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Hotel guests hit with a surfeit of surcharges

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By Gene Sloan, USA TODAY  

Jeff Wansley didn't think twice about making a few local phone calls from his hotel room when he visited Washington, D.C., in May. After all, he figured, charges for local calls rarely exceed a dollar.

Boy, was he in for a surprise. When he went to check out, the front desk clerk handed Wansley a bill for more than $200.

"I was in shock," says the National Association of Manufacturers manager, 39, who was staying at the Washington Terrace Hotel. "They didn't have anything on the desk indicating there would be this kind of charge."

Wansley, who dialed a local number from his computer to check his e-mail and stayed connected for hours, did get the hotel to halve the bill. He had bumped into what hotel consultant Bjorn Hanson calls a growing trend — "by the minute" charges for local phone calls. And it's not the only fee becoming more common.

With occupancy flat and costs rising, cash-strapped hotels once again are turning to extra charges to keep their revenue rising.

"They disappeared for a while. But now they're back," says Hanson, who studies hotel pricing for Price Waterhouse Coopers.

Hotel companies began charging for all sorts of extras in the late '90s, but they backed off after the terrorist attacks in 2001. "The travel industry didn't want to do anything after (the attacks) that would offend travelers," Hanson says.

With those panicky days long past, the industry believes it is safe to bring back the fees, he says. Hanson also is seeing more fees for package delivery, incoming faxes and other business services at hotels. "They're experimenting with a lot of things," he says.

Hoteliers defend the extra fees as reasonable, and some even question Hanson's premise.

"We do so many U-turns (on pricing) that it's difficult to say," says Dennis Koci, a senior vice president at Hilton.

Hilton hasn't been adding fees the past year, Koci says. And he's not convinced it's that big a problem industrywide either. "This isn't an environment where we can raise service charges," he says, noting that profits are down. "Our whole focus is trying to maintain occupancy."

Still, a survey of USA TODAY Vacationers Panel members who travel frequently found many who say the rise in fees is clear-cut.

Susan Whittaker of Indiana, who travels regularly around the world, says there's no question about it. During a recent stay at the Paris casino in Las Vegas, for instance, she says she even was charged for calls that didn't go through when trying to connect her computer to America Online.

"I could not connect right away, and my laptop is set up to redial all the local numbers over and over again," she says. "I was charged $1.25 each time just to dial — even when it was busy."

Still, the biggest complaint among panel members wasn't the fees themselves, but the lack of disclosure about the fees.

"Never are these charges explained at the time of reservation or check-in," says panelist Norma Spadola, 49, of West Hartford, Conn.

Disclosure is a question surrounding one of the most controversial extra charges appearing more often on bills these days: the "resort amenity fee." It's a charge of up to $20 a day for access to swimming pools, tennis courts and other amenities at resorts.

The explosion of such fees (and lack of adequate disclosure of them) already has prompted several class-action lawsuits on behalf of travelers — a reaction that also followed the appearance of "energy surcharges" during the California energy crisis two years ago.

In a class-action lawsuit settlement announced last summer, Hilton Hotels, Hyatt Hotels, Marriott International and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide agreed to provide $10 discount coupons for future stays to guests who had paid the energy fees in California and 11 other states. The move came a few months after another chain, Wyndham International, announced a similar deal.

Many lodgings are adding "resort fees" to customers' bills. Hoteliers say fees, which range from $3.50 to $15 a day, cover the cost of amenities such as towels at pools. But customers are complaining.

Vacationers Panel members who have experienced the resort fees say it's unfair that they should have to pay them even when they don't use the facilities.

"When I asked the Hilton in Marco Island (Florida) if I had the choice of not using the resort (amenities) and waiving the fee, they just chuckled and said 'no,' " says Karel Beuckelaere of Allen Park, Mich. Hilton spokeswoman Jeanne Datz says the company won't discuss resort fees because of pending litigation.

For some travelers, the whole issue is just silly. April Shaughnessy, 46, of Alexandria, Va., recently stayed at the Wyndham Palm Springs in California, which charged a $7-a-day resort fee. "Just up the hotel rate by $7 and be done with it," she says. "It would be a lot less annoying."

Despite the griping and the lawsuits, Hanson says, extra fees probably are here to stay. Industry profits, he notes, plunged from $22.5 billion in 2000 to $14.2 billion last year, which gives hoteliers a lot of incentive to keep the fees around. And once the economy fully recovers and hotel demand rebounds, they'll have little incentive to take the fees away.

"We could see an even more aggressive application of the charges," he warns. "It's heads you lose, tails they win."

Imagine vacationing anywhere — for free.

That's the lure of home exchanges, in which people swap domiciles for days, even months. No hotel costs and an entire home to relax in instead of an expensive hotel room.  With a home exchange there are no surcharges, no in room fridge stocking fee, no fees for phone calls, no checkout times and no tipping needed.

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