The Travel Detective

Failure to Disclose

Locations in this article:  Phoenix, AZ

SuitcaseMoneyMarch 19, 2007

Recently, I flew to Phoenix for a business meeting, and needed a hotel room for just one night.

I hadn’t bothered to make a reservation, and simply walked up to the front desk at a hotel called the “Tempe Mission Palms,” a building walking distance from the business meeting. I asked if they had a room for the night. They did. I asked the rate. $200. I gave the clerk my credit card, filled out the registration card, and checked in.

I then went to my business meeting, out to dinner and returned back to the hotel around 10 p.m. that night.

Eight hours later, as I emerged from the shower to get dressed and check out of the hotel, I noticed my bill, which had been slipped under my door. There was my $200 room charge, but there was also something else: a $9.95 charge…listed as a “hospitality fee.”

What was that? I had checked into the hotel and all I had done was slept there.

I went down to the front desk and asked them to explain the charge. “It’s our hospitality fee,” the clerk deadpanned.

And then she handed me a slip of paper. The fee was assessed to all guests, and it allowed free local and toll-free numbers, transportation to the airport, and health club privileges.

But the issue here wasn’t what services the “hospitality fee” provided. The real issue is that the hotel had failed to disclose the charge when I had initially checked in. Nothing hospitable about that.

The clerk insisted that I was responsible for paying the charge. And I argued that because the hotel had never informed me of the charge when I was checking in — I had only been quoted a room rate — it required me to dispute the charge. She removed it from my bill.

Less than a week later, I was in Hilton Head, South Carolina, staying at the Westin Resort for one night. And it happened again. My bill, slipped under my door, with a nearly $13 dollar charge for a “resort” fee. And once again, the hotel had not disclosed the fee in advance. Again, I disputed the charge, and again, it was taken off my bill.

Perhaps the worst offender of the failure to disclose hotel charge occurred last year in Phoenix, when I stayed at the Pointe Hotel. I checked in late at night, and had only carry-on bags. So after showing my credit card and getting my key, I just walked to my room unassisted.

And…you guessed it. The next morning, there was my bill, slipped under my door. The outrageous charge this time? A $10 “mandatory tip to bellman” charge. I’m serious! I never used a bellman. And if I had, I would have already tipped him anyway. How many other guests found this charge on their bill and just paid it? That’s also outrageous.

I do not deny any hotel the right to make a reasonable profit. At the same time, I insist that the hotel must fully disclose all fees and charges at the time it quotes the room rate. All too often, hotels want to stay competitive on rates, so they conveniently forget to mention the hidden additional costs they will try to slip onto your bill. Even worse, charges that should be optional are levied as mandatory, when in fact there is no legal justification for those charges. If you’re spending a considerable amount of money to stay at a hotel, why should you be charged $13 a night…for a towel? This is nothing less than insulting nickel and diming.

My advice: if a hotel tries to bill you for any undisclosed charge, you have the right — if not the obligation to your fellow traveler — to dispute that charge. If the charges aren’t removed from your bill, and/or reversed from your credit card bill, you have the additional responsibility to dispute that charge with your credit card company.

And if that doesn’t work, write me, and I’ll be all too happy to explain in the most direct terms to any travel provider that failure to disclose is tantamount to a declaration of war against travelers — a fight that I am all too eager to wage. This is not about what the market will bear. This is about what the market will value — and none of us value being nickel and dimed.

For more on unexpected charges, check out “Hidden Hotel Fees”.

Don’t miss the rest of our Hotels category.