Those Pesky Hotel/Resort Add-on Fees

In a previous post I warned you to look closely at what you are going to be charged once you check into your hotel or resort. These wonderful properties are adding more and more fees. Most of the fees will be for things you will never use while at the property. The basic add-on fee is the so called "resort fee." This fee is added to your bill and generally covers things like local telephone calls, Internet service and a few other extraneous items.

Caesar's Entertainment Group is the latest Las Vegas group to add these "resort fees." Upon until now the phrase "No Resort Fees" was as familiar for the properties of Caesar's Entertainment as "what happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas" is to the Las Vegas Tourist Board. Well, it is now a thing of the past. They have just announced that they will be charging resort fees ranging from $10 to $25 per day depending on which property is booked.

Just in case you don't know Caesar's Entertainment in Las Vegas properties include Paris, Bally’s, Bill’s, Flamingo, O’Sheas, Imperial Palace, Caesars

Palace, Rio, Harrah’s, the Quad and Planet Hollywood.

Why the change? Well according to Caesar's Entertainment you wanted it. Apparently their surveys show that you want to pay extra for services like local phone calls, use of the exercise room and pools and Internet service.

When asked about whether or not you could opt out of the charges Gary Thompson, a spokesman for Caesars Entertainment said that guests cannot opt out of the fee and it will be added automatically to the bill.

He told NBC News, “We do a lot of surveys of our customers and most of them were, one, accustomed to paying resort fees at our competitors and, two, they wanted us to provide them with a package price instead of having the inconvenience of separate fees,” "Resort Fee" is that not a separate fee?

If you believe that I have some ocean front property in Arizona that is for sale. Believe me when I tell you that when the charge is mandatory the customer never asked for it. Think about it, when did you ever walk up to the desk and ask, "Could you charge me an extra fee to make local calls?"

It really is just another way for the property to get more money out of their guests without adding any real value. Think about it, when did you last make a call on a hotel phone . . . that's what I thought, you used your smart phone because your being smart. Not anymore . . . go ahead and use your smart phone but you'll pay for the room phone you didn't touch anyway. Same phone makes the hotels WiFi useless. These are pure profit.

These fees account for some 2 Billion dollars in pure profit to the hotel and resort and they don't have to add any new service to make it. Granted most Vegas hotels have charged these fees for some time now. But they never used "No Resort Fees" as a tag line for their product as Caesar's Entertainment has.

Basically their response was that they know people will not like is but they'll get used to it. Their better no on will cancel their Las Vegas trip because of it. Not canceling might have more to do with the fact that the hotel has already hit their credit card for the for the first night's stay.

Reminds me of the old couple who were traveling across the country by car. After having driven for some 10 hours they decided they would stop at a hotel and get a room so they could get a few hours of sleep before going on down the road. They stopped at a fairly nice hotel checked in went to their room slept for about 4 hours and then got up to continue their trip.

When they went to the desk the person at the desk handed the man his bill. The old man was shocked when he read that his four hours in the hotel was $350. He asked the guy behind the desk about the price and was told that in addition to the cost of the room they added the tax and resort fees. The old man said, "I understand about the tax but what are the resort fees?" After a few minutes the manager was called and explained each charge. "This one," he said, "is for the use of the pool." The old man replied, "But I didn't use the pool." The Manager answered, "But it was here and you could have used it."

Then he said,"This charge was for the Internet and telephone." But I didn't use it," said the old man." Again the answer from the manager was the same, "But it was here in case you wanted to use it." This went on as they went through all the charges. Finally the old man gave his wife the checkbook and angrily said, "Pay Him."

She took the check book, wrote out a check and handed it to the manager. He looked at the check and said, "This is not right, you have only written the check for $98.00." She replied I deducted a charge for sleeping with me." He protested and said, "Lady I didn't sleep with you." She said, "I know, but I was here and you were here and you could have if you had wanted to. It's not my fault you didn't take advantage of the service."

Kinda expresses my feelings on this "Resort Fees" concept. We should only pay for what we use or consume not availability. Let those who use the service pay for the service. But then that would turn the resort into a grocery store. Hope the grocery store doesn't start charging me a fee for the shopping cart whether I use it or not . . . after all it was there if I wanted to use it.