Congress has put forth a new piece of bipartisan legislation that would change the way online travel agencies display “the most-hated fee in travel,” otherwise known as the hotel resort fees.
I think it needs to apply to the hotels own website as well. More and more hotels are putting the “resort fee” in the fine print. You see the “basic room rate”, then once you either start looking or try and book the room – bam the resort fee shows up and it’s half the price of the room to more than the price of the room.
Only thing this law will do is force the hotels to include it in the price you first see so you can see the actual price of a room you want to book.
A hearing for the Hotel Advertising Transparency Act likely won’t take place until 2020, as the initiative makes its way through a subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
I don’t know why they will take so long. This to me is one that could easily be passed by the end of the year.
Interestingly enough Expedia gives you two prices now for any hotel that participated in their system. The first price is wht you pay now and the second tots is wht it will be with resort fees
I havn’t seen that on expedia. They have a pay for it later non refundable (aka you get billed the day you are supposed to stay in the room), and a pay for it now refundable option. The main page where you look at the prices doesn’t show the price with the resort fee’s. You need to click the hotel to see the information THEN you can see the amount of the resort fee added to the room price.
I just got back from Jamaica a couple of weeks ago. Stayed at the Iberostar Resort Suites in Montego Bay. I was very pleased with their upfront pricing. No hidden fees. Many times I book directly with the resort or hotel versus 3rd party sites like Expedia or Travelosity.
