LastMinute.com nasty surprise - hidden charge on Vegas holiday booking

LE100

Short version: the "Resort Fee" at my Vegas hotel turned out to be greater than the amount quoted at the time of booking and indicated in the confirmation email.

LastMinute.com are trying to fob me off by disputing the meaning of some poorly-phrased wording in the email. Their claims re what the email "clearly" says seem highly disingenuous.

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Been to Las Vegas four times before.
Went for my fifth trip this summer.

Booked two different hotels, both with LastMinute.com.

Received confirmation emails. As is standard in Vegas, you pay for your hotel up-front, but then have to pay an additional 'Resort Fee' at the hotel.

The confirmation emails from LastMinute read as follows (under the "You'll be asked to pay the following charges at the property" section) --

First hotel:

Please note there is a daily resort fee charged of USD 30.00 + tax upon checkin

Second hotel - just reads:

569.05 USD for Resort Fees/City Taxes are not included in the price and will be required to be paid directly at the hotel.

To me this reads as "the Resort Fee and/or City Tax come to a total of $569.05", although I acknowledge it's slightly ambiguous. Since there was no mention of "+ tax" as in the other email, I thought the figure included tax.

Arrive at second hotel in Vegas - they make us pay a resort fee of $645.24! They refused to complete our check-in until we paid the full resort fee up front.

That's $50.19 more than LastMinute said in the confirmation email.

Now I'm back from Vegas, I'm disputing this $50.19 with LastMinute. Appalled by their response and attitude - they have tried to fob me off completely:

I would like to inform you that resort fee is a kind of charge which is not included in the standard booking, it will be charged by the hotel depending on the terms and conditions.

The resort fee is collected separately from the advertised room rate. The hotel does also charge for few of the bookings a city tax as well. I am sorry to inform nothing can be done.

We request to please bear us in the meantime.

Obviously not satisfied with the above email response, which completely skirts around the issue that LastMinute misinformed me as to the correct Resort Fee figure payable, so I phoned their customer service line. After 10-15 mins on hold, finally I spoke to a human.

Got fobbed off again. The assistant just claimed that the department who sent the email had made their decision, and there was nothing he could do. No explanation as to why LastMinute had quoted an inaccurate Resort Fee. I didn't accept this, so I insisted on being transferred to his manager.

After a further ~8 minutes on hold, I spoke to a manager who patronised me, talked over me, and insulted my intelligence by trying to claim that the confirmation email was written "in simple English" and "clearly" states there will be an unspecified amount of City Tax payable on top of the specified Resort Fee.

It's hard to see his line of argument as anything but disingenuous when you look at the actual wording. He kept repeating the line from the email ("569.05 USD for Resort Fees/City Taxes are not included in the price") but putting a big pause where the slash is, as though it was a full stop followed by a new sentence!!

The "not included in the price" part does NOT refer to the City Taxes alone. What it means is: "Resort Fees and/or City Taxes, are not included in the up-front price" (the bit I paid on my credit card at the time of booking).

I don't see how LastMinute can defend this. If there is a resort fee of $569.05 and, ADDITIONALLY, some unspecified amount of City Tax, it needs to be made MUCH clearer at the time of booking and in the confirmation email.

If the resort fee had turned out to be $10,000 then clearly they wouldn't have a leg to stand on, but it doesn't mean they can fob me off just because the fee is "only $50" more!

Disgusted by the way they talked to me, and frankly stunned this is how LastMinute treat a customer who spent over £1400 GBP (not including Resort Fees) with them.

Quibbling over this $50.19 and trying to weasel out of their error seems incredibly short sighted, and the manager's attitude is an embarrassment to the company.

comeandgo

I read it as saying city taxes not included and would have expected a further charge.

Westin

The resort fees and the taxes upon them are something that lastminute.com have no control over. Their obligation is unfortunately only to let you know in advance that such charges and fees are payable to the hotel.

In the US there are also a multitude of taxes which can get levied on charges. The 'city tax' may well be different to the sales tax. Quite possible that the resort fee quoted has sales tax applied and the city tax is different and charged as a separate line but being grouped together in the wording.

The whole resort fee situation is in my opinion out of control in places like Las Vegas. The fees have been spiralling over recent years and as you found can be sizeable. As consumers however we have encouraged much of the issue with add on fees as we all shop on price and seek the lowest headline price. Room rate $49 plus resort fee, or room charge $79 - which places the hotel up the search rankings and which would most people then book?

Back to your case. This is not a charge that lastminute.com make or benefit from. They are also not a business known for their customer service (now part of the Bravofly organisation). Some other businesses might listen to your feedback and make adjustments to their errata message to make it clearer for future customers. I don't think LM fall into that camp of caring. I think that they have given their answer and that will be it.

The $50.19 is something I think you are fighting a pointless battle on.

bagand96

I agree with the others. The line is potentially open to interpretation. But the way taxes are applied in the US, barely anything includes tax and it's almost always added on top (you say you've been 4 times before so it shouldn't be a surprise to find some extra tax).


lastminute.com aren't making any money out of this, it's the hotel. The worst lastminute.com have done is have a slightly ambiguous phrase on their website.


