Your carefully planned vacation budget? Out
the window. We have all learned by now that the travel industry loves a
surcharge, and most of us have adapted accordingly. On planes we bring our own
headphones, snacks, pillow, blanket. At hotels we know not to drink the pricey
bottled water in the room. Fine. For anyone taking a trip in 2012, certain perks
might seem like legitimate extras.
But as I peruse some of my latest bills,Looking for the Best air purifier? the a la carte add-ons do not feel like small pleasures; they feel like things that ought to be included in the basic price. More to the point: they feel like sneaky ways to pluck a few more dollars from my pocket.
In the last few months I’ve unwittingly paid for newspapers plopped outside my Starwood hotel-room door (review your bill before you check out) and rental-car fees with vague, perplexing names like “airport concession recovery" and “facility charge."
And I have been taken aback by fees for hotel beach chairs, umbrellas and parking.
These were on top of fees I knowingly paid for preferred seating on planes, in-flight Internet, changing tickets and simply printing boarding passes.
The growing list of add-on fees would be comical were they not at our expense.Looking for the Best air purifier? There are now charges for reservations, cancellations, boarding early, departing early, holding bags, checking bags, and using the gym, the business center and the safe in your room. And thanks to the latest high-tech minibars, you cannot even touch an Almond Joy to read the calorie count without a charge on your bill (along with a “restocking" fee).
Some fees are mandatory; you must learn to factor them into your vacation budget. Others are optional. And then there are the charges that you’re welcome to opt out of — if you can figure out that you’ve been billed for them in the first place.
A record $1.85 billion in fees and surcharges was collected last year for hotels alone (up from $1.2 billion in 2000), according to Bjorn Hanson, divisional dean of the Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management at New York University. He expects that figure to climb to $1.95 billion in 2012.
‘Feeling of a shakedown’
Airlines, meanwhile, collected more than $3.3 billion in baggage fees and more than $2.3 billion in reservation cancellation and change fees last year, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Rental car companies and cruise ships also take a share, with extra charges for child seats and navigation systems, as well as certain onboard snacks, activities and excursions.Find detailed product information for shamballa crys talbeads wholesale,
“There is this increasing feeling of a shakedown," said Jonathan Turley, who, as a leading expert on constitutional and tort law, frequently travels for work. Turley said he actually laughed during a recent visit to the Waldorf-Astoria when he was told that it would cost him $15 a day for Wi-Fi on one device, say an iPad, plus $15 for each additional device. “Then you go across town to the Days Inn and they have Wi-Fi for free," he said. “As someone who teaches law and economics you expect to have some predictable market response to this need, and it’s actually flipped. You get a higher level of these services at lower-end hotels."
And don’t get him started about plane tickets, which he likens to tickets at Disney World. “You pay this upfront cost, but then you find out that everything in the park is designed to eke out a little bit more of your money," said Turley, 51, who thinks the travel industry is actively trying to lower consumer expectations by charging separately for even the most basic services. “I get the feeling that the airline industry is really waiting for my generation to die," he said. “We’re the cranky, loud ones because we have a higher expectation. Every day, fewer people remember what it used to be like."
Added fees and surcharges emerged as an industry practice in the late 1990s with resort fees that claimed to be for things like beach towels and housekeeping, then spread to airlines, cruise lines and car rental companies. Hotel fees, for one, are highly profitable and, according to Hanson, have increased every year except for the periods following the economic downturns in 2001 and 2008 when lodging demand declined. Despite the fees, hotel rates “are still not back to 2007 levels,Argo Mold limited specialize in Plastic injection mould manufacture," Hanson said, adding that going forward, the industry will most likely focus on raising room prices because ultimately it’s more profitable than fees.
Even cruise lines are adding fees, among them Carnival Cruises, which is in the midst of a pilot program that, for $49.95, will allow everyone in your stateroom to board the ship early.
Yet many obligatory charges are easy to miss and hard to understand. In January, Transportation Department regulations took effect requiring airlines and ticket agents to “include all mandatory taxes and fees in published airfares." Baggage fees must also be disclosed.
In July, the department fined Travelocity $180,000 for violating the rule on full-fare advertising “by failing to include fuel surcharges and other fees in advertised airfares." That same month the department fined TripAdvisor $80,000 for violating the rules on full-fare advertising.
And last month, a class-action lawsuit was filed in federal court, claiming that up until late last year,The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility. Spirit Airlines actively misrepresented fares booked by its customers by unbundling certain fees, including something it calls a “passenger usage fee" that can be avoided only by purchasing tickets at Spirit’s airport counters.
Robert Josefsberg and Katherine Ezell of the Podhurst Orseck firm in Miami, lawyers for the plaintiffs, said that since filing the suit, hundreds of passengers have contacted them to say that they thought they had bought the lowest fares available yet ended up paying more because the passenger usage fee adds $17.98 to $33.98 to a round-trip flight. “It’s fairly insulting," Josefsberg said. “You want to put your head out the window and scream ‘I’m not going to take it anymore.’" Alicia Jao, vice president of Travel Media at NerdWallet, a website that offers personal-finance and credit-card advice, said that from 2008 to 2011 the fee generated $142 million for Spirit.
