Hotel unbundling continues, with one luxury hotel chain in Canada adding a mandatory “housekeeping surcharge” and “baggage fee” at one of its premier properties.
Luxury Hotel Adds Housekeeping Surcharge, Baggage/Porterage Fee
Check the fine print at the Fairmont Château Whistler and you might be very surprised:
Housekeeping Surcharge:
We will charge an additional mandatory daily Housekeeping Surcharge of $5.00 CAD per room, plus applicable taxes, for Housekeeping services, of which $4.50 CAD is a gratuity that is distributed to the housekeeping team and the remaining $0.50 CAD is retained entirely by the Hotel (and not distributed as wages, tips or gratuities to any Hotel employee). We will post the mandatory daily surcharge, plus applicable taxes, in the same billing arrangements manner as requested for applicable room and tax charges. This surcharge may change from time to time without notice.Baggage/Porterage Fee:
We will charge an additional mandatory Baggage/Porterage Fee of $7.00 CAD per person, plus applicable taxes, for Arrival and Departure days, of which $6.30 CAD is a gratuity that is distributed to the bell services team and the remaining $0.70 CAD is retained entirely by the Hotel (and not distributed as wages, tips or gratuities to any Hotel employee). This fee is applicable to all guests travelling on a chartered vehicle of 8 passengers or more.
Wow…so housekeeping is no longer included in your room?!
LB, the reader who sent me this, pushed back and was told that the housekeeping is indeed a mandatory fee at Fairmont Château Whistler and that while not every Fairmont charges this, it is passed on at other properties as well (I have not been able to find which other properties).
The bellmen gratuity is only mandatory if you arrive by a vehicle of eight or more passengers such as mini busses to motor coaches, which strikes me as much more reasonable than a fee to clean the room on top of the nightly room rate.
But really, if we are going to start seeing housekeeping fees separated, you really do have to wonder what is next?
Pillow fees?
Hot water fees?
Duvet fees?
Electricity fees? (oh, wait…)
How silly this all is…and this shows as well that the foolishness is not limited to the USA.
image: Fairmont Château Whistler
Scenic view fee would be appropriate here .
Can I decline housekeeping and the fee?
Dear Cy – I believe the word “mandatory” in the notice covers your question.
One could argue that the mandatory fee applies only if housekeeping is requested. Is housekeeping mandatory? Hotels have been making housekeeping optional. If one requests no housekeeping there should be no fee. Is it the housekeeping that is mandatory or the fee that is mandatory? If the latter, it should be dependent upon actually receiving housekeeping services.
I haven’t liked Fairmont for a long while. It’s a mediocre brand masquerading as luxury. The mountain resorts especially struggle with service as they benefit from limited competition and high demand. Only Fairmont I had an outstanding experience at was Vancouver Airport.
As I said before: supply and demand. If nobody books that hotel they will have to back off. Problem is that there are enough stupid people that will pay it so they will keep charging it.
@Santastico … if it was merely $ 5. , I would not mind . I am disabled and unfortunately require a lot of housekeeping services : eg., extra towels , water on bathroom floor , etc. Especially if it is in as nice a location as the photo .
The problem is when they mark up the fees over time , and add the resort fees , etc ., then they are gouging us .
I have a problem with extra fees and even more if mandatory. That is a scam. Charge me whatever you want but do it upfront meaning I know the price for the night and I agree with that price. Do not say the cost is X and then come with all this BS of extras that I have no control over it.
“As I said before: supply and demand. If nobody books that hotel they will have to back off. Problem is that there are enough stupid people that will pay it so they will keep charging it.”
The problem, Santastico, is that this will never happen, at least in the USA/Canada, thanks largely to the loyalty hamster wheel. The reality is, there are virtually zero repeat customers of these chain hotels that charge BS fees, or the mid-level Hyatts/Hiltons/Marriotts that provide an increasingly crappy product at a higher price as Matt highlighted the other day, that will actually stand up and take their business elsewhere. The committed Hyattist will justify spending more to stay in crappy Hyatt Regency properties despite the service cuts “because Globalist suite upgrades” or “because free Park Hyatt Paris breakfast”. The Hilton loyalists will justify staying in mediocre mid-range properties in NYC or DC in spite of the BS “destination fees” because – well, I’m not sure exactly, but I’m sure they’ll find a justification somewhere. The most loyal customers don’t hotels accountable, so why should they back off?
