The Trade Regulation Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees is in effect as of Monday, May 12, 2025 from the Federal Trade Commission — which is a division of the federal government of the United States that is charged with protecting consumers throughout the country — but does that mean that resort fees and other “junk fees” have now disappeared?
Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees Is In Effect: The End of Mandatory Resort Fees?
The final rule prohibits a tactic by companies called bait-and-switch pricing — in which the actual cost of a product or service does not match what was initially advertised — as well as other methods that are used to hide total prices and bury what are known as junk fees through which the consumer must take the time and effort to hunt for fees that will be added on to the final folio. Short-term lodging industries and ticketing for live events are affected by this final rule, as they are widely known to employ unfair and deceptive pricing practices at the literal expense of harming consumers and undercutting honest businesses.
“People deserve to know up-front what they’re being asked to pay—without worrying that they’ll later be saddled with mysterious fees that they haven’t budgeted for and can’t avoid,” Lina M. Khan — who is the chair of the Federal Trade Commission — was quoted as saying in this official press release. “The FTC’s rule will put an end to junk fees around live event tickets, hotels, and vacation rentals, saving Americans billions of dollars and millions of hours in wasted time. I urge enforcers to continue cracking down on these unlawful fees and encourage state and federal policymakers to build on this success with legislation that bans unfair and deceptive junk fees across the economy.”
According to estimates from the Federal Trade Commission, consumers will save as much as 53 million hours per year of wasted time spent searching for the total price for live-event tickets and short-term lodging — which is purportedly equivalent to greater than $11 billion over the next decade — as a result of the Trade Regulation Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees.
The final rule requires businesses to display the total price more prominently than most other pricing information — which means that the most prominent price in an advertisement needs to be the total price inclusive of all fees. Truthful itemization and breakdowns of costs and fees are permitted; but they should not overshadow what consumers want to know: the real total.
The Federal Trade Commission launched this rulemaking by requesting public input on whether a rule could help eliminate unfair and deceptive pricing tactics. After receiving greater than 12,000 comments on how hidden fees and misleading fees affected personal spending and competition, the Federal Trade Commission announced a proposed rule in October 2023 and invited a second round of comments. Greater than 60,000 additional comments were received which were considered in developing the final rule that was announced earlier today.
“Even with the Rule in place, sellers can still charge fees”, according to this official press release from the Federal Trade Commission. “But the Rule means sellers have to tell you the truth about the price they give you. And if you know the true price upfront, it’ll hopefully save you time — and money — the next time you search for tickets to a live concert, play, or game, or when you’re booking your next vacation.”
As a result of an investigation in November of 2012, the Federal Trade Commission warned 22 operators of hotel properties that their official reservations channels may violate the law by providing a deceptively low estimate of what consumers can expect to pay for their hotel rooms…
…but so-called “drip pricing” charges — which are sometimes portrayed as “convenience” fees or “service” fees — are anything but convenient; and the practice of deceiving customers as to the final cost of their products and services has only exponentially exploded in the past thirteen years.
Frequently asked questions pertaining to this rule are answered here.
Examples of The Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees In Action
The completely random dates of checking in on Friday, June 13, 2025 and checking out on Sunday, June 15, 2025 were used to provide examples as to how this rule is affecting your shopping experience that involves lodging options.
Note that if you want to stay at the Conrad Orlando hotel property, a note appears below each room category that the price includes a resort fee of $50.00 in United States dollars — but tax is not included. Prior to the enactment of the aforementioned rule, the total prices did not include the resort fee.
The resort charge includes the usual mostly ridiculous nonsense items that should either already be included in the room rate or offered as an option for those guests who want to pay more for them:
- Access and use of Wi-Fi
- Use of the swimmable lagoon
- Access to the beach even though access to an ocean is not readily convenient from Orlando
- Recreation activities
- Fire pits — because they are needed in Florida
- Fitness classes — you are paying for them whether or not you exercise
- Kayak and paddle board rental
- Two bottles of water, which includes a reusable bottle
- Shuttle service to Walt Disney World parks — even if you are not going there
- A discount of;
- $20.00 off golf club rental
- Ten percent off merchandise at Grand Cypress
- 15 percent off of spa retail
Clicking on the Rate details link of a specific room…
…shows the breakdown of the total cost of the room.
