Federal Trade Commission Bans Hidden Resort & Ticket Fees

"The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday issued long-awaited rules requiring companies to display the full price of a hotel room, concert ticket or sporting event up front to customers, rather than hiding any extra charges - often called “junk fees” - until the very end of the checkout process."

-Washington Post, today

This should end any serious rage against the resort fee game so many Vegas hotels have been playing.

If the hotels are upfront about the charge, that's good enough. Not perfect, but good enough.

Even if one comes in on a comp, and Resort Fees will not be assessed, at the [used to be long form in tiny font] point of signing in as a guest, deep in the 'form' is something to the effect of "I agree to pay...xxx...including Resort Fees."

I noticed this years back when checking in, knowing I would not be paying Resort Fee, yet it kinda sent a chill as in did I just agree to pay the Resort Fee???  But therein lay the 'display' or notification of RF to cover any and all who check into the hotel, comped or charged, RF or no RF.  Not new.

Candy

Trump will reverse that. He owns casinos, and is a natural-born scammer who doubtless enjoys the sneaky nature of resort fees. And lest you say that he won't have the power to override the FTC...maybe not legally, but if this restriction bothers him enough, he'll find a way.

I don't think you understand.

Under the rule the FTC enacted today, a US hotel has to tell you at the beginning of the booking process if they are going to collect a resort fee from you.

Not tell you for the first time on the last web page in the booking process.

Not at check-in.

Right off the top.

That is new.

Today.

Nationwide.

Quite possible.

As the story I linked reports, today's vote was 4-1 in favor. The one dissent was Republican Andrew Ferguson, whom Trump intends to nominate to lead the FTC next year.

Well, he did say he wants to end income tax and taxes on social security.  Excellent goals, but unlikely since the two headed vulture in the other branches of government love to spend spend spend.

These threads sure get hijacked.

Yes, Kevin brought the Trump into the conversation.   I'm out, no more comments in this thread.

I get that. Just my experiences after rising to the full-comp level at certain places and not having to sweat Resort Fees with my comped rooms.  But I never questioned it.  My bad, of course.

Many years agp I checked into a Strip property on a three night e-mailed comp.  However, the comp was for Sunday to Thursday, an e-mail offer of "three nights Sun-Thur".  We wanted our three nights to be Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. I called the 'sorta-Host' to arrange it that way, the point at which the ball was dropped as she didn't mention the Friday/Saturday RF thing when we spoke on the phone.  The agent at check-in DID specify that Saturday night check-in meant I would be charged the RF though the room charge itself was comped, and not just Saturday night but all three nights.  There we are having flown in halfway across the country for this 'vacation', so what are we gonna do?  I wasn't happy, but they did spell this out at check-in.  That's when I learned not to take anything for granted and pay better attention to what I was asking for.

I'm glad the new rules include concert tickets.  Ticketmaster has been one of the worst junk fee offenders, IMO. Now if they ever add airline fees, cable TV and  phone companies, that would be good.  You sign up for auto-pay which is recurring, and all of a sudden the next month has a fee you hadn't seen or was higher than the one you'd been paying for a long time...no notice of course.  Then stuck with calling the cable company and going through five levels of hell to get to someone to talk to and look at your account to see why this charge is higher, then "I'll transfer you to our xxxx who may be able to lower a portion of your charges."  Of course the government fees, those that change any time, we are slaves to.

I get that. Just my experiences after rising to the full-comp level at certain places and not having to sweat Resort Fees with my comped rooms.  But I never questioned it.  My bad, of course.

Many years agp I checked into a Strip property on a three night e-mailed comp.  However, the comp was for Sunday to Thursday, an e-mail offer of "three nights Sun-Thur".  We wanted our three nights to be Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. I called the 'sorta-Host' to arrange it that way, the point at which the ball was dropped as she didn't mention the Friday/Saturday RF thing when we spoke on the phone.  The agent at check-in DID specify that Saturday night check-in meant I would be charged the RF though the room charge itself was comped, and not just Saturday night but all three nights.  There we are having flown in halfway across the country for this 'vacation', so what are we gonna do?  I wasn't happy, but they did spell this out at check-in.  That's when I learned not to take anything for granted and pay better attention to what I was asking for.

I'm glad the new rules include concert tickets.  Ticketmaster has been one of the worst junk fee offenders, IMO. Now if they ever add airline fees, cable TV and  phone companies, that would be good.  You sign up for auto-pay which is recurring, and all of a sudden the next month has a fee you hadn't seen or was higher than the one you'd been paying for a long time...no notice of course.  Then stuck with calling the cable company and going through five levels of hell to get to someone to talk to and look at your account to see why this charge is higher, then "I'll transfer you to our xxxx who may be able to lower a portion of your charges."  Of course the government fees, those that change any time, we are slaves to.