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Hotel News / Hotel Fees / Smoking Ban / Smokies Hotels / Viva Vegas / MGM Mirage Hotels / → All Tags
UPDATE 2.15pm: MGM Grand just announced that they are rescinding the $20 non-smoking fee. It's still showing on the website, but hopefully they'll take it off soon, and refund the people who've checked that box.
More and more hotels are eliminating their smoking rooms thanks to both customer requests and local regulations, says a huge USA Today report that frames the issue in terms of similar prohibitions on smoking on airplanes, in bars and restaurants and in rental cars. It's interesting reading if you like heaps of hotel statistics but the upshot is that, at least in the U.S., you're almost guaranteed a smoke-free room.
Well, except in Vegas. According to the Seattle Times, seems the MGM Grand has launched a $20-per-night "Non Smoking Room Guarantee," meaning you can ostensibly lock in a smoke-free room for an extra charge of $20. A quick search of other mid-range MGM properties in Vegas, like the Luxor, Monte Carlo, Circus Circus, Excalibur, and New York New York, reveal that this appears to be an MGM-exclusive fee. Aria and Bellagio, however, are not showing the charge.
For being the hotel snobs that we are, we actually dig the "no frills" concept of Tune Hotels. And despite having a room that was only slightly larger than a sleeper cabin on a train, we really enjoyed our stay at the Tune Hotel Westminster in London. The price was right and the room was rather cozy.
But the one thing that did sort of irk us was all the add-ons that the hotel charges, mostly before you even get there.
However, Tune is finally doing away with one fee--the room administration fee. In conjunction/celebration of the new Tune Hotel Bintulu opening in Malaysia, Tune Hotel is dropping this fee across all 12 properties starting today. And you can thank Tune expansion for that.
Hotel Excelsior, now an extra €3 per person per night.
We've railed on hotel fees before and aside from resort fees and WiFi charges, we especially dislike those extra tourism fees mandated by local governments, in addition to taxes.
But now when you're in Rome, you better get ready to pay a little more for your hotel stay.
That's because Rome has added a new hotel tax for visitors staying in hotels. Expect to pay an extra €2 per person per night in a hotel up to a three-star rating and an extra €3 per person per night when staying in four or five-star hotels.
But here's the rub--the tax must be settled at check-out and guests must pay in cash. No debit cards, credit cards or American Express Traveler's Checques allowed. So don't throw your Euros in the Trevi fountain until after you've checked-out.
[Photo: Tom Barnes/HotelChatter Flickr Pool]
Pet-Friendly Hotels / Hotel Fees / Hilton Hotels / Marriott Hotels / Kimpton Hotels / Starwood Hotels / → All Tags
Pet owners, get ready to start planning more trips with Fido. Hilton's making it cheaper for you to stay in its hotels by slashing its brand-wide pet fee from $75 to $50.
Hotel Fees / Resort Fees / Lists / Hotel Hell / → All Tags
Grrr...Hotel Fees. It's never fun to check into a hotel only to discover that the room rate essentially covers sleeping in the bed and taking a shower and that anything else you want to do in-room or on the property is going to cost you. There's been a lot of talk lately about the rise of hotel fees and we thought it was time to weigh in on this issue again.
Now, there are the obvious hotel fees like on-demand movies and Pringles from the minibar. Then there are some other understandable fees, such as if you smoked in a non-smoking hotel room then you should pay that $200+ cleaning fee. Same goes for the pet-cleaning fees for your dogs, cats and other hotel-approved animals you must travel with.
But most hotel fees are simply a rip-off. A blatant way for hotels to nickel and dime you every minute that you spend in their hotel. And worse, some fees are for things you don't even use during your stay! So much for hospitality huh?
We've rounded up what we think are the 10 Most Ridiculous Hotel Fees but we definitely want you to chime in below with your biggest hotel fee gripes too.
Over the weekend, we went to visit a friend staying at Andaz WeHo. Having stayed there before, we remembered they had ridiculous overnight charges ($28, since you ask), but we were hoping that for an in-out visit of under an hour (not as dodgy as that sounds, we swear) there would be different rates.
Don't stare too long, it might cost ya!
