Today’s adventure in absurd hotel fees features the Holiday Inn Express & Suites Omaha Airport which charges a $6.95 fee per stay (not per night) and it’s just listed as a ‘service charge’.
There’s not a lot of service provided at a Holiday Inn Express. I’ve always wondered about the ‘Express’ nomenclature for limited service, whether for airlines (“United Express”) or hotels (“City Express”). Do you sleep faster at a Holiday Inn Express? Or do you just want to get out of whatever city you’re in faster, if you have to stay in one?
If you want to know what the service charge is for, you’re going to have to ask them. Here’s how they described it,
Oh, that’s simply a service charge for emergencies or maintenance, like if we have an elevator go down.
Credit: Holiday Inn Express & Suites Omaha Airport
This hotel charges you extra for maintenance. It’s not part of your room rate, since it’s an add-on service (but isn’t optional). If they didn’t charge it to you, then you’d get stuck in the elevator I guess?
Hotel franchise owners are going to extreme lengths to stick it to their customers, from the economic adjustment fee, the Sleapytime tea fee, electricity fee, the fee for use of the bathroom mirror and in-room TV fee. There’s the fee to cover the hotel owner’s payments financing their property taxes. And then there’s the fee for nothing whatsoever.
Why is it so much more often IHG brands that do this, though?
IHG customers, who skew downmarket, are more sensitive to price and more likely to be booking through third party channels where such fees are disclosed less prominently. IHG a couple of years ago had the genius idea to rename all their hotels in Google Maps with the suffix, “an IHG hotel.” That gives consumers the confidence that a particular hotel is more than a fly-by-night operation. And, the Google Maps shows a single price on the pin that, inexplicably, excludes taxes and fees. Only after you click in do you notice that +$6.95 or whatever is mandatory, and by that time–you already have one foot in the door. Basic consumer marketing psychology suggests you’re more likely to get your second foot in the door (conversion).
It seems that nowadays hotels or any lodging businesses are “dime and nickel” us everywhere regardless to our elite levels. Perhaps those mom/dad lodging businesses like Bed/Breakfast still give us old fashioned fantastic treatments?? Ummm…
Roman
Corporate crooks. I cannot believe they get away with this.
I prefer an oven surcharge in case the microwave blows up
@ Gary — Chargeback and Nebraska AG complaint should be good payback.
What is with these hotels in south doing the consumer wrong?
Coming soon is the all new air tax. This is to replace the air that you breath. Followed by the air replacement fee to cover watering the plants. Finally, the air filtering fee to ensure your not bothered by obnoxious smells
Time for the government to tax all non-optional travel-related surcharges at the full rate AND then add its own surcharge on surcharges so that hotels and airlines are penalized for using them.
It’s past time to end this BS.
I assume this hotel waives the elevator fee if your room happens to be located on the first floor?
@ tomri — Not sure Nebraska is “in the South”.
Please keep reporting these.
Where is IHG?
Here is the complaint form for consumer protection in Nebraska:
https://www.nebraska.gov/apps-ago-complaints/?preSelect=CP_COMPLAINT
This is EXACTLY what voters wanted: less regulation and more freedom for businesses. It’s going to unleash the higher profits, just as the now-president predicted.
Good to see Americans are getting what they voted for!
EXPRESS-ly good at squeezing a few extra bucks out of the guests!
I think you’re missing the fact that this IHG property not only has a treadmill in the “workout room”, but ALSO an elliptical AND a stationary bike, and the floor isn’t padded at all! This is upper tier, guys, the service fee is required to keep up with all of this equipment.
Even with the new FTC ruling, these hotel crooks can find a way to skirt the law. They post a bogus fee up front and there’s nothing the consumer can do about it. As “Charlie Brown” would say, “Good grief!”
One more time: Thank you, Gary, for continuing to ‘name and shame’ these locations. Unless and until corporate or a regulator actually enforces rules against such corruption, we, the consumers have to be our own watchdogs, resisting these cons, and warning others.
I just spent the night at an IHG and there wasn’t a $6.95 elevator fee on the receipt.
The Indian Hotel mafia has IHG by the balls. They are bringing Indian business practices to our country and must be stopped.
I traveled quite a bit for about 24 years, 1977 – 2000. When I retired in 2000, I’d earned 1,800,000 miles on my airline of choice. After a few years, I lost all the points at Hyatt, Wyndham, Holiday Inn, Sheraton, Hilton, and I don’t remember who else. I was pleased that Marriott boasted that points did not expire. Well, that was until a few years ago. I got their branded credit card to retain the points.
When it comes to these fees and other ways to extract money, all I can say is that I’m glad I do not have to put up with the BS.
When I encountered a problem or issue, a polite but explicit letter was written to the CEO. In most cases, the issue was resolved. I don’t know if social media existed when I retired in 2000. However, things were much better then.
Most recently, two weeks ago, I attempted to make some reservations. The one-way fare was $115. Before the trip could be booked, the fare had jumped to $239. This is LUDICROUS! The trip was abandoned.
I remember when fares were stable enough, they were published in the OAG. I think it came out twice a month. The office had a subscription.
As an octogenarian, I’m not putting up with this stuff. I’ve developed two attitudes:
1. If you don’t like it, then fire me.
2. You probably need me as a customer more than I need you as a vendor. I’ve learned to do without.