Poor MGM Mirage; it can’t stay out of the news these days. At the moment, our LVA research staff is trying to get the skinny on the spread of “resort fees” through the company’s Strip properties. (Stock analysts love them because they boost room revenues; customers are less enthusiastic.)
From what our researchers have gleaned so far, The Mirage will set you back an extra $15, while Signature at MGM Grand charges $20. The privilege of staying at Excalibur comes with a $9.95 impost and Luxor will cost you $12.95 (perhaps for the thrill of closer proximity to Criss Angel). The Green Monster itself doesn’t charge a resort fee. Neither does Mandalay Bay “but staff have been informed that it’s being introduced in May,” I’m told.
If you needed an incentive to stay at Harrah’s Entertainment hotel, MGM has just handed 10-20 of them. Time to start pushing that “no resort fees” marketing message again.
Don’t forget the ridiculous $14.99 per day resort fee at the Palace Station. The only thing that brings me to the Palace Station is that I can find full-pay video poker. I’ve never seen a full-pay machine at a Harrah’s property.
I just paid for six resort fees for six nights at the Luxor. That got me two bottles of water each day. The WiFi didn’t work the entire time I was there (North Tower). I don’t use the spa or pool. When I complained I was told there were no refunds. That was my last stay at Luxor. Ever. I spend 16 weeks per year in Las Vegas, all but one business related. I am taking my business elsewhere.
Monte Carlo is 13.95 and New York New York is the same I believe. the redeeming thing if there was one for MC, was that it was an extra $5 to turn fitness center into spa entry, which is a net savings of like 1 or 2 dollars.
Another group of Vegas properties that will get none of my business. I guess these genius bean-counters expect the tourists to bail out their short-sighted business acumen.
Less rooms rented just keep adding resort fees
No resort fees Downtown!
Even the Golden Nugget doesn’t charge guests extra for the privilege of staying there.
Many rooms in Vegas are booked through wholesalers, (ie travel agents, etc) When they have a room rate, the agent gets their cut. But when they charge a Resort Fee, the hotel keeps all of that fee, the reseller doesn’t get any of it. So that’s one thing the hotels love about these resort fees.
While I hate resort fees, an extra $10-$20 per night isn’t going to ruin my vacation, and honestly if $10-$20 a night is make or break for you going to Vegas is a bad idea.
I stay at MGM properties because they offer me the best of what I am looking for and while I love the Wynn/Encore the location is less than desirable for me.
Of course, if charged a resort fee I’ll have to start sending/recieving faxes just because I can.
To hell with Harrah’s. Go downtown. Spend your money gambling and eating-not fattening Wall Street.
And the price of the condo I was gonna buy at Signature just fell by how much?
Owners must be real happy to pay a $30 cleaning fee & a $ 20 resort fee to spend a night at their own place.
LVA is just now trying to get a handle on this stuff? What have you been waiting for!!!!
I sent this email to the QOD people at LVA. I’m sure they will be buried with comments on resort fees so I thought I would post it here as well.
I’ve never felt more passionate about a subject. It is infuriating to me that these hotels are charging resort fees. Mr. Feldman can sugar-coat it all he wants over at MGM Mirage, but I can guarantee that when MGM Grand announces resort fees (and the fact they will be charged to reservations already made is even more ridiculous) I will be cancelling my two room reservations in December. If they try to add resort fees onto previous reservations that have a cancellation fee, I hope they get sued. They can talk until they’re blue in the face, but the fact is they are required add on charges that should just be in the cost of the room if the resort chooses to provide the services. If you want to see S&R’s Secret Garden, buy a ticket. If you want internet access (which should be free anyway) pay for it. Don’t remove choice of services and if you want to remove choice, just add it to the rate charged instead of forcing consumers to go through the cumbersome task of comparing room rates and then adding on the ridiculous resort fees. I’m most disappointed in Mr. Ruffin over at TI. I had high hopes for his management of that property and considered staying there until I found out about their resort fee. I congratulate Harrahs and the other holdouts for holding the line at this time. Other than an attempt to make their true room rates opaque when searching, I don’t know what the hotels are getting out of this other than bad PR and angry customers. Maybe the resort fees are treated differently for income or sales tax purposes or some other financial reason. I can only imagine some of the exchanges at the front desk when a customer is told they owe another $60.00 for resort fees. I could go on forever about how angry this makes me, but my only hope is there is a true revolt that gets through to these executives before it is common practice around the country. The airlines are pulling the same stunt with baggage charges and I commend Southwest for holding the line and advertising broadly the fact they don’t charge for bags. I recommend Harrahs and other properties do the same, shouting to the rooftops that the rate you see is the rate you pay.
