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Thread: Suggestions for Legal Limits on "Resort Fees"

  1. #1
    I will be visiting LV next week and will be staying downtown at least three nights. When I surveyed room costs on hotels.com, I was amused by listings for The D ($18 a night) and The Grand ($34 a night). I haven't stayed in the new incarnations of these hotels and thought it might be interesting to double or triple book and check them out.

    Then I noticed the "resort fees." For The D, it was $20 (or $2 more than the room) and for The Grand, the resort fee was $18 (more than half the cost of the room). I thought it silly and very bait-and-switchish to lowball base prices on hotels.com, then hide the resort fees in the fine print on page two or three of the booking process.

    So here's what I suggest: the maximum "resort fee" should be limited to a percentage of the advertised room cost. No 50% or 100% resort fees allowed because, really, doing that kind of thing is manipulating and misguiding consumers at its worst. Limit the "resort fee" to 15% or 20% of the base price offered.

    Thoughts?

    The problem is that we already have "inverted hidden pricing" where more than half of the actual cost can be tucked away in a resort fee. Why not make it 90%? If you're going to list yourself as "$18 with a $20 resort fee," why not go all the way to "$2 with a $98 resort fee?" Evidently, both are legal and consumers are fair game.

  2. #2
    Auto companies, airlines, even beauty parlors have base prices and add-ons that create sticker shock. Hotels in Vegas just caught on to the tricks.

  3. #3
    These resort fees are just another game hotels play in order to see how much extra profit they can squeeze out of the weak & timid. People complain about them all over the web. Comp room or not, hotels try. I've run into them hundreds of times, and I've never paid for a single one. You simply say no or you will not stay. They know you can and will go elsewhere, and that's the last thing they want. Those that don't budge are the ones I've walked away from. Those that still charge your card for one night have always lost in the dispute. You can either take a stand....or take it up the rear.

    Beauty parlors?

  4. #4

  5. #5
    I think just like airlines they should have to include the resort fees in price you see when you book. When you search for a flight on expedia, you get the flight with all fees and taxes so you can fairly compare (although checked baggage is skewing that). I think hotels should have to do the same thing.

    Although once you know about these fees they just become part of the math of deciding where to stay.

    I Once booked a hidden deal to stay at a 5 star and got the bellagio at a great price. We were very happy to find out the price included the resort fees! My wife loved the hotel and it was right next door to her annual conference.

  6. #6
    It is clear that the Vegas hotels "broke out" the resort fee from the basic room price in an attempt to disguise the true price of staying in the hotel. But the auto makers have been doing the same thing: advertising the base price and then air conditioning, auto transmission, leather seats, and any other color besides hot pink is extra.

  7. #7
    Resort fees should be illegal, since their only purpose is to deceive the customer.

    They should only be allowed if optional.

    The basic price of staying at the hotel should always be presented clearly to the consumer in all advertisements and initial search pages.

    If this isn't stopped, soon we will have $1.99 rooms advertised with $70 resort fees.
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  8. #8
    Originally Posted by Rob.Singer View Post
    These resort fees are just another game hotels play in order to see how much extra profit they can squeeze out of the weak & timid. People complain about them all over the web. Comp room or not, hotels try. I've run into them hundreds of times, and I've never paid for a single one. You simply say no or you will not stay.
    If the inference is that you're a tough guy and, by virtue of this, you can get the hotel to knuckle under and rescind the resort fee on your comped room, just where is this taking place? Ever since the introduction of the resort fee, I have never had one even remotely attached or threatened to be attached, to my comped rooms. The fee has never been an issue for me.

  9. #9
    You too seem a little late to the game. Bellagio used to do it, Mirage used to do it, Sunset Station used to do it, the Rainbow in Wendover used to do it, the Ritz at Casino Monte Lago on Lake Las Vegas used to do it, the Peppermill in Reno used to do it, Mandalay Bay used to do it, the Oasis in Mesquite used to do it, and Golden Nugget in Laughlin used to do it---and some of them may still do it today.

    It's not about being a "tough guy" Vic. It's about taking a stand for that which you believe is right, WITHOUT intimidation being a factor as it is with every poor souls who hands over jackpot cash as tips to casino floor stiffs.

  10. #10
    Originally Posted by Vegas Vic View Post
    I have never had one even remotely attached or threatened to be attached, to my comped rooms. The fee has never been an issue for me.
    This is interesting. I recently had a "gift certificate" for Caesars for a free room that I gave to a friend. But they were charged the resort fee. It surprised the heck out of me. And I didn't find out about it until after their trip.

