5 Tips that may get your hotel fees waived
- Abigail Gaston
- Jan 1, 2019
- 8 min read
So you managed to get an excellent rate on a great hotel in a busy tourist city during a high-travel time period! Go you! First, let's do a little celebration dance and applaud you for your awesome find! Okay, it is now time to checkout. You get to the payment page and realize that your once awesome rate is not so awesome and it is all because of the outrageous resort fee! Why do they do this to us? It is okay to let out a frustration scream right about now.
I agree, the resort fees are far less than fair. Often times, we have no idea what we are even being charged for. What is more discouraging is when these extra fees are never even used! Meaning, the "amenities" listed in the daily resort fee are things you do not even need during your stay. Sometimes I feel like I am being charged a whole additional daily rate for something I never used.
Oh, did I mention that is a possibility? That you could actually end up paying equal to or more than your nightly hotel rate in resort fees. I know what you are thinking, "That is preposterous; where is your common sense Ms. All That Gallivanting? There is no way that can be true!" Oh, but it is true and before you click that little "X" in the corner of the screen, allow me explain further.
Let us use the fabulous city of Las Vegas as an example. If you head over to Vegas.com, what you will notice is their amazing deals on prime casino resorts located on the Las Vegas Strip, on Fremont Street, and in Downtown Las Vegas. Today, you can find hotel deals as low as $26 /night and at really great hotels too; not some dark and dreary hotel far off the Strip or outside the main tourist area.
Two of the casino resorts listed in "Today's Deals" on Vegas.com are The Stratosphere and Luxor. I stayed at The Stratosphere during my 6th Vegas vacation and I have explored Luxor a couple of times. Both casino resorts are great! I can say for certain that when I purchased my Stratosphere stay, the resort fee I paid was around $25/day and it absolutely was more than what I paid for the room per night (I got a great deal on a 2 night stay). The resort fee they charged me upon departure pretty much countered the great deal I received online. Still, I was happy with my initial deal but why such high resort fees?
Sticking with Las Vegas as an example, I did a little additional digging (if you are new to my blog; I love investigative work). What I discovered was that in 2018, out of the 92 casino resorts that are within the main tourist zones in Las Vegas, the majority of them increased their resort fees. As if we did not already pay enough in extra fees already. The average resort daily fee is now between $25 and $26 per day, with the highest being a whopping $39 per day and the lowest being $11 per day.
Speaking of budgeting your hotel stay; if you are not shopping at Hotwire.com, you definitely are paying too much on hotels! Shop Hotels Now!
So, what exactly are we paying for? The answer; all sorts of things! The list is extensive; I do not even think I covered them all below, but I have listed many of them. I bet you will be a bit surprised at some of them; I know I was!
- Internet Access (no such thing as free wifi)
- Room phone use
- Pool use; including the towels
- Hotel gym use
- Energy /electricity use
- Laundry
- Parking
- In room coffee maker and water
- Continental breakfast or complimentary coffee
- Complimentary printing/faxing
- Cable television
- Netflix login accessible TV's
- Hair dryer
- Toiletries (so take them home if you don't use them)
- Iron /ironing board
- Refrigerator /microwave if you have one
- Safety deposit box
- Airport shuttle
The list likely continues but you probably get the point. However, because I want to be as thorough as possible. The gist is that although we expect some of these items to be a part of the resort fee; internet, pool, and gym use; some are surprising! Is anything truly complimentary anymore?
So, how do we get out of paying these resort fees? The truth is, they are a part of the package deal. There are many areas you and I will travel to around the world that we will be obligated to pay a hotel /resort daily fee at. There are, however, a few tricks that may help you get out of paying these resort fees. Let's explore them together!
Every traveler needs the best accessories! Accessorize with MVMT
Tip 1: Be nice and social and you could get lucky!
Get your head out of the gutter! I am strictly talking resort fees here. Full disclosure; nice people get rewarded so much more than negative people in this sort of situation (should be in all situations in my book but that is a completely different topic), so be nice!