A tipster pointed us to the TA reviews today and we saw that recent guests are saying that the resort is apparently charging fees up the wazoo, starting with a new resort fee that is voluntary for now but will become mandatory by May 2010. Yes, voluntary now. Mandatory in May.
The $12.95 fee includes unlimited internet access on the in-room iMac, beach chairs, free daily newspaper and access to the gym. And may we mention again that it's "voluntary?" So at first you may not be inclined to agree to it but it might be better instead of doing things a la carte. Then again, everything at this hotel costs extra.
You know the scene. You open the door to your brand new hotel room, run over to the window, open the blinds and bam, you are hit with the anti-view. Maybe you are looking down a dirty alley, witnessing a drug deal, staring at an air shaft in the face, or seeing a brick wall. Whatever you are viewing it is not extremely pleasurable. Help out your fellow hotel mavens by uploading your anti-views to the HotelChatter/Flickr photo pool, or by sending the photo along to us. Remember to tell us the name of the hotel and the room number with the not-so-easy-on-the-eyes view.
A recent guest sent us these photos, which not only show the crap view that some rooms get of the Employee Parking lot but also just how much wear and tear the hotel rooms have suffered--and the hotel just opened on July 31st!
The disappointed guest writes:
I checked into a room at the new Paradise Tower at the Hard Rock yesterday, and found it to be a prefect specimen for your "anti-view" segment. Though I’ve never taken photos of a hotel room before, this one I couldn’t resist.
The room number was 30521. It was supposed to be a "mountain/ city view," but I’d categorize it as an "employee parking lot view," or, "some random guy’s Dodge Ram view." They have draconian policies (like a $100 an hour charge for late check-outs beyond 11AM), and they really don’t keep the place up (the old tower is in shambles).
Frankly, the only reason to even consider staying there is to go to Rehab (their Sunday pool party). Otherwise, the place is ridiculously expensive and has horrible service and food options.
We've said it before and we'll say it again--when you shell out lots of moolah for a hotel room, free or cheap parking should be an automatic amenity (we'll take that over sweet-smelling bath products). But we've found that the more expensive the hotel, the more jacked-up the parking fees.
A prime example is the Peninsula New York, where you'll fork over between $925 and $16,000 for a room, but if you want to park your vehicle there, the hotel will tack on an extra $60 for every 24 hours—and that's without any in-and-out privileges. What's worse is that most hotels don't even list their sky-high parking fees on their website, meaning you usually don't know until you pull up that parking will cost you upwards of $35 a night.
So we're taking names and making a list. Here are some other pricey-parking doozies that we've found and that our Twitter followers have shared with us:
These days you can't take a quoted room rate at face value. Before making a decision you must estimate the taxes and fees that will inevitably be added to your bottom line.
With the travel industry struggling, more and more surcharges are sneaking into our bills.
The National Business Travel Association recently conducted a study ranking cities in the United States by hotel and other travel taxes.
We've posted before on how several online travel agencies are in hot water with local municipalities over hotel room taxes and it looks like the tug-of-war will be going on for a while.
Several towns and counties have complained that online travel agencies like Expedia, Hotels.com and Travelocity have pocketed hotel room taxes which rightfully belong to the city or county that the hotel is located in.
You know what those taxes are like. You see them on your check-out bill and it usually is listed as a state or city tax or both. For instance, we just checked out of a hotel in NYC and were docked with a NY state tax, an NYC city tax and an occupancy tax, totaling about $45.
Pacific Northwest Hotel Guide / Vancouver Hotel Reviews / British Columbia Hotels / Marriott Hotels / Hotel Fees / Pet-Friendly Hotels / → All Tags
HotelChatter contributing editor Tim Leffel is moving around British Columbia and Alberta in Canada, seeing the hotel scene from a family travel perspective. All prices are in Canadian dollars--which currently trade slightly higher than U.S. dollars. Enjoy.
The Marriott Pinnacle Vancouver comes across as your basic high-rise business hotel, but with a gracious staff and a hotel restaurant that gets high marks on its own, this one is a cut above the norm.
You will recognize the furniture and the bedding as it sticks to very bland Marriott look, but the service goes beyond business traveler briskness to help tourists make the most of their time in the city.