To be honest in terms of the total cost of your trip, its not a huge amount, I'd write it off and move on with your life.


I'm surprised you're stunned and disgusted by lastminute's handling of it - they are hardly a beacon of fantastic service in the travel industry - and they've done far worse.

heatherw_01

I read it as you have to pay fees when you get there. IIRC almost all hotels in Vegas have a resort fee

vacheron

I agree that it is ambiguous. There are so many better ways it could have been written

• 569.05 USD for Resort Fees are not included in the price. City Taxes are not included in the price.
  
• Resort Fees totaling 569.05 USD and City Taxes are not included in the price.
  
• Resort Fees totaling 569.05 in addition to any City Taxes payable are not included in the price.

If an event stated that it costs £9.99 for wine/cheese wouldn't most people expect is that both wine AND cheese would be included in the cost!

Caz3121

LE100 wrote: »

Quibbling over this $50.19 and trying to weasel out of their error seems incredibly short sighted, and the manager's attitude is an embarrassment to the company.

you did not pay this to your agent (poor choice of agent by the way - I assume you realise they are part of Bravofly) they do not have the money to return to you and the money was due in any case
I would have thought the action between you and Bravofly/Lastminute was you providing feedback that their wording was unclear and you had interpreted it differently and they should probably reword it to make it clearer for their customers
If you search reviews you will find that excellent customer service (or even customer service) is not something they are known for

LE100

Thanks for all the replies.

comeandgo wrote: »

I read it as saying city taxes not included and would have expected a further charge.

Interesting...
On reflection, I agree that would seem to be one possible interpretation, but I find it more tenuous than the alternative interpretation.

I think you could make an objective argument to this effect, because the last part of the statement does clearly refer to everything prior:

569.05 USD for Resort Fees/City Taxes **are not included in the price and will be required to be paid directly at the hotel**.

Regardless of whether this means

{{569.05 USD for Resort Fees, plus an unspecified amount of City Taxes}}, are not included in the price and will be required to be paid directly at the hotel.

or

569.05 USD, {{for Resort Fees/City Taxes}}, are not included in the price and will be required to be paid directly at the hotel.

it is nevertheless certainly true that

{{The total amount of Resort Fees and/or City Taxes}} are not included in the up-front price and will be required to be paid directly at the hotel.

My point being that there is no interpretation where "...are not included in the price and will be required to be paid directly at the hotel" only applies to the City Tax, and thus no interpretation where the slash is a full stop.

An additional minor factor is the lack of space in between "Resort Fees/City Taxes", which again makes it look to me like "569.05 USD, {{for Resort Fees/City Taxes}}".

Moreover, I really don't think there WAS a "city tax". I think the Resort Fee was just more than they said it would be.

I have paid City Tax in places like Spain and Malta, but only ever (to my knowledge) paid Resort Fees in Vegas.

One thing I've gleaned is that there seems to be a consensus that LastMinute.com are bad! This is news to me, so 'live and learn'!

LE100

Just to be clear, I fully understand that LastMinute.com haven't directly profited from this $50.19, and at no point did I think they "have" the money to return to me, but I feel they have a duty to get the information right, and surely trade regulations mandate that they do not misinform customers as to precisely what they are buying and how much more they will have to pay.

Clearly the hotel itself is not going to refund the money, so my view is that one of the following statements is true:

1. The hotel provided the CORRECT resort fee information to LastMinute, but LastMinute made a mistake by failing to present accurate/unambiguous information to me.

2. The hotel made a mistake and presented INCORRECT resort fee information to LastMinute, and the incorrect info was passed on to me.

I don't really care whose mistake it is though, and as the 'reseller' LastMinute can't pass the buck. I'm caught in the middle, but if the hotel made a mistake then IMO LastMinute should give me the $50.19 and then seek to get it back from the hotel if they sincerely believe the hotel is in the wrong.

It's not quite true that LastMinute haven't profited from the confusion over the resort fee.

When I booked my holiday, I compared prices from several hotels and multiple bookings companies, and I factored in the resort fees. (I actually compiled a spreadsheet which took into account exchange rates and whether tax was included in the room charge / resort fee.)

It's anti-competitive to provide inaccurate or unclear information because customers can potentially use that (mis)information to choose one agent over another.

photome

Resort fees change frequently ( upwards) as you probably know as you have been a few times.

no agent would be responsible if the resort fees go up after you book, which is a possible reason for the extra, although it does read to me that it is plus tax.

Not sure why you would use that OTA though they are way down the list when it come s to customer service.

If you are planning another trip and you have signed up at the casinos it's possible you could get free or casinomrate rooms and beat any OTA , even if you aren't signed up it's often cheaper to book direct

Hermione_Granger

The unexpected payment of $50.19 works out to about £40.
Considering that you paid at least £1900 to OTH alone and probably a fair bit more in Vegas itself, is it really worth getting too wound up over this very small % of the overall holiday cost and then spending up to 23 minutes on the phone trying to resolve it?


You might be better off forgetting about the money, relaxing and then making sure that you leave a factual review or two on various travel forums.