>>>>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. <<<<

Except they don't. The first view at Expedia and Priceline is the same as at the hotel-- a price quote before taxes and the heinous amenity fee. You don't see a breakout of actual costs until you select a room but before you pay for it

I always check now for the fee. It's increasingly common in cities. If it's a hotel in a place I want to stay at a price that's in my target zone, I just calculate the fee into the overall cost like the baggage fee on airlines.

I something goes screwball, the first thing I ask for as "compensation" is to have that stupid fee removed. That has worked more often than not if I'm already a loyalty member, but only for the day of the problem and not the entire stay.

I first stayed at Hotel Giraffe in February of this year, there was nothing on the site at that time about a resort fee, I booked the special rate where you agree to receive emails from them and type in FAMILY. I have just dug the itemized receipt out of my filing cabinet - no resort fee or destination fee.

We recently stayed for 9 nights in July for our son's wedding, our friends booked an additional 8 rooms. For that I was dealing with the director of sales to get the best rate possible for everyone and nobody was charged a resort fee.

Maybe it is a new thing? You could try emailing or calling to ask?

I agree with you laurieco, Airbnb has become a scourge here in Vancouver where we already have a housing affordability problem. It has morphed all over the world from people renting out a room in their house or the house when they go away to corporations buying up multiple units in an apartment building and putting them on Airbnb. In one scenario I know of the owner has 11 Airbnb units in a condo building despite there being a no short term rental rule in the strata rules, he claims he is grandfathered in because he was doing this before the rules were arrived at. (he had one apartment back before the rules were changed). There are so many stories. People who rent an apartment or 2 or 3 ostensibly for themselves but really they are Airbnbing them without the owners knowledge. I met someone last year who said this is how their sister is making a living. And on and on it goes.

If you think about it, there are reasons why people would choose AirBnB as an option for accommodation and it doesn't mean they're just being unreasonable. Clearly the hotel industry in some areas is lacking what that segment of consumers want or need. Witness the post about not wanting to share beds.

At some point, "why not just spend more to get ______" (an apartment hotel, fly first class, to eat cake) is an option that is meaningless to anyone but the privileged folks who tend to offer it. More productive types who are sympathetic to not being wealthy come up with new ideas for taking advantage of under utilized existing resources, like Uber and AirBnB.

At the same time, the number of AirBnB hosted dwellings in a particular area also says a lot about the city and the housing market. Why are people not renting their apartment for the whole year to one tenant rather than taking the chance of non-occupancy by renting nightly to the travel market? Simple - the property is worth a lot more as an AirBnB than it is as a rental property. Which means short term represents its actual earning potential as a business venture and long term rentals do not. No matter what non-occupant buys the dwelling, this will remain true.

So it just stands to reason that when there IS a travel trade and the hotel industry is using tactics to keep from meeting the needs of certain demographic segments, those demographics will look elsewhere. The only way to keep from meeting that demand is to force property owners via the law to not earn what they're capable of and instead, subsidize rental housing for those who can't actually afford the market where they're looking.

Hmm, ok. That goes back to the industry trying like hell to keep consumers from easily finding what they're looking for. Someone had said earlier that Booking.com and (I think) Expedia had the information. I thought that meant it was shown at the first search results when comparisons could still easily be made. Having to start up a bunch of aborted bookings to find out what you're actually going to pay sure isn't that.

I disagree. They all quote a base price and before you hit "charge my CC" you see a detail of what you're buying. The amenity fee, in all its bull$hit glory, is identified as a fee.

>>>> Having to start up a bunch of aborted bookings to find out what you're actually going to pay sure isn't that<<<<

Perish the thought. More keystrokes.

Thanks, Clifton and yes I have "made assumptions" and one of them is that renting a place out is not without any costs to the owner. The other is that I prefer to deal with hotels. I did the AirBnB thing once, in London's Covent Garden from an "owner" who had been repeatedly praised. The accommodation turned out to have inoperable appliances among other issues. Once was enough for us.

