Excerpt from Globe and Mail
When it comes to new travel fees, the sky's the limit. Or, in Liz Pollock's case, the fourth floor of her hotel.
Pollock recently checked out of the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Golf Resort Palm Springs Area in Cathedral City, Calif., and discovered a mysterious fee on her hotel bill: a "top-floor" surcharge of $7 a night.
"I didn't request a room on the fourth floor," says Pollock, a benefits manager for a clothing company in San Francisco. "And I didn't find out about the fee until after I'd checked out."
Here's the thing about the top-floor rooms at the DoubleTree: They're more or less the same as the rooms on the third floor, except that they "allow for the best view of the surrounding area," according to Robert Hatfield, the hotel's director of sales.
A "top-floor" charge? Why not? To squeeze a little more revenue from their guests, travel companies are getting creative. The only way to fight back is to become just as creative about fighting them.
"Hidden fees are taking advantage of consumers across the country," says Bret Bonnet, co-founder of People for Honest Pricing, an organization that lobbies for fair pricing and certifies businesses that practice honest pricing. "While they're definitely not a new phenomenon, they seem to be getting worse."
For Pollock, who was in Cathedral City for just a few days, the "top-floor" fee was particularly annoying.
The DoubleTree had already billed her a mandatory $25-a-night resort fee, which covered on-site self-parking and internet, "even though Hilton Honors members are supposed to receive free internet if they book through Hilton." But it really topped itself with the top-floor charge. Hilton hadn't warned her about the fee before the reservation and didn't inform her about it until long after she'd left the property.
That's not how it's supposed to work, Hatfield says.
"A guest will receive a prearrival e-mail with the upgrade options available to them and what the additional charge for those items are," he explains. "Once the guest chooses the upgrade option, the resort is notified. Once we make the upgrades, the guest is then notified via e-mail. This all happens before arrival."
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