The seemingly endless onslaught of mandatory fees continues when staying at hotel and resort properties, as no fewer than three new ridiculous mandatory lodging fees which guests must pay at a hotel or resort property have recently surfaced.
Three New Ridiculous Mandatory Lodging Fees
The first of the three new ridiculous mandatory lodging fees is the “curation fee”, which is imposed upon guests of MADE Hotel in the city of New York.
$30 Daily Curation Fee
An additional Curation Fee of $30.00 + tax per night is collected by the hotel, which includes the following amenities:
• Filter coffee or tea for the morning redeemable at Paper coffee
• Glass of house red/white wine for the evening during our nightly wine hour from 5pm-6pm
• Access to Blink Fitness Gym (1) pass per day
• Wi-Fi throughout the building
• Access to Good Behavior, barring private events
• Tokyo Bikes available for hire on a first come, first serve basis. (Seasonal)
You can bet that the daily curation fee is not reduced when Tokyo Bikes are not available during your stay — nor will it be reduced or eliminated if you do not drink coffee, tea, or wine; and you do not typically exercise in a fitness center.
The “housekeeping surcharge” is next, which is imposed upon guests of Fairmont Chateau Whistler resort property in British Columbia in Canada, which also charges a daily resort experience fee of $35.00 in Canadian dollars per room per night — plus applicable Goods and Services Tax and Provincial Hotel Tax:
Housekeeping Surcharge:
We will charge an additional mandatory daily Housekeeping Surcharge of $5.00 CAD per room, plus applicable taxes, for Housekeeping services, of which $4.50 CAD is a gratuity that is distributed to the housekeeping team and the remaining $0.50 CAD is retained entirely by the Hotel (and not distributed as wages, tips or gratuities to any Hotel employee). We will post the mandatory daily surcharge, plus applicable taxes, in the same billing arrangements manner as requested for applicable room and tax charges. This surcharge may change from time to time without notice.
Finally, the “baggage/porterage fee” is also imposed upon guests of Fairmont Chateau Whistler resort property if they travel on a chartered vehicle that carries a minimum of eight passengers:
Baggage/Porterage Fee:
We will charge an additional mandatory Baggage/Porterage Fee of $7.00 CAD per person, plus applicable taxes, for Arrival and Departure days, of which $6.30 CAD is a gratuity that is distributed to the bell services team and the remaining $0.70 CAD is retained entirely by the Hotel (and not distributed as wages, tips or gratuities to any Hotel employee). This fee is applicable to all guests travelling on a chartered vehicle of 8 passengers or more.
In other words, an extra fee for both housekeeping services and carrying baggage to and from a hotel room is being charged to guests, who are apparently now the employers that pay members of the staff of this resort property. The “housekeeping surcharge” and the “baggage/porterage fee” are both actually mandatory gratuities in disguise — regardless of whether guests use their services.
At least the “baggage/porterage fee” is only applicable to all guests who travel on a chartered vehicle with a minimum of eight passengers; so if a guest arrives alone or with a few friends or members of a family, this fee will not be charged.
All Kinds of Mandatory Fees
Mandatory “hidden” fees have become increasingly prevalent within the United States; and they have slowly been spreading to other countries — such as the aforementioned example in Canada. Lodging companies engage in charging these fees to advertise artificially “lower” rates to attract unsuspecting customers — only to alert the customer pertaining to the addition of mandatory fees during the process of booking a reservation and justifying the extra fee with some nonsense items that are designed to give the illusion of adding value. For example, this mandatory resort fee includes notary services with a maximum of two documents per day.
An increasing number of hotel and resort properties — and even hostels and motel properties, for that matter — have been charging guests a mandatory:
- Resort fee
- Room fee
- Destination fee
- Amenities fee
- Facilities fee
- Damage waiver fee
- Fee for having a safe in the room — but yet the hotel property is not responsible for valuables
- Parking recapture fee — whatever that is
- Historical Commitment fee — which should be more aptly named the Hysterical Commitment fee
- Hotel Worker Protection Ordinance Costs Surcharges — which is the result of a law that was passed back in 2022 in the city of Los Angeles
Imagine these few of many examples of being:
- Charged as much as $8,257.00 for staying a week at this resort property
- Forced to pay both a service charge and a resort fees on the same hotel folio
- Charged a mandatory resort fee of $40.00 plus tax twice per night of the same stay at the same hotel property
Astonishingly, guests even get to have the privilege of paying taxes on most mandatory fees. In some cases, the mandatory fees are actually more expensive than the room rate itself. For example, a room rate that was advertised at $23.45 per night wound up totaling $79.37 per night when all of the taxes and mandatory fees were added, which is an increase of greater than 238.46 percent — or more than triple the initial advertised rate.
Remember that one simple way to reclaim that mandatory resort fee which you paid is still possible.
Final Boarding Call
The pressure keeps mounting on the lodging industry to eliminate mandatory hidden “junk” fees — including the Hotel Advertising Transparency Act of 2019; the Hotel Advertising Transparency Act of 2022; and an effort by the president of the United States himself with the Junk Fee Prevention Act — but little seems to be progressing or happening in favor of the consumer.
How many acts do we need enacted before the acts act on getting their acts together and acting on what they are supposed to act with actions?…
…or is this all merely an act as part of some sort of inane legislative theater?!?
This article which I wrote spoofing the mandatory fees imposed at lodging companies may be more accurate than I anticipated — with the highlighted fictitious fees seemingly not nearly as nonsensical as they were at the time I wrote that article.
Mandatory “hidden junk” fees need to cease once and for all — especially those fees that are thinly veiled as mandatory gratuities — preferably without inept government intervention, as they are generally profitable corporations that are panhandling for your hard-earned money by nickel-and-diming you every chance they get.
If a hotel or resort property wants to charge a fee to guests, ensure that the fee is optional — otherwise, include it as part of the advertised price…
All photographs ©2016, ©2023, and ©2024 by Brian Cohen.
