One of the great frustrations of booking travel — air, hotel, car, whatever — has been the difference between initially-quoted price and the final bill. For hotels, the problem has often been surcharges like resort fees, local occupancy taxes, and other mandatory fees that aren’t included in the base rate. That may be changing, if only for European customers.
In an effort to meet the terms of European Union regulations, Pegasus Solutions, which provides hotel rate information to travel agencies and most major booking sites, is requiring hotels to break out their fees in a way that hasn’t been required before.
But just because a hotel is required to report all the parts of a room rate, that doesn’t mean you, the customer, will see things broken out when you go to book:
Once Pegasus provides the pricing breakdown to distributors, it will be up to each website where there are no governmental mandates, such as in the U.S., to decide how — or if — they want to display the information.
All websites that sell hotels eventually give consumers the total price, including taxes and fees, but some distributors force consumers to take two or three steps. Sometimes, distributors require credit card information before revealing the bottom-line price.
That means that US customers might still end up with partial quotes, lumped-together taxes and fees, and worst of all, surprises like mandatory resort fees, payable upon check-in.
The resort fee has always been my greatest hotel peeve. If it’s a mandatory charge, it should be quoted up front, with the rate. Now, with the Pegasus initiative, these fees will hopefully be visible — somewhere. But will the US consumer benefit? Unless they’re doing searches on EU-based search engines, I doubt it.
The major online travel agencies have been escalating their competition over the price and transparency of surcharges, for hotel booking fees as well as airline booking fees. So here’s a challenge to the agencies in the US:
Start breaking out the price of a hotel stay, including your fees, their fees, and the taxes. Be thorough about it, and show them right up front. Include the resort fees. Don’t make us go all the way to the brink of purchase before showing us the numbers. Give us the facts, up front, the first time.
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December 31st, 1969 at 11:59 pm
Hotels will be forced to disclose fees and charges up front? but not to US customers http://tinyurl.com/qmdq8l
May 27th, 2009 at 8:42 pm
Do other people pay these charges?
I routinely dispute anything called “resort fee” or “service charge” that isn’t included in the booking. Taxes I pay…
Anybody else? I can’t help but think that this is a bit of a hail mary.
Is there really some requirement that we agree to pay charges other than those to which we agree up front?
May 27th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
Will this also apply to websites like Priceline or Hotwire? It seems many hotels offer lower rates there only to get the customer with the “resort” fees on a non-refundable room rate.
May 28th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Embarcadero, I have had varying experience with these charges. At some properties (a Hilton in Sedona comes to mind), a simple questioning of the logic of fee was enough to have it removed (this was a few years ago). At others (Hyatt Lake Tahoe comes to mind) the staff was adamant: Don’t pay the resort fee, don’t check in. (That was a Priceline reservation for me, so I grumbled and paid it up.) So what’s your strategy?
applezz, Priceline and Hotwire bookings are especially “vulnerable” to such bookings, I’m afraid. If US-based agencies won’t be required to break out taxes and fees, then Priceline and Hotwire almost certainly won’t.
May 28th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
It’s about as annoying as ordering a coffee in the US. The sign says 1,50 dollar. But when you leave the shop, you will probably have paid nearly 2 dollar. Why are (sales) taxes not included in the price? They are mandatory, after all. Add the “mandatory” tipping – the final charge is always a surprise in the US. Well, getting out of my (European) comfort zone is a good thing
Really looking forward to being able to book a US hotel room without any (financial) surprises from now on, though!
May 28th, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Marieke, as an American, I’m admittedly accustomed to the notion of sales taxes, though I haven’t encountered the 33% that you’re paying on top of your base rate for coffee…
I would love to see an all-in requirement for everything (rental cars, anyone?…) but as long as tips are still an option, rather than an included feature, I’d like that one kept separately.
May 29th, 2009 at 8:27 am
Any idea of a European-based website that might show these surcharges? I figure if I look at both a US-based website (either something like a Priceline or Hotels.com) and a Euro site, I can get a fee for who’s charging “extra” and factor that in ahead of time.
June 4th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Jeff, perhaps Opodo?