Glad that worked out for you, sugarmaple.

At our Hyatt in NY, the fee was $30+tax which I think was an additional $4/night, so $102 total for each room. We would have gotten a 10% discount on food (no beverages). Since I don't eat breakfast and am never at the hotel for lunch or dinner, that food discount is no use to me.
I could have made much better use of that $102 during my 4-day stay given my choice of what I wanted to spend it on.

Well, if you used the entire per day fee towards food and drink, then it was probably worth it to you. That is, if you were fine with eating in the hotel.
My preference would be to have my money in my wallet and choose where I want to eat and drink, whether it's in the hotel or elsewhere.

In Las Vegas you can get a room comp but still have to pay the resort fee.

hhmmmm!!

So far I have avoided this fee but will.be watching for it now.

Always look at the total price in places were resort fees by any other name are common. In Palm Springs area, you may also get charged separately for using the spa, parking (even self-parking) as well as the "resort fee".

In all my trips to Vegas over the years, not once have I utilized a hotel pool or spa, so the whole resort fee really puts me off.

Anyone planning to visit Vegas might want to take a look at this:

https://www.lasvegasjaunt.com/resort-fees/

If it's not optional, it's part of the room price, no matter how you break it down. These fees aren't about going to an ala carte pricing model. These aren't really fees at all, they're just an attempt to keep shoppers from making easy price comparisons. It's bait and switch.

If you want to bill separately for wi-fi, parking or breakfast, that I don't care about. I can check the amenities list before I book and decide then. Not looking for all-inclusive and I'm used to making sure the stuff I want is included. But when I can't easily see what the room itself will cost to spend a night, that's just screwing with consumers.

Cue vacation rentals, be they apartments or houses. We 'hotel' as infrequently as possible nowadays. That attitude has served us well.
I agree, GTG, that kind of fee is such BS.
I am done. The end.

I don't mind an apartment for a longer stay somewhere and it certainly has its own benefits but I love staying in a hotel and for me, that's part of the vacation experience.

The third-party sites such as booking.com, Expedia and Priceline seem to do a pretty good job of disclosing the total price and additional charges that the hotel is known to add. Probably better than the hotel's own website. Can't say I've ever been surprised or had difficulty finding out the total price.

I wasn't surprised by the destination fee. It was made clear when I booked the rooms. I just resented having to pay it. I would have shopped around for a no-fee hotel at a decent rate but I had other considerations because I was traveling with a group.
The Hyatt in Times Square would certainly not have been my first choice of hotel!

I hadn't realized that consolidator sites were managing to put the combined price+fee out there in the search results so that you can see the price totals next to each other. It sounded like the "fees" weren't revealed until you'd hit the book now button. I haven't been back recently to the sort of places where this has become a practice and haven't seen it in Asia or down here (yet)

Hiding costs seemed to be the only logical reason to break out the cost charged for the pool access (etc). To make the hotel look cheaper next to a price listing of other hotels.

Doesn't make sense to me why they'd bother but if they want to say the room is $150 and a made-up added fee is $50, but that wouldn't bother me at all as long as the amount advertised to me next to other hotels reflects either the final $200 or numbers I have to add myself. Hiding them a click or two down would be deceptive.

If it were the cost of the room, I could deal with that. But by calling it a destination fee which offers nothing of interest to me, they're essentially insisting that it's not the room that's costing me money, but a bunch of stuff I don't want. I'm only interested in purchasing lodging. If it's not the room rate, then don't charge me for it! If I want that other stuff, I'll buy it.

goddesstogo... I don't get how NYC hotels can charge a resort fee. They are hotels in a big city. I think it is a money rort.
I visit NYC because my son has been living there for the past 18 months. I can't stay with him because he shares. I hate looking at NYC hotels. They are ridiculously priced, and now they all think they are big resorts. cray cray.
I will not stay in a hotel that charges a resort fee.

I'm sure you can find many hotels that don't charge a destination fee but prices vary so much depending on the time of year too. August can be do-able. October? Crazy high!
My friend goes in January and gets great rates!

Maybe stay in Brooklyn and take the subway.