We begin with an update from our last adventure, which focused on resort fees, those annoying, undodgeable charges that are frequently tacked on to hotel bills, typically for stuff you didn’t ask for and don’t want.
In the previous column, Priceline explained why it was unable to include those fees in the rates it publishes on the site. (In brief: It encourages hotels to include the fees, but can’t force them to do so.)
But we didn’t hear from a resort-fee-charging hotel. So let’s meet Alan Feldman, a senior vice president at MGM Resorts. One of the chain’s hotels in Las Vegas, the MGM Grand, charges a $20 resort fee, for which visitors, according to the hotel’s Web site, receive Wi-Fi, a copy of USA Today, free local and toll-free calls, “limited” business center services and access to the cardio room. (Free toll-free calls? MGM Resorts, you are too kind.)
Why, Mr. Feldman, is the $20 per day fee for this bounty of goodies not included in the prices that turn up on Priceline?
“That’s a really interesting question,” he said. “It’s their Web site. I don’t know how we control what is displayed.”
Mr. Feldman then acknowledged that he was taking a less than fully educated guess. So he said he’d look into the matter. A few days later, he called and said that actually it is a choice made by the hotel. “We do wish, though, that Priceline made the alert about resort fees a little more prominent,” he added.
To the original question: Why not just include those fees in the price of the room, so that a) you don’t have to worry about how prominent Priceline’s fee alert is, and b) you don’t have guests fuming about a $20-a-day fee they didn’t see coming?
“We have heard negative feedback from guests,” Mr. Feldman said. “But we’ve also heard positive feedback, from guests who are happy that they are no longer paying à la carte for different services. They don’t feel nickeled and dimed.”
Right, because they feel twenty-dollared. But let’s say this rare breed of financial masochist exists — someone who actually prefers paying a lump sum for services he or she may not have used. Couldn’t MGM Resorts please those people and those who are angered by the resort fee by simply including it in the price published on Priceline?
It could, agreed Mr. Feldman. Ultimately, his next answer boiled down to the notion that resort fees are an established part of the industry and have been around for years. Which is true. It’s also true that the fees are getting fatter. Bjorn Hanson of New York University’s Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management released a study a few weeks ago forecasting that American hotels will collect a record $1.8 billion in fees in 2011 — up from $1 billion a decade ago.
We’ve seen a similar trend in other industries, of course. Most notably event ticketing and airlines. Which brings us to a letter.
Q. Your recent column on resort fees brings to mind an experience I recently had with British Airways. They are running a promotion wherein you get two free tickets if you sign up for their British Airways-branded Visa card and spend $3,500 with it in three months. So I paid the $95 it cost to sign up for the card, charged $3,500 and, last month, booked two British Airways tickets to London. Not a bad deal, I thought. Until I learned that these tickets cost $527 in taxes and fees. Each. When I contacted customer service, they informed me that the promotion had stated that taxes and fees would be additional. I knew that, but $527? Come on. If the fees had been $100, I would have been annoyed. Two hundred and I would have been very annoyed. But would you agree, Mr. Haggler, that it is nervy of this company to advertise as “free” a pair of tickets that cost more than $1,000?
Linda Stutz
Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.
A. Nervy is one word for it. The Haggler could think of others. Ms. Stutz sent along a breakdown of the fees, and they include a custom user fee ($5.50), United States Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service fee ($5), immigration inspection fee ($7), a passenger service charge ($49.18) and $362 for “fuel and security.”
Obviously, many of these fees go directly to the government. But not that charge for $362. At minimum, it seems as though British Airways ought to give credit card enrollees a better heads-up, doesn’t it? Perhaps something like, “People, you are not even going to believe how much in fees and taxes we add to those ‘free’ tickets you want.” Or maybe try an analogy. Like, “You know how at some steakhouses, the waiter will say ‘Our medium rare is basically what everyone else calls medium’? Well, we’ve got a similar thing going at British Airways. Here, our ‘free’ is what everyone else calls $1,000.”
Too blunt? Maybe. A spokeswoman for British Airways, Michele Kropf, wrote this in an e-mail to the Haggler: “Like other airlines, British Airways does levy a fuel surcharge on all our tickets, including redemptions, as due to the high price of oil we have to pass some of those costs on to the customer. We do not cover the full cost of our fuel bill through the surcharge.”
Hmm. British Airways does not cover the full cost of the fuel bill through the surcharge. Care to guess, dear reader, how the carrier covers the rest of the cost? A bake sale? A raffle? A Willie Nelson fund-raising concert called Fuel Aid? The Haggler is going to take a wild guess: the price of the ticket.
E-mail: haggler@nytimes.com. Keep it brief and family-friendly, and go easy on the caps-lock key. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=f0257cca7bfd9da161b1393f93c4a2d7
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