How to Check Resort Fees at Major Hotels
When you find a particularly good deal for a hotel stay in a beach town, you can see the price skyrocket when you agree to book – that’s “resort fees.”
Resort fees, often hidden in incomprehensible contracts or legal disclaimers, are separate from the advertised fees you see on travel or resort booking sites; Hotels claim these fees are a surcharge for using basic amenities such as internet access or parking during your stay. In fact, it is a fuzzy must-have addition that resorts can use to advertise especially competitive prices.
For the most part, these fees are limited to major resort areas such as Florida or Hawaii. (Las Vegas is also its own resort area.) However, you can never be completely sure that you are getting the best price on sites like Kayak if the results you see do not factor in those additional fees.
Using Kayak, which compares offers on travel booking sites, you can see the “best” daily rate in the popular Honolulu resort, for example:
Only when you go to Amoma.com, choose your room, check out the facilities and agree to book, you finally see the unexpected additional charge of $ 25 per nightâ – for a weekly stay that’s $ 175. in additional fees.
If you’d like to review these fees before booking, ResortFeeChecker.com is a useful search tool that lets you find fees at over 2,000 resorts and see how much you can expect to pay on your next hotel stay.
The site is quite simple to use; you can search by city or resort name. Here’s the commission you expect to pay, for example, at the Aria Resort & Casino in Las Vegas:
Yes, you read that right – that’s $ 44.22 a day for phone access and a fitness center. (And if you’re on vacation, this is most likely the last thing on your mind.) Aside from resort fees, you will also see other fees you might expect to pay, including breakfast or parking fees that are not included.
Here’s another resort tax at Private Ocean Condos at Trump Sunny Isles Resort. (Yes, this is a real place.)
If you want to pay an extra $ 100 per night for fax access, go ahead; otherwise, you can use ResortFeeChecker to avoid hotels and resorts with exorbitant fees.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to avoid paying resort fees. Some travel experts argue that you might be able to waive mandatory fees by opting out of the amenities when booking your stay, but that can be difficult. You can also use any Elite Status or Loyalty Membership to avoid paying resort fees.
At the moment, the easiest way is to avoid them altogether and book hotel accommodation without an obligatory surcharge. Airbnb does not include resort fees, although you should compare prices with resorts to ensure you are indeed booking at a good price.