But as I peruse some of my latest bills,Looking for the Best air purifier? the a la carte add-ons do not feel like small pleasures; they feel like things that ought to be included in the basic price. More to the point: they feel like sneaky ways to pluck a few more dollars from my pocket.
In the last few months I’ve unwittingly paid for newspapers plopped outside my Starwood hotel-room door (review your bill before you check out) and rental-car fees with vague, perplexing names like “airport concession recovery" and “facility charge."
And I have been taken aback by fees for hotel beach chairs, umbrellas and parking.
These were on top of fees I knowingly paid for preferred seating on planes, in-flight Internet, changing tickets and simply printing boarding passes.
The growing list of add-on fees would be comical were they not at our expense.Looking for the Best air purifier? There are now charges for reservations, cancellations, boarding early, departing early, holding bags, checking bags, and using the gym, the business center and the safe in your room. And thanks to the latest high-tech minibars, you cannot even touch an Almond Joy to read the calorie count without a charge on your bill (along with a “restocking" fee).
Some fees are mandatory; you must learn to factor them into your vacation budget. Others are optional. And then there are the charges that you’re welcome to opt out of — if you can figure out that you’ve been billed for them in the first place.
A record $1.85 billion in fees and surcharges was collected last year for hotels alone (up from $1.2 billion in 2000), according to Bjorn Hanson, divisional dean of the Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports Management at New York University. He expects that figure to climb to $1.95 billion in 2012.
‘Feeling of a shakedown’
Airlines, meanwhile, collected more than $3.3 billion in baggage fees and more than $2.3 billion in reservation cancellation and change fees last year, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Rental car companies and cruise ships also take a share, with extra charges for child seats and navigation systems, as well as certain onboard snacks, activities and excursions.Find detailed product information for shamballa crys talbeads wholesale,
“There is this increasing feeling of a shakedown," said Jonathan Turley, who, as a leading expert on constitutional and tort law, frequently travels for work. Turley said he actually laughed during a recent visit to the Waldorf-Astoria when he was told that it would cost him $15 a day for Wi-Fi on one device, say an iPad, plus $15 for each additional device. “Then you go across town to the Days Inn and they have Wi-Fi for free," he said. “As someone who teaches law and economics you expect to have some predictable market response to this need, and it’s actually flipped. You get a higher level of these services at lower-end hotels."
And don’t get him started about plane tickets, which he likens to tickets at Disney World. “You pay this upfront cost, but then you find out that everything in the park is designed to eke out a little bit more of your money," said Turley, 51, who thinks the travel industry is actively trying to lower consumer expectations by charging separately for even the most basic services. “I get the feeling that the airline industry is really waiting for my generation to die," he said. “We’re the cranky, loud ones because we have a higher expectation. Every day, fewer people remember what it used to be like."
Added fees and surcharges emerged as an industry practice in the late 1990s with resort fees that claimed to be for things like beach towels and housekeeping, then spread to airlines, cruise lines and car rental companies. Hotel fees, for one, are highly profitable and, according to Hanson, have increased every year except for the periods following the economic downturns in 2001 and 2008 when lodging demand declined. Despite the fees, hotel rates “are still not back to 2007 levels,Argo Mold limited specialize in Plastic injection mould manufacture," Hanson said, adding that going forward, the industry will most likely focus on raising room prices because ultimately it’s more profitable than fees.
Even cruise lines are adding fees, among them Carnival Cruises, which is in the midst of a pilot program that, for $49.95, will allow everyone in your stateroom to board the ship early.
Yet many obligatory charges are easy to miss and hard to understand. In January, Transportation Department regulations took effect requiring airlines and ticket agents to “include all mandatory taxes and fees in published airfares." Baggage fees must also be disclosed.
In July, the department fined Travelocity $180,000 for violating the rule on full-fare advertising “by failing to include fuel surcharges and other fees in advertised airfares." That same month the department fined TripAdvisor $80,000 for violating the rules on full-fare advertising.
And last month, a class-action lawsuit was filed in federal court, claiming that up until late last year,The TagMaster Long Range hands free access System is truly built for any parking facility. Spirit Airlines actively misrepresented fares booked by its customers by unbundling certain fees, including something it calls a “passenger usage fee" that can be avoided only by purchasing tickets at Spirit’s airport counters.
Robert Josefsberg and Katherine Ezell of the Podhurst Orseck firm in Miami, lawyers for the plaintiffs, said that since filing the suit, hundreds of passengers have contacted them to say that they thought they had bought the lowest fares available yet ended up paying more because the passenger usage fee adds $17.98 to $33.98 to a round-trip flight. “It’s fairly insulting," Josefsberg said. “You want to put your head out the window and scream ‘I’m not going to take it anymore.’" Alicia Jao, vice president of Travel Media at NerdWallet, a website that offers personal-finance and credit-card advice, said that from 2008 to 2011 the fee generated $142 million for Spirit.
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