These inflationary times making ends meet have become difficult for many. Prices on everything have gone up. Covering life’s essential costs such as food, rent, mortgages, utilities and health care leave little finances left for leisure activities. Making it even more inaccessible are the service charges that are added to the bill.
A service charge is a fee collected to pay for services that relate to a product or services that are being purchased. For instance you book a hotel room for $250. a night, and in addition there is a resort fee for $50. a night. Resort fees can be for use of the pool, exercise room, lounge chair, or parking. Hotels do not have to show these charges when booking. This could be an unpleasant surprise at checkout.
If you’re wondering, is there any way to avoid resort fees when booking a hotel? The answer is yes and no. If the hotel you are booking charges a resort fee, then the answer is no. Even if you don’t plan on using the amenities you still pay the fees.
There are hotels or motels that do not charge resort fees, but that takes some research. You can go on resortfeechecker.com, to look up hotels in the United States. Another resource is nerdwallet.com, which can tell you which hotels have the highest and lowest resort fees. if you use reward points from an affiliated charge card, then the fee may be eliminated. Before you book, it is a good idea to call the hotel directly to get the exact cost of your stay.
Another alternative is to stay at an Airbnb. The overall cost is generally less than staying at a hotel, but Airbnb has their own set of service charges. I booked a home for a week last summer in Rhode Island for my family. Here is a breakdown of charges. The overall cost was $4,025, cleaning fee $125, service fees $585.88 and occupancy taxes and fees $332. The total $5,067.88 is $1042.88 over the published price. Airbnb charges service fees to both the hosts and the guests.
If you have to fly to your travel destination, then be ready for a bunch of service fees. On a recent flight going from NYC to Fort Lauderdale the fare was reasonable at $518.60 for two people. Then we added seats both ways and that was another $270. taxes and fees $98.50 for a grand total of $887.10. This doesn’t include additional bag fees. Airfares and hotels have gone up in price to cover losses from the pandemic. Between these increases and service charges it is becoming too expensive for families to travel.
Other service fees that we all incur are food delivery, banks, utilities, and ticket purchases. Banks may call their fees, maintenance, or checking fees. What are the banks maintaining, other than using their clients money to make more money? On a recent Grubhub order of $52 in food had a 10% service charge and my tip which was $12 plus tax, the end total $75. Utilities are probably the biggest service fee offenders. My energy bill was charged $530 in delivery fees. This is more than half of my bill which is $989.
There was a controversy when Taylor Swift tickets went on sale through Ticketmaster. Part of the problem was in distribution, the other issue was the incredibly high service charges on the tickets. This makes even the cheaper seats out of reach for Swift’s young fans. I bought Sting tickets for a special occasion in Las Vegas. The ticket face price was $394. The service charge was $89. per ticket. Almost 25% above the face, which is quite excessive. Live Nation owns Ticketmaster, which has brought up the discussion of is this a monopoly? What exactly is the service that they’re giving us? They list and email you the tickets. Hardly, warranting a 25% service fee.
There is a push from the federal government to get rid of what they call Junk Fees. Unfortunately, this is not going to save us any money. The bill requires that service fees should be shown upfront. This might cause more confusion. If airlines include the baggage and seat fees in the base fare, then people might pay for something they don’t want or need.
What is important is that we as consumers should complain about these charges. It’s understandable for businesses to raise prices to make up for losses during Covid 19. However, then it would be considerate to cut back on these service charges that don’t even go toward service. There has to be some realization that service charges could be counter productive to luring in consumers. Cut out the service fees! WTH
2 thoughts on “WTH- Service Charges”
My provider of cable TV/internet/land line telephone, bills monthly. Despite no change in services, the billed amount varies monthly because of changing third party fees such as from the county, town, FCC, networks, etc. Hard to budget when there’s no set monthly charge.
My cable TV vendor, who has a monopoly in my development, also provides my WIFI and land line phone service. From one month to the next, my bill is never the same. The vendor claims it’s not their doing, rather it’s third party, specifically changing government fees that attach to one or another of their three services. Slick way to avoid blame.