Hotels can no longer hide mandatory resort fees until the final booking screen. That’s an improvement, but it doesn’t make the fees any less annoying—or make the supposed benefits any more useful.
Few hotel charges irritate travelers as much as resort fees.
The problem isn’t simply that hotels charge more than the advertised room rate. Taxes also increase the final price, and travelers generally understand that. Resort fees are different because the hotel separates part of the cost from the room rate and then tries to justify it with a collection of supposedly included benefits.
At actual resorts, those benefits might include pool access, beach chairs, fitness classes or recreational equipment. At city hotels, the charge may be called a destination, facility or urban fee and include things like Wi-Fi, bottled water, food and beverage credits or discounts at nearby businesses.
Whatever the hotel calls it, the result is the same: It’s a mandatory charge for a package of benefits you may not want and might never use.
How Resort Fees Spread Beyond Resorts
Resort fees initially became common at higher-end properties in destinations such as Las Vegas and Hawaii. Hotels presented them as a convenient way to bundle several amenities into one daily charge.
Over time, hotels discovered that the model worked just as well without a beach, golf course or sprawling pool complex.
City hotels began adding destination fees. Other properties introduced amenity, facility or experience fees. Eventually, guests could find mandatory charges at hotels that no reasonable person would describe as resorts.
The list of included benefits also became increasingly creative. A hotel might bundle Wi-Fi, bottled water, a fitness class, a local tour or a daily food and beverage credit and claim that guests were receiving more value than the fee cost.
That argument overlooks one important detail: Guests don’t have the option to decline the package.
Why Do Hotels Charge Resort Fees?
The simplest answer is because they can.
We’ve previously looked at why hotels charge resort fees and whether there are ways to avoid paying them. However, there are several reasons why hotels have been reluctant to give them up.
They Make The Room Rate Look Lower
Separating a mandatory fee from the room rate can make a hotel appear less expensive during a search.
A property charging $250 per night may look more attractive than one charging $280. But if the first hotel adds a mandatory $40 destination fee, it’s actually the more expensive option.
That price difference was traditionally difficult to spot until travelers reached the final stages of booking. By then, they had already spent time comparing rooms, reading reviews and selecting a property.
Hotels May Pay Less In Commissions
Hotels often pay commissions when rooms are booked through online travel agencies or credit card travel portals. Depending on the hotel’s agreement with the booking platform, those commissions may be based primarily on the room rate rather than every charge collected at the property.
Keeping part of the cost outside the room rate can therefore allow the hotel to retain more of that revenue.
The details vary by hotel and booking agreement, but resort fees can be more financially attractive to a property than simply increasing the nightly rate by the same amount.
They Create The Appearance Of Added Value
Hotels typically attach a list of benefits to the fee so it doesn’t look like nothing more than an additional room charge.
Some of those benefits can be useful. The problem is that their stated value may have little connection to what an individual guest would willingly pay for them.
A $30 credit isn’t necessarily worth $30 if you have to change your plans to use it. A fitness class has no value if you don’t attend. A guided neighborhood tour isn’t a benefit if it doesn’t fit your schedule.
The hotel adds up the retail value of everything in the package. The guest is left to decide whether any of it is actually useful.
Why Travelers Hate Resort Fees
Most travelers aren’t opposed to paying for something they use. They dislike being forced to buy a collection of services they didn’t request.
The Fee Is Mandatory
During a stay at the Moxy Times Square, we were charged a $30 destination fee, plus tax.
The package included a $30 daily food and beverage credit, guided tours of the Garment District, a Polaroid camera rental, fitness classes and enhanced Wi-Fi.
That sounds like a reasonable collection of benefits until you look at it from the guest’s perspective.
We weren’t necessarily interested in taking a guided tour, borrowing a camera or attending a fitness class. Marriott Bonvoy Gold Elite and higher members already receive enhanced Wi-Fi when available. The food and beverage credit was the easiest benefit to use, but it also required us to spend money at the hotel instead of eating or drinking elsewhere.
We could recover much of the fee by using the credit, but we still had to organize part of our day around getting back money the hotel had already required us to pay.
