll that charge into the room rate, which is just fine. I would object strongly to an itemized add on charge of $3 for internet service.

  • http://www.clubvillamar.com/ villa in spain

    Traveling during the off-season is a great way to minimize crowds and maximize your experience. Rates are lower during this time as well, and many hotels offer package deals. 

  • Bill___A

    When you book at one of these screwball sites, you don’t know the hotel and don’t know whether the resort fee is $5 or $50. Since the resort fee is known to priceline and not to you, they have an obligation to include it in the quote. Compulsory resort fees are outright fraud as far as I’m concerned., Priceline and all other opague sites should be required to include these fees on each and every quote. It is fraudulent in my mind not to do so. Taxes are a known percentage, so you can say “does not include taxes:” and one can easily find out what the taxes will amount to., The unethical resort fee is yet another matter.