Now, picture yourself checking into your resort or hotel and the front desk representative informing you that he is going to wave the resort fee! This actually happened to us recently. We were checking in at Hotel Edison in Times Square and the front desk gentleman stated that because we looked like fun people, which of course we are, and because it was our nieces first time to New York City, it was his gift to us to waive the fee. You could call this a lucky break, or it could be that the gentleman really found us to be oh so awesome, again, so true! But, I have another theory that may assist us travelers in the future.
Our trip to NYC was short and sweet. We checked in at 7:00 PM for 1 night. Although it could have been a mixture of things; I mean, our niece is super adorable and, again, we are a super fun couple! That said, I have to wonder if he thought it might not be fair to have us pay $30 when we would be at the hotel for less than 24 hours. In my opinion, we received that fee waver because we were nice and fun at check in, our niece was experiencing NYC for her first time and the check in representative knew this, and we told him we were only there for less than 24 hours. A mixture of things but it all started with being nice!
Tip 2: If you are only staying a short time-frame, ask if the fee can be waved due to the fact you are really only there briefly.
There is no harm in asking. You can very politely argue that you are only at the hotel for a very short time, and during that time you will not be utilizing any of the extra amenities offered. If you do not plan on being in the hotel much, make sure to bring this point up too.
We spent a total of 6 hours in our hotel during our trip to NYC and 5 of those hours were reserved for sleeping. The other hour was split in half. Half an hour was spent prepping for bed and the other half was spent getting around the next morning. Therefore, it really was not fair for us to pay the hotel daily charge anyway; thanks, Hotel Edison front desk rep!
Tip 3: Ask your hotel guest services representative what the resort fee entails.
Tell them you would like to see a list of what you are paying for. If they cannot provide you with one, then tell them you do not feel comfortable paying for mystery fees. If they do provide you with a list, whether verbal or written, if there are multiple items on the list that you are not going to use, be sure to bring this up.
This option is not very popular, as it can come across as being confrontational. However, if you work it the right way and in a polite manner, you may have yourself a pleasant result.
Tip 4: Speak up if you are not happy with your stay or something did not work /did not go as planned during your stay.
If you had an issue, speak up (a true, honest issue - ATG does not support scammers). Although they love to hear praises, hotel management always wants to hear if there was an issue or something negative happened during your stay. This is there opportunity to make things right with you and to ensure that similar issues do not happen during other guest stays. What does this have to do with hotel/resort fees? Typically, the resort fee is the first thing a hotel waves when trying to resolve an issue.
A personal example I can provide is our experience at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas (are you sensing a travel pattern here?). It was a great stay, but we had a minor issue and management waved 1 of the 2 daily resort fees and gave us a late checkout because of it.
All I did was call housekeeping to see if 2 souvenir glasses had been taken out of the room by the cleaning staff. Unfortunately, the cleaning crew mistook them for trash and threw the away. I did not make a fuss about them at all; it was an honest mistake and I did not want anyone to get into any trouble. I was just checking to see if they may still have them laying around somewhere. Sadly, they did not but I was content with their efforts in looking.
On our final morning, hotel management called to apologize about the misunderstanding. I was surprised; I did not even know they knew. The gentleman informed me that they were happy I informed housekeeping of the issue, as they want to ensure that their housekeeping staff does not remove anything from guest rooms that could be questionable. This is when he informed me of the fee waiver and the late checkout. The glasses cost me $14 total, so the $35 fee waiver definitely made up for the mistake, and then some!
Tip 5: If you are a regular at a specific resort or hotel, you return annually for vacation, or if you participate in a hotel brands' points program and are at a high tier level, point these facts out at check in.
There is no harm in pointing out your status or that you are a faithful customer. I know it can come across as bragging; however, for a profitable reason.
Oftentimes, resorts will reward you with some sort of perk because of the above. If you are gutsy enough to point out your loyalty and ask if the resort/hotel will wave a few of the daily fees because you are such a devoted customer, go for it! Worse case scenario, they say no. However, it is always a "no" if you do not ask.
Recap:
There is no sure-fire way to get rid of your resort daily fees during vacation; however, these 5 tips could possibly aid you in minimizing them, or even eliminating them, from your hotel bill! So, are you up for the challenge? Could you utilize all 5 tips during your travels, or do some just feel too uncomfortable? Are they helpful at all, or do you think you will just pay the resort fees, no questions asked?
Comments