Randy Cassingham's Blog

I'm the founder of an industry group that has a conference every year. My wife is organizing next year's event and negotiated with a large hotel to host us. Conferences are big money makers for hotels: they get a bunch of people staying in the rooms, and they get to feed the conference attendees rubber chicken and industrial coffee for exorbitant fees. So once she finished negotiating with the hotel and finalizing all the costs and details, the contract arrives and there's a charge they never disclosed: a $3/room/night "energy surcharge".

Excuse me, but paying the power bill is simply a cost of doing business. Yes, big hotels need to do their part to conserve energy, but this surcharge doesn't do that. We've stayed in hotels that attempt to bill us such surcharges, and one thing we've noticed in just about every case is the hotel maids waste more energy than we could ever use. We come back from a long day to find all the lights on in our room -- lights we turned off when we left. One hotel in Denver tried to add a surcharge: the room was so cold the maid left the windows open so the room wouldn't ice up! And this was during the summer! Since the hotel had not notified us of a surcharge in advance, we refused to pay it -- and they took it off our bill.

My wife, a hospitality consultant with an environmental conservation degree who knows the game well, says a hotel "energy surcharge" is only about one thing: lying to you about what the room rate is. They quote you a nice rate to get you to stay there, but then expect you to pay a "surcharge" for a standard amenity (like the lights!) to get a few more bucks out of you. You can refuse to play the game. If the hotel can't afford its power bill it should be honest about it and raise their nightly rate to cover it. Don't play their game. Insist they charge you only the rate they quoted to you. It'd be great if True readers started a consumer revolution on this issue!

After I ran the above in the Premium edition on Monday, I got a lot of feedback. I'll run just a couple of them. Rob in California: "Your piece really hit close to home for me. I just returned from a week in Las Vegas, where I was attending COMDEX. I made my hotel reservation at the Sahara through Expedia for a great rate -- $39/night. However, once I got to the hotel and checked in, they told me I had to pay an additional $1/night for the telephone (whether I used it or not) and an additional $3/night 'energy surcharge.' Both of these fees were mandatory; if I wanted to stay at the Sahara, I had to pay the additional fees. But here's the worst part: Since I purchased my tickets through Expedia and not directly from the hotel, I couldn't even get a refund on my prepayment! My choice was either forfeit my entire prepayment (approx $172) and go somewhere else, or pay the Sahara the additional $4/night. I chose to pay the additional $4/night, but needless to say, I will never return to the Sahara." You should complain bitterly to Expedia, though I wouldn't hold my breath expecting them to answer, let alone do anything....

Ken in New York: "What's next? A 'laundry surcharge' for getting clean sheets after the previous occupants checked out? Perhaps a surcharge for being able to check in in the first place? Several years ago, banks started talking about a 'teller surcharge', where they would charge you for using a (human) teller when an ATM could have done the same task. Fortunately, I don't think that ever came to pass." Funny you mention a check-in charge: some hotels have been experimenting with a "reservation fee"! Several bucks, supposedly to pay for their toll-free phone and running your credit card. And yeah, I remember the "teller surcharge" idea in banking after ATMs got popular. You know why they didn't become widespread? Because the customers complained. You don't have to roll over and take this stuff. For our conference, we voted with our pocketbook. Despite the hotel saying "everyone in town" charged the same fee, we checked with our #2 choice, right down the street -- and they didn't have it. We moved the conference and told the first hotel why. If enough people do that, hotels will get the same message banks got.