That isn’t the same as receiving a complimentary benefit.
The Benefits Are Inconsistent
At least some resort fees cover amenities that guests might realistically use.
The Grand Hyatt Kauai, for example, charges a much higher daily resort fee but includes a far more extensive group of services.
Depending on the current benefit package, those may include fitness and cultural activities, bicycle rentals, tennis or pickleball, self-parking, self-service laundry, reusable water bottles, beach equipment and access to an arrival and departure lounge.
At a resort where guests spend much of their time on the property, several of those benefits could be useful.
But that comparison also highlights the inconsistency of resort fees. One hotel may include parking, recreational activities and beach equipment. Another may charge a similar amount for Wi-Fi, bottled water and a discount you’ll never use.
There’s no standard definition of what a resort fee should include or how much those benefits should be worth.
A “Credit” Can Be Another Chore
Food and beverage credits have become one of the most common ways hotels defend mandatory fees.
In theory, a $30 fee that includes a $30 dining credit should be easy to justify. In practice, the credit may be restricted to certain outlets, expire each day and exclude taxes, tips or room service.
If you arrive late, leave early or already have dining plans, you may struggle to use it.
Instead of providing value, the hotel has created another task. You now have to read the restrictions, find an eligible outlet and make sure the charge posts correctly.
That’s not how I want to spend part of a hotel stay.
Resort Fees Are Now Harder To Hide
The biggest recent change isn’t that resort fees have been banned. Hotels are still allowed to charge them.
What changed is how those fees must be displayed.
The Federal Trade Commission’s Rule on Unfair or Deceptive Fees took effect on May 12, 2025. It requires hotels, vacation rentals and booking platforms to clearly display the total price, including mandatory fees, whenever they advertise or show a price.
For example, a hotel charging a $199 room rate and a mandatory $39 resort fee can’t present $199 as the most prominent price. The displayed total must include the required fee.
Taxes and certain government-imposed charges can still be shown separately, but they must be disclosed before the customer agrees to pay.
You can read the FTC’s guidance on the rule here.
This doesn’t make the room any cheaper, but it makes comparison shopping easier.
Instead of discovering that the apparently less expensive hotel costs $40 more per night after selecting it, travelers should be able to compare the actual mandatory prices earlier in the process.
What About Resort Fees On Award Stays?
Resort fees can be especially irritating when using hotel points.
An award night may cover the base room rate while leaving the guest responsible for a mandatory fee charged at the property. That means a supposedly free night can still come with a significant nightly cost.
World of Hyatt remains one of the most favorable programs in this respect. World of Hyatt members generally don’t pay resort fees on Free Night Awards at participating properties. Globalists also receive waived resort fees on eligible paid rates.
Policies at other hotel programs and individual properties can vary, so it’s important to check the award details before booking.
The new FTC pricing rule improves the display of cash rates, but it doesn’t require hotel loyalty programs to waive resort fees on award reservations.
Transparency Helps, But It Doesn’t Fix Resort Fees
Showing the full mandatory price upfront eliminates one of the worst parts of resort fees: the ability to make a hotel appear cheaper than it actually is.
But transparency doesn’t make the underlying charge more reasonable.
Guests are still being required to purchase packages of benefits they may not use. Hotels can still assign questionable values to those amenities. Travelers may still have to change their plans to use daily credits before they expire.
The difference is that it should now be easier to see how much the hotel really costs before booking.
That may ultimately do more to restrain resort fees than years of complaints. When two hotels have to compete based on their actual mandatory prices, the property charging an additional $40 or $50 per night can no longer count on burying that difference near the end of the reservation process.
Hotels haven’t lost the ability to charge resort fees.
They’ve lost some of their ability to hide them.
Want to comment on this post? Great! Read this first to help ensure it gets approved.
Want to sponsor a post, write something for Your Mileage May Vary, or put ads on our site? Click here for more info.
Like this post? Please share it! We have plenty more just like it and would love it if you decided to hang around and sign up to get emailed notifications of when we post.
Whether you’ve read our articles before or this is the first time you’re stopping by, we’re really glad you’re here and hope you come back to visit again!
This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
