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?
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”.