The resort fee but not the tax is displayed underneath each price for each hotel and resort property with Marriott International, Incorporated in Las Vegas.
Once again, the resort charge of $55.00 includes the usual mostly ridiculous nonsense items that should either already be included in the room rate or offered as an option for those guests who want to pay more for them:
- In-room wireless internet access
- Unlimited local calls, domestic long distance calls within the 50 United States and the District of Columbia, and toll-free calls — as though no one has a mobile telephone with them in 2025
- Access to Paramount+ with SHOWTIME On Demand via in-room television
- Airline boarding pass printing — even if you use your portable electronic device as your boarding pass or even though you did not travel by airplane at all
- Digital newspaper and magazine access — that right there is worth more than $55.00, right?
Once a particular room is chosen at a specific rate, consumers can activate a box at the top in order to see the total price of a stay. That box had existed long before the rule became effective; so the verbiage of its function still has the words Show with taxes and fees even though the total cost includes the fees — but not the taxes.
Final Boarding Call
The Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees seems to be working as intended. I like that I personally spend less time shopping and comparing rates between lodging options; but I still believe that these mandatory resort fees should be removed from room rates and be optional for guests who want to choose and add each item or service. Let the consumer decide what options to add to the bill. I cannot imagine very many people want to pay for telephone service or a discount off of overpriced merchandise, which is why hotel and resort properties force consumers to pay for these incredibly useful items and services that are impossible to live without.
Although the days of hotel and resort properties charging unsuspecting consumers mandatory fees are definitely not numbered by any stretch of the imagination — the “surprise” of ultimately paying more for products and services will be removed and not the mandatory fees themselves — the rule seems to be successful in requiring lodging companies to display the total price of a room without the tax.
What I do not understand is why hotel and resort properties continue to bother with the mandatory resort fee nonsense anymore if lodging companies can no longer advertise the room rate without the resort fee? Why not simply set the room rate at the exact same rate and be done, as I had been requesting for years?
Taxes that are imposed by governments are apparently not required to be a part of the total pricing. I believe that they should be included; and a place should be provided for consumers to look up the breakdown of the taxes along with the fees that add up to the total price.
The Federal Trade Commission will use its law enforcement authority to continue to rigorously pursue bait-and-switch pricing tactics — such as drip pricing and misleading fees — in other industries through enforcement on a case-by-case basis. The commercial airline industry is one that comes to mind — especially with its basic economy fares.
The pressure kept mounting over the years on companies in the travel industry — especially lodging companies — to eliminate mandatory hidden “junk” fees which include but are not limited to:
- The Transparent Airfares Act of 2014
- The Hotel Advertising Transparency Act of 2019
- The Hotel Advertising Transparency Act of 2022
- The bipartisan Hotel Fees Transparency Act
- A law in California to prohibit hidden fees in 2024
- An effort by the president of the United States himself with the Junk Fee Prevention Act
Mandatory “hidden junk” fees need to cease once and for all in every industry — preferably without inept government intervention — but at least they are now illegal in the state of California, which should at least be a small victory for the consumer.
Meanwhile, continue to do your part in pressuring companies to stop imposing ridiculous, useless, and unwanted mandatory fees and forcing you to pay them:
- Vote with your wallet or purse by minimizing your patronization of businesses which impose these mandatory fees
- Better yet, eliminate patronizing those companies altogether — if possible
- If you must patronize a lodging company that imposes mandatory fees, you can try negotiating the elimination of that mandatory fee from your folio or bill with a manager, which is usually more successful than you might think
- Try this one simple proven way to reclaim that resort fee which you paid
Photograph and graphic illustration ©2012 by Brian Cohen; and all other photographs ©2022 by Brian Cohen.
