To fee or not to fee: The truth about resort fees
Vegas enthusiast No. 1: “I just got a sweet deal on my hotel room. Only $50 a night!”
Vegas enthusiast No. 2: “Wow, enthusiastic Vegas vacationer, that is a pretty sweet deal. But what does the hotel charge for its resort fee?”
Vegas enthusiast No. 1: “Resort fee? WTF?!?!”
We’ve all been there. You score an amazing deal on your Vegas hotel room rate, only to discover upon check-in that you owe the hotel more money. WTF indeed.
Some hotels in Vegas charge a mandatory resort fee, ranging in price from $1 to $24.99 per night (depending upon the hotel) and covering a variety of services. The hotel will require you to pay the fee in order for you to check-in. This charge is not charged or collected by VEGAS.com or other travel companies, and it is completely independent of the price of the room.
Frustrating? Yes. But really you must be used to this by now. If you flew here, you may have paid an extra fee to pick your seats on the plane and check your luggage. If you drove from Southern California, you probably encountered a toll road or two. In this day and age it seems like there’s a fee for just about everything. My cousin’s friend’s brother once got charged an “extra-weight” fee for paying an attendant the $2 parking fee with all pennies and dimes. Ironically, he paid the “extra-weight” fee with even more pennies and dimes.
Of course, you could also send an anti-fee message by staying in one of the city’s many fine hotels who do not charge a resort fee like Bellagio, Caesars, Encore, Flamingo, Golden Nugget, Harrah’s, Las Vegas Hilton, Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, Mirage, Monte Carlo, M Resort, Palazzo, Rio, Venetian, Wynn and more (hotels subject to change).
But if you do end up in a hotel with a resort fee, don’t just give up and walk out. You’ll most likely spend a lot more money on Red Bull and booze if you’re aimlessly wandering the Strip all night long because you have no place to sleep, not to mention the cost of posting bail after you get so wired and drunk that you end up streaking down Las Vegas Boulevard.
I like to look at it like this: We all know you have to spend money to make money, right? Think of resort fees as an investment in your Las Vegas future. The next time you’re dealt an 11, you can double down with confidence knowing you will get a blackjack — the house owes this to you!*
*Disclaimer: The house does not owe this to you.
8 Responses to “To fee or not to fee: The truth about resort fees”
Leave a Reply
OMG!!! So I am not crazy I usually stayed at hotels that I now know don’t have a hsf. So when I went two weeks ago I was like wtf!! seriously. I was like so the room I thought was such a great deal for last minute turn out to cost just as much as some of the more popular hotels. My first thought was we are not even going to use this stuff. We stayed at the Palace Station be aware they have a policy that they place a mandatory hold of $200 on your cc for 2wks and deduct the fees and costs you order room service, laundry service etc. then the remaining amount will be what you get back on your card. My friends and I all feel it is just a scam to get more money out of us to supplement loss.
Tried to book the Monte Carlo, but they charged a $9.50 resort fee…
i don’t have a problem with a hotel charging an extra fee if it disclosed to customer. i received a special deal in the mail from the sahara with a number to call. i booked my room and paid in “full” the price on my card. at no time was i given any info on the check in fee. it was not disclosed on the mailing sent to me and was not disclosed by the sahara representative in which i called and made my payment. i can’t see how that could be legal. i complained but they would not back off the fees and it shows up on my charge card billing.
Do you work for one of the hotels or the Las Vegas Bureau of Tourism?? Come on now…
I have frequented Vegas many times in the past 3 years and am now looking to book for Thanksgiving only to find that many of the hotels where I have stayed in the past are now charging “resort fees”. Why should I have to pay a resort fee to stay in a room that I’m also paying for? It doesn’t make sense. I am less likely to visit Vegas now if they keep adding on fees. Why not just raise the price of the room? Don’t tell me I have to pay a “fee” because they have restaurants I get to spend money at to eat there and have exercise rooms and pools that I may or may not use. Like the airlines charging for bags or Pizza Hut charging to cook your pizza, these fees are unjustified. The cost of the hotel stay shouyld be the price of the room period! $65 Resort fee for a 4 night stay? OUTRAGEOUS!!!
Hi JoAnn. Thank you for your comment. I work for Vegas.com. We don’t set, charge or endorse the fees in question. We simply wanted to make visitors aware of these fees so they aren’t shocked when they arrive to check-in to their hotels.
I just stayed at the Palace Station Oct.4 to 8 2009,and just today when I checked my credit card statement they had added on the resort fee of 14.99 plus tax which came to an extra 67.16 for the stay! I will certainly be checking on these fees if we ever go back to Vegas,because we did not use any of the so called ammenities. It made what we thought was a good deal on the room not so great,and left a bad impression on us since the night before we checked out, we asked at the desk and were told that there was nothing owing. We go to Reno all the time, and have never been charged there.
Trust me, I know how frustrating these hotel fees can be. Hotels in cities across the U.S., including Scottsdale, New York and L.A. (not just in Vegas), are implementing hotel fees at a growing rate. Instead of letting it ruin your vacation, vote with your wallet by choosing a hotel before hand, such as the ones listed above, that doesn’t charge a fee. I can’t speak for the individual hotels and their booking process, but we list and constantly update their hotel fee information on our individual hotel pages as well as here: http://www.vegas.com/incl/resortfees.html
I don’t have a problem with mandatory extra fees if they are disclosed AND paid for when you book the room. What I have a problem with is booking and paying for a room and arriving at the hotel and be expected to pay an extra MANDATORY fee. This is simply a trap to get consumers to book rooms at a lower rate and get them for some extra $$ when they show up. Sure, airlines and rental cars all tack on extra fees, but these fees are listed and the final price is shown and when I pay I know I’ve paid for everything. Or these fees are optional (you have the option to not check a bag or the option to not upgrade your seat). This is not the case with “resort fees”. This is unethical and needs to stop because plenty of people are booking rooms due to lower rates and finding out later its not such a good deal after all.