Lessons From Las Vegas Sunday Wrap Up Magistere Finance

19
Jan

Lessons From Las Vegas Sunday Wrap Up

This Week’s Money Tip: Visiting Las Vegas for a few days to see a friend made it readily apparent that hotels here have found a wonderful way to make their hotel prices seem much less expensive than they really are. Hidden fees come in all shapes in sizes. Most people are aware of the hidden fees that airlines charge, bank accounts and numerous other products that are used on a fairly regular basis. One hidden fee that people may not be so familiar with are hotel resort fees. When traveling to destinations such as Las Vegas, hotels often will have a “resort fee” that is charged on a per night basis in addition to what your hotel room cost. The fee supposedly covers some of the hotel ammenities, but in many cases those ammenities are what you would assume would be part of your hotel room cost anyway. Basically, resort fees are a way for a hotel to advertise a cheap price and make up the money through a not so transparent fee.

For example, if you try to book a hotel room in Las Vegas off one of the many Internet hotel comparisons sites, the hotels that appear in the listings as least expensive are often not when the resort fee is added in. In fact, they can often be much more expensive if you aren’t careful. The problem is that the Internet comparison site doesn’t collect this fee so the price you pay to reserve the room isn’t what it will actually cost you. Although the comparison sites do show a link that tells you what the resort fee is, this isn’t always readily apparent. The other issue is that resort fees aren’t the same for all hotels — each hotel can set theirs and it can range from $5 to over $20 a night.

That means when you see a hotel advertised for $40 a night, it can actually be a much better deal than one that is advertised for $30 a night if the $40 a night hotel doesn’t charge a resort fee. Hotels are beginning to understand the frustration of travelers that booked hotel rooms only to find that they are being charged resort fees on top of the room rate. There are now signs (like the one above) where hotels are actively advertising that they do not charge the resort fee.

In the end, you need to be very careful when booking a hotel room in Las Vegas. Be sure that what you believe is great deal really is one, and it’s not one that appears to be great only to fall far short when the resort fee is added in.

Money Carnival Weekend Reading

Carnivals are a weekly round-up of articles that have been written by bloggers on specific topics over the last week. The following are some money related carnivals that might be of interest which went up over last week:

Carnival of Personal Finance hosted by Diva in Debt.
Yakezie Carnival hosted by Prairie Eco Thrifter.
Canadian Finance Carnival hosted by Canadian Finance Blog.
Totally Money Carnival hosted by Family Money Values.
Festival of Frugality hosted by The Frugal Toad.
Carnival of Financial Camaraderie hosted by My University Money.
Carnival of Retirement hosted by Retire by 40.
Self Directed Investing for Retirement Carnival hosted by Arbor Investment Planner.

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