Dreaded fees come to vacation rentals
By Christopher Elliott, USA Today
First, there was a $25 “check-in” fee when she arrived, which, though disclosed in the fine print of her contract, was unexpected. And then there was a mandatory $200 “cleaning” fee for her unit after she checked out. Neither was part of the original price.Rhonda Moret’s vacation rental in Park City, Utah, came with a few surprises.
To add insult to injury, a construction crew in a nearby unit woke her at 7am, on her first morning at the mountain resort.
Don’t look now, but vacation rental companies are piling on the fees, many of them pure junk. Among the most common: booking fees, change fees, cleaning fees, hot tub fees, parking fees, reservation fees and — everyone’s favorite — amorphous “convenience” fees.
A less slanted article might have mentioned that most hotels have lots of fees that aren’t reflected in the nightly rate:
“Resort Fee” often $25 to $50 per night
“Parking Fee” often $25 per night per car
“Internet Access Fee” often $15 per night
Frankly, I’m surprised hotels haven’t started charging a cleaning fee.
Dreaded fees coming to vacation rentals. Our family were in and out the motel business for years. We had none of these “fees” attached to our guest’s rental bill. What a rip off! Hope this is looked into and something done about it. OLS
It’s just bogus so they can keep their advertised rates low. They know people are comparing rates online, and that great big number is what most people click on. The fine print is the rude awakening later. Personally, I find the usual 12% tot offensive, so we almost never stay anywhere but out of town campgrounds. One night in a hotel/rental is a month’s worth of groceries!
Many private campgrounds now charge T.O.T.
Besides the ridiculous “resort fee” (e.g., for use of a pool at the Hard Rock that is actually closed), one of the most absurd extra fees I have paid at checkout was an “energy fee” at the Peppermill in Reno, a surprise surcharge for the high cost of energy. This “energy fee” was later added to and hidden within the nightly “resort fee” due to customer objections.
Regretfully, the airlines started this add-on charge trend years ago and with few alternatives, the public kept buying.
Well this may very well fix our vaca rental problem up here, tax and fee them to death to the point they want vaca rent in South Lake Tahoe.