How long until Motel 6 charges for leaving the light on?
Motel 6 used to charge 75 cents extra for TV back in the day. They’d give you a key that you’d need to insert in the TV to turn it on.
Remember they had a color and b&w TV price
I like Fairmont and Whistler. And I used to leave a housekeeping tip per day. Now I need not to be bothered. Enough said.
As with all other services, any fee I cannot opt out of should not be itemized separately. What fees like this really say, is that they are lying about their prices.
As much as I hate government regulatory overreach, I do think we need a consumer protection law to specify that all advertised rates for all products and services must include all mandatory fees.
You say a room is $300, great that means I should be able to walk in and hand you $300 and get the room. No surprises, no reading the fine print, just truth in advertising.
The Canadian government has done this piecemeal, where in some sectors you must advertise the all-in price. But they have not gone far enough by just making it one single law encompassing all products and services as it should be.
On the bright side, they have flat out told you that you do not need to tip as they have already done so from your mandatory fees
Canada is a crazy country
Bottom line: If a free is mandatory, then it should be listed as part of the rate. That way, if they are miserable enough to charge for cleaning a room, when you are staying at 5 star hotel, they pay the social consequence., at it affect their BOTTOM LINE!!!
Are we to expect the return of WiFi fees any time soon?
I don’t care how they break down my fee, just tell me the truth – how much do I need to pay for the room?
After they clearly say this, if they really want to let me know how much is for the pool, housekeeping, taxes and lightbulb replacement – go ahead. Just start with the team price.
The law should require it, and in Europe it does.
Exactly. Same should apply for restaurants. Tell me upfront a pizza will cost me $50 when the bill arrives with all the BS fees added to it and let me decide if I want to pay that or not. I only go to restaurants in the US if it is a business meeting and I still read the website before and if there are stupid fees like health&wellness, hospitality BS, etc… I find another place to go. If everyone does the same these places will either change their behavior or shut down.
I wonder if this will now cover the salaries of the housekeepers? Will their base salaries be lower now because if this bogus fee, or will they make more money because of it?
so with some hotels stating they won’t provide daily housekeeping (i assume Fairmont does indeed provide it) but if they do not, then they could not charge you a fee for housekeeping that you never received.
If a fee is “mandatory”, then it should be advertised in the price. Anything else is bait-and-switch. Taxes are another matter in that it’s customary to advertise a price minus the taxes. I’d like to see a regulation that all-in prices be advertised on national media/search engines because at this point finding out about the taxes after booking is not helping to drive taxes down. As tourists we can’t “vote” on a tax being egregious and that’s why hotel and tourism taxes are so high: they fleece the tourists.
I wouldn’t mind some commie/socialist legislation in this regard, but they’re just as much in bed with the cronies as anyone else.
They’re running these small fees up the flagpole to see if they can raise them later. It won’t stay $5/day for housekeeping very long.
All of these housekeeping and resort fees (in hotels that are not when close to being resorts) are ridiculous and yet another example of corporate greed. I blame the entire MBA education system which currently teaches that shareholders are spend supreme and customers are a very distant second. The housekeeping fees (or in many cases, not providing it at all or only to elite members-eg Hyatt) are particularly egregious because these basically arose due to the pandemic. Before then, most hotels provided daily housekeeping because that is what a hotel provides. If I want to make my own bed, I (like many of my friends) would book a VRBO at better rate for more space. During the pandemic, hotels justified this as a way to limit contact – fair enough. Most of the big hotel groups in the US also received hundreds of millions of dollars in tax payer money to help them through the pandemic. Rather than thanking the taxpayers who floated them, they decided that the reduced housekeeping was a great way to increase their profit margins and customers be damned. Many- Hyatt, Marriott, etc- are doing this despite very high occupancy rates and higher room rates and not strongly are reporting higher than expected earnings. The government should step in and make hotels list the “real” price on all travel sites. All of us should probably try to avoid staying at hotels with these hidden fees or those that don’t provide “normal” hotel services or we will see this trend continue and all be far worse off for it. Just look at the airlines.