And I don’t feel better after getting this off my chest. Resort fees must be stopped.
Heh. Harrah’s does have a real opening here. I wouldn’t be surprised if they knock MGM some more over resort fees.
I received two comp nights at Palazzo and was told on the phone when making the reservations that though the room is a comp, I’m still responsible for a $17.95 per day resort fee. This, of course, means the “come” is not a comp at all.
The Stratosphere did the exact same thing, but the resort fee is %7.95 per day for a “comp” room.
Why some shark lawyer hasn’t filed a class action lawsuit by now is a complete mystery to me as this is clearly false advertising. It misleads the public with large font numbers saying a room is $39.95 per night, then when you walk up to the desk to check in you’re handed the resort fee costs as per the Silverton. C’mon you cut-throat, greedy lawyers! Live up to your name and go after these hotels.
This was my response to the QOD Poll and I thought I would post it here as well. I’m sure the comments for the Poll are going to exceed previous records as this seems to be a hot issue with more people than just me…
I’ve never felt more passionate about a subject. It is infuriating to me that these hotels are charging resort fees. Mr. Feldman can sugar-coat it all he wants over at MGM Mirage, but I can guarantee that when MGM Grand announces resort fees (and the fact they will be charged to reservations already made is even more ridiculous) I will be cancelling my two room reservations in December. If they try to add resort fees onto previous reservations that have a cancellation fee, I hope they get sued. They can talk until they’re blue in the face, but the fact is they are required add on charges that should just be in the cost of the room if the resort chooses to provide the services. If you want to see S&R’s Secret Garden, buy a ticket. If you want internet access (which should be free anyway) pay for it. Don’t remove choice of services and if you want to remove choice, just add it to the rate charged instead of forcing consumers to go through the cumbersome task of comparing room rates and then adding on the ridiculous resort fees. I’m most disappointed in Mr. Ruffin over at TI. I had high hopes for his management of that property and considered staying there until I found out about their resort fee. I congratulate Harrahs and the other holdouts for holding the line at this time. Other than an attempt to make their true room rates opaque when searching, I don’t know what the hotels are getting out of this other than bad PR and angry customers. Maybe the resort fees are treated differently for income or sales tax purposes or some other financial reason. I can only imagine some of the exchanges at the front desk when a customer is told they owe another $60.00 for resort fees. I could go on forever about how angry this makes me, but my only hope is there is a true revolt that gets through to these executives before it is common practice around the country. The airlines are pulling the same stunt with baggage charges and I commend Southwest for holding the line and advertising broadly the fact they don’t charge for bags. I recommend Harrahs and other properties do the same, shouting to the rooftops that the rate you see is the rate you pay.
And I don’t feel better after getting this off my chest. Resort fees must be stopped.
I’m staying 4 nights at Vdara this summer, so I’ll gamble $60.00 less ($15.00 a night resort fee)
I bet from Jim Murren down, everyone at MGM hates any add on, or hidden fees when they buy a car, etc. Yet, they throw them at us. Do they not care how negative the public opinion is about these fees? Or do they think that Harrah’s is so despised that they have a lot of room to jerk customers around and still be better thought of than Harrah’s?
I’m a “fan” of most of the Harrah’s properties on Facebook, & so far today Caesars & Paris have been pushing the “no resort fees” message.