    I thought that the gift certificate would also cover the resort fee. But it didn't. It was "room only."

    Of course when I go, there is never a resort fee for my comped rooms as a 7 Stars and when my son a Diamond player goes he hasn't had a resort fee either.

  11. #11
    Of course those fees are handled differently today than when they started coming out. But it was people like me who fought them and wrote about them in the paper/talked about them on radio, that helped get them off of the comped rooms. I never really cared about those fees being attached to rooms people pay for.

  12. #12
    Originally Posted by Rob.Singer View Post
    You too seem a little late to the game. Bellagio used to do it, Mirage used to do it, Sunset Station used to do it, the Rainbow in Wendover used to do it, the Ritz at Casino Monte Lago on Lake Las Vegas used to do it, the Peppermill in Reno used to do it, Mandalay Bay used to do it, the Oasis in Mesquite used to do it, and Golden Nugget in Laughlin used to do it---and some of them may still do it today.

    It's not about being a "tough guy" Vic. It's about taking a stand for that which you believe is right, WITHOUT intimidation being a factor as it is with every poor souls who hands over jackpot cash as tips to casino floor stiffs.
    So, what you're saying is that you weren't the baller you thought you were (and certainly not the one you repeatedly tell us you were). Otherwise, a reservation in your name would have had all the RFB comforts, including NO resort fee, that your alleged status in the gaming world should bring. In their eyes, you were no better than anyone else and you deserved nothing special. Despite your intimate relationship with so many casino managers and gaming bigwigs, you now say you had to quibble over a lousy resort fee just like Joe Sixpack from Peoria?

  13. #13
    Originally Posted by Rob.Singer View Post
    I never really cared about those fees being attached to rooms people pay for.
    I doubt those fees are actually extra revenue for the casinos. I think they were only a way to disguise a price increase or a means to make the basic room charge look less than what it really is.

    Is there really a difference between a hotel saying their room charge is $59 plus a $10 resort fee... or a hotel saying their room charge is $69 and no resort fee?

    If I recall, the hotel execs originally were saying that the separate resort fee charge allowed them to advertise a lower room charge. Misleading? Of course it is.

  14. #14
    Originally Posted by Vegas Vic View Post
    So, what you're saying is that you weren't the baller you thought you were (and certainly not the one you repeatedly tell us you were). Otherwise, a reservation in your name would have had all the RFB comforts, including NO resort fee, that your alleged status in the gaming world should bring. In their eyes, you were no better than anyone else and you deserved nothing special. Despite your intimate relationship with so many casino managers and gaming bigwigs, you now say you had to quibble over a lousy resort fee just like Joe Sixpack from Peoria?
    What did he just say??

  15. #15
    Originally Posted by Alan Mendelson View Post
    I doubt those fees are actually extra revenue for the casinos. I think they were only a way to disguise a price increase or a means to make the basic room charge look less than what it really is.

    Is there really a difference between a hotel saying their room charge is $59 plus a $10 resort fee... or a hotel saying their room charge is $69 and no resort fee?

    If I recall, the hotel execs originally were saying that the separate resort fee charge allowed them to advertise a lower room charge. Misleading? Of course it is.
    The fees are simply to generate extra revenue for the hotel side. In a comp room situation, the casino does not reimburse the hotel for resort fees.

  16. #16
    At the TI in Las Vegas, the resort fee was optional. If you used any of the various items (in room wifi, spa, etc.) they charged you the resort fee. If not, it was not added to the bill.

    I have never been charged the resort fee for a comped room at any Caesars property.

  17. #17
    Alan is right.

    The resort fees exist in order to disguise the true price of the room, and allow them to advertise a false price to draw people in.
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  18. #18
    Originally Posted by Rob.Singer View Post
    What did he just say??


    Did you or did you not tell us you were charged a resort fee on a comped room? Yes, you did.

    Being the famous gaming baller / celebrity that you say you are, the mere sight of your name on any reservation should have triggered all kinds of additional benefits befitting your "stature".

    Instead, your reservation was tagged with a lousy resort fee just like the hoi polloi. You aren't so special after all.

  19. #19
    OK I get it. My name should have precluded them from even trying.

    Get out more.

  20. #20
    I've never been charged a resort fee on a comped room for myself or a comped room I reserved for someone else while I was also on the property. However, Caesars gives me "gift certificates" for free rooms which I have given out to various people and they were charged resort fees even though the rooms were otherwise "free."

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