7 Shocking Hidden Hotel Fees
No one likes being nickel-and-dimed.
— -- No one likes being nickel-and-dimed, especially not by hotels. After you’ve already shelled out major bucks for your vacation, charging for extras like Wi-Fi can feel like adding insult to injury. Some fees are especially egregious, and we’ve encountered charges for everything from air-conditioning to towels to electricity. (Yes, electricity.) Here are the seven costs you probably never knew you had to watch out for.
1. Air-conditioning
This is just sneaky. Of course you’re going to pony up for air-conditioning on a hot day; no one wants to try to sleep in the sweltering heat. But once you’ve checked into your room and you’re drenched in sweat from lugging your bags in the hot sun, finding out it’s going to cost you to cool down is seriously cringe-inducing (and probably sweat-inducing, too). Watch out for this at the Samsara Cliff Resort & Spa in Negril, Jamaica.
2. Mini-fridges
At the GHT Oasis Park and Spa in Lloret de Mar, Spain, guests must pay extra to use their mini-fridges. Have some leftovers you want later and trying to avoid food poisoning? That’ll be about four euros a day, please. Or a tummy ache. Your choice
3. Safes
This just feels wrong to us. You shouldn’t have to pay extra money to protect your items from theft on vacation, in your own room! Though this seems especially common in European hotels, we’ve seen this around the world: at the Michelangelo Hotel on the Amalfi Coast (it’s a whopping 10 euros here), VIK Arena Blanca in the D.R and Bally’s in Las Vegas, just to name a few. Are these insurance companies or hotels?
4. Clean Pool Towels
If the hotel has a pool, one can assume the guests are going to need clean towels to dry off. So why not charge for them? That’s what they decided to do at Hotel Playadulce in Aguadulce, Spain. Pool towels are advertised as free, but you have to put down a deposit to use them, and then pay to swap them for clean ones. Better be willing to hold on to your damp, smelly towel if you’re on a budget.
5. Electricity
Who would have thought that you’d have to pay extra to turn the lights on? This is not the 19th century, people. We’re personally not fans of showering in the dark, ourselves. At Morritt’s Tortuga Club & Resort in Grand Cayman, each room has its own electricity meter, and guests have to pay for exactly what they use during their stay. We guess this will encourage guests not to be wasteful, at least, so we’ll almost give Morritt’s a pass for this in the name of eco-friendliness. Almost.
6. Linens
Staying at an apartment-style property might mean sacrificing a few typical hotel features, like a pool, sure. Daily housekeeping, OK, we can make do with weekly. But it should never, ever mean sacrificing sheets and bath towels. The apartments at the Residence Rivamare Ugento come with them, but if you want to actually use them — and we assume you don’t want to sleep on a bare mattress, or air dry in the shower — you may have to pay extra for the privilege here.
7. Toilet Paper
Free toilet paper in a hotel room that you’ve paid for should be a basic human right. But at some hotels in Brazil, like the King Albergue Hostel in Rio de Janeiro, you’ll have to cough up a few bucks to wipe your derriere.
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