Another symptom of the casino industry being run by bright young MBAs fresh out of Green Grass Business Academy. They think they can raise the price of a product (a hotel room) without producing a corresponding drop in demand. Why do they think this? Because the “resort fee” comes as a SURPRISE!!, usually upon checkout. So the resort fee, the thinking goes, doesn’t affect the customer’s decision to stay there. Of course, when the customer checks out for the weekend, having lost $800 playing 6/5 blackjack and trying to win on ridiculously tight slots, and he sees that to add insult to injury, he’s getting gouged an additional $36 for the privilege of being in the same building as the swimming pool–well, that isn’t EVER going to affect his decision to come BACK, is it? IS it????
The Las Vegas casino industry deserves to fail. And it will. Las Vegas will be the Cleveland of the 2010s.
I will NEVER stay at an MGM property again. And this is not an easy statement for me to make as my favorite place to stay was Mandalay Bay. I guess my new favorite will be Caesars or Paris (I have not stayed at either). Oh, by the way MGM, I was so excited about Citycenter and have followed its progress from the very beginning. I was looking forward to staying at Aria or Vdara on my next trip but will now only do a walk-through to see the art.
Resort fees and other surprise fees is not the way to lure people back to Vegas. In my opinion the way for Vegas to get people coming back is:
1. Get rid of the additional fees like the resort fee or the mandatory (even though I don’t use the phone) phone fee.
2. Sign big name stars to EXCLUSIVE contracts and put them in old style showrooms with tables, booths, drink service and maitre d seating. (If I want to sit in theater style seating I will go to the theater). Now if anyone in the ENTIRE world wants to see (for instance) Lady Gaga, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, Charlie Daniels, etc, etc. they can only see them in one place and that place is Vegas Baby! Return to your roots! The problem is not that damn complicated!
Hmmm… My comment didn’t post. Let me try again.
MGM is really playing a risky game here. It’s not like consumers don’t notice, and Harrah’s has already been hitting them with it.
I recently encountered this at the Mirage for a comped room. I demanded that the fee be waived and refused to stay there unless it was. I also told them they would lose a long time loyal customer and that in the future if they insisted on doing this I would stay at Harrah’s properties from now as they don’t charge a resort fee. The fee was waived. I will fly an airline that charges for checked bags and other ridicules fees and I won’t stay at a hotel that does it either.
Check the LVA newsletter for January and February of this year. In it are announced the low prices of rooms in Vegas and places are ranked according to price. But because the ranking ignored Resort Fees, it is misleading and wrong. Especially hurt is El Cortez which has no resort fee, but shows up as I remember it in fiftn place when it should have been in first place.
Resort fees can’t work as a hidden fine print trick if the media takes note of them, but it is hard to understand why a hotel would not charge one if they can skew representations of their prices not only in their own advertisments, but in the analysis done by gambling focused media like the LVA newsletter.
I don’t know if the error has been repeated since then. My membership expired and I could not see why I should renew if I can’t trust the information I pay for.
Downtown does have one casino with a resort fee. Gold Spike. They cannot offer any amenities because they cannot even guarantee there is room for us to park, but it gets them an extra $2.
I’ve collected a good bit of information on my blog.
http://vegasresortfees.blogspot.com/
There are two basic models of paying to run Las Vegas — the gambling model and the a la carte/fees model, hidden or otherwise. I think Las Vegas has strayed too far from the gambling model. Las Vegas is about a lot more than gambling but it is also very much identified with it. It needs to be the best place in the world to gamble with a lot od other attractions. It can’t survive and be known for fees, attractions, restaurants and a great place to have a convention. There are LOTS of great places to have a convention with attractions, fees and great restaurants.
Charge all you want for a Resort Fee. It will NOT impact me.
I will NOT stay at a property charging resort fees. I most likely will not gamble at those same properties.
You (Resort Fee proponents and managers) are only hurting yourselves. I’ll lose my money somewhere else. 🙂
Does anyone remember the hotel energy fee from about 10 years ago?
Resort fees will go away about the same time that airlines stop charging for the “extras” that used to be included.
It’s no worse than the extra fees and taxes heaped on most Vegas show tickets. They are just as annoying as resort fees.