(6:30 am; Mr and Mrs Zebec are half-awake, seated across from each other at the kitchen table, trying to negotiate their morning coffee)

Z: "Didja' know that NYC has a hotel apparently run by giraffes?"
Mrs Z: "Naw, I uh (sound of sip) didn't....you mean.....?"

I am done. The caffeine.

Yes using Expedia etc, you need two clicks, one to click the hotel name, and one to click "reserve" when you see the total price including taxes and fees. Is that a burden?

Hmm, thanks raincitygirl, I may call them to find out if they'll waive it.

schlegal1,
I don't mean to bug about this but I just wondered if you'd seen my post about the Hotel Melo's prices for January. My friend got her rate (small room) for $95/night but even their larger rooms are just in the $120 range. ('Facility fee' of about $30/night but it's still a great bargain.)

That's exactly the point. These owners will risk doing only short-term rentals because the hotels in their market have overpriced themselves and/or provide subpar product.

Manhattan hotels are a good example. When the dollar was low and attracting all kinds of international visitors, hotels raised their rates but they didn't improve the product much. $400 a night for a pedestrian hotel room and you got bed bugs on top!

Or a lot of older hotels just drafted on the higher prices, charge $200-300 for hotels which haven't been renovated in at least 30 years.

That is why Airbnb found a captive market there.

Or think of it another way. Same reason Uber took off because of those crappy, smelly cabs which not only charged more but gave you poor service. So the only recourse medallion owners have is to get the city govt. to restrict Uber, which the city is only too happy to do since it sells the medallions.

Hotels probably bribe local politicians to get them to do their bidding, which is to block competition.

If the hotel stock is decent in NYC, even with high prices, Airbnb probably never would have gained as much traction as it did. Instead you check TA, Google, etc and the review scores are low.

I just stayed in central Amsterdam in high season for € 75, how can a double room be $400?

If we weren't able to stay with our daughter in NYC we would look at VRBO or AirBNB's. We have stayed in them twice in Long Island City/ Also stayed in a hotel in LIC as it was cheaper than Manhattan. The exchange rate from $ NZ to $US has dropped by 10 cents over the last few months. Make a huge difference in our travel budget.

Destination and resort fees are just big rip-offs. A resort fee in the middle of a city???

I find it interesting that you'd have gotten that far in AirBnB. I'm curious how you felt going in with the part where you create your account and having to scan in your drivers licence and additional forms of ID and all that? (Not that there aren't some less than ideal hosts.... it's just that you've always struck me as more than a little mistrustful towards internet sites and so I am surprised if you're referring to the actual AirBnB website)

Beyond that, I would not call your preferences an "assumption". You like what you like - no assumptions needed. And I wouldn't call the fact that property incurs its owners an expense to be an assumption either. I'm more talking about that you seemed to be assuming it was possible for someone to add on fees (like wi-fi) as an AirBnB host if they wished. Someone who'd used the site would likely know that's not possible.

Friends of ours recently rented their house out to a family for a year while they (the friends) were on sabbatical. Believe me, there were plenty of costs to the owners when they returned.
Same with friends who did a house trade on a teacher exchange with a couple from Australia.
I would never let strangers live in my house.

I think we're actually agreeing.

What I was asking about was that someone said that certain booking/consolidator sites had the fees so it was not a burden. From that, I assumed (because I've not been booking hotels in the states recently) that those sites must be presenting them up front.

Apparently that is not the case and a keystroke is needed to see the final cost? Which does seems simple enough if you're choosing by what hotel you want and then price.

But if you are using those sites for the purpose of price comparisons, it seems a lot harder. If you don't know what fees each hotel adds, if any, then how do you know which hotel to click on when the initial prices are meaningless?

The burden is having to click on *all* of them to really know the final cost basis for a true comparison.

GTG,
Mrs Z also refuses to allow anyone to stay at our home in our absence. By contrast, our neighbour seems to now be going full tilt with Air B&B renters at his place and is also apparently is about to buy the big house just down the street for presumably the same purpose. And my old work friend who lives nearby rents her place out same same, very single time that she travels, which is frequently.

I am done. The end.