Kill Resort Fees (tm) ...

That's a resort fee. That it's deemed to have value doesn't change the terminology.

 

Agreed. If the fees really provided guests value, they would allow guests to opt out.

 

I don't really have a boxer in this fight. I see both sides. The add-on is irritating. I also have now long known that in some instances the price shown might not be out-the-door pricing so no more feigned indignation on my part.

 

That's strange, I don't see the words "resort fee" anywhere. The true name should be "mandatory fee". Anything else is a play on words. Whether it has value is irrelevant but in Las Vegas, "resort fees" have NO value EVER.

When you book an airline, you see all of the costs up front. There was legislation to force that to happen at some point. The same should apply to hotels.

 

I agree but hotels are not federally regulated like airlines so it would be up to the AG in each state to take action. Some have already done so which is a good starting point. They won’t go away until it’s forbidden by law or the economy hits a downturn.

 

Water the tree of liberty ...

 

Add the fee to the rack rate, offer the same package of "value" ... status quo.

 

This is a good point, since there is a federal body like the FAA which can enforce this... though I suspect the FTC could introduce some kind of general pricing directive disallowing non-optional ancillary fees. It would be a complex undertaking, but now that we're seeing these add-on charges all over the place (restaurants, shows, etc.) it wouldn't surprise me if such a thing got introduced. That's one thing I miss about living in Europe, you never had to do any math when you saw the price of something, and that was the case across the board no matter what you were buying.