While the Biden Administration has recently been on a mission to crack down on the hidden "junk fees" that airlines and hotels have formerly tacked on to one's final bill, some travelers have been noticing that these additional expenses have started creeping up in other ways.
All this also comes at a time when airlines like United (UAL) , Delta (DAL) and American Airlines (AAL) have filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Transportation Department's new rules requiring them to disclose everything from baggage to cancelation fees upfront.
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In the meantime, hotels are also finding increasingly creative ways to make up for the resort fees many have formally announced they are getting rid of. In his travel column, USA Today writer Christopher Elliott described how one traveler saw an "urban fee" of $30 added to every night she stayed at a Los Angeles hotel.
Transaction fees, urban fees and 'beef surcharge' fees, oh my
"Travelers will probably feel like they're drowning in junk fees this summer," Elliott writes. "They'll be kicking themselves because somewhere in the fine print or in their hotel folio, the mandatory extras were disclosed. And businesses have proved reluctant to remove the junk fees.”
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Other junk fees observed by Elliott and some of the travelers he polled include a “beef surcharge fee” snuck at the bottom of the bill at his restaurant in Moab, Utah that was added even though the diner ordered a chicken dish. While transaction fees are par for the course for everything from concert ticket booking sites to airlines, the extra 3%-5% often changes in name so as not to get singled out as a “resort fee” or “credit card fee” when regulators crack down on one particular type.
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Tired of junk fees? Here is how you can avoid at least some
While in the past certain fees could be hidden and then appear when the customer went to book, businesses will now work around that by disclosing them upfront but in very small print or at the bottom of a large wall of fine print — all with the goal of hiding them from the passenger long enough for most to be far enough along in the booking process to want to cancel the transaction.
While fighting junk fees is proving to be an uphill battle even for regulators and politicians, those who like to know what they’re paying upfront need to read through the fine print no matter how tedious. As airlines are notorious for displaying an initially low fee and then making up for it with hefty fees for baggage and seat selection (not part of Biden’s battle as baggage is treated like an “extra”), building status or getting a company credit card that provides these perks for free will also add up in the long run. Transaction fees, however, are hard to fight singlehandedly — one traveler described having to pay a 3% “credit card fee” even after offering cash.
“You can read the fine print, join a loyalty program and patronize a fee-free business but still get stuck with a junk fee this summer,” Elliott writes. “Yeah, that's how pervasive they are.”
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