If you stay at the Hyatt Centric Sacramento, you will notice an extra line item of $17.43 per day on your folio that the hotel describes as a “historical commitment fee” to underwrite the historical preservation of the (modern) hotel.
“Historical Commitment Fee” At Hyatt Centric Sacramento
In 2018, Hyatt took over a historic downtown Sacramento hotel called the Hotel Marshall on the corner of Seventh and L streets that had become rundown and neglected. Over the next three years, the hotel was remodeled with a new structure added above the historic structure. The new hotel boasts to be a mix of modernity with historic roots.
When booking the Hyatt Centric Sacramento you will note the following warning:
Historical Commitment/Destination Fee: A daily historical commitment/destination fee of $15.00 plus tax (subject to change) is applied to every room of your stay as part of our commitment to preserving the property’s historical identity and to provide the following services and amenities, which enhance the guest experience. Please contact the hotel directly for more information. Click here to view all inclusions Valet Parking is temporarily unavailable. Please reach out to the front desk with any further questions.
If you click on that link above, you’ll see that it comes with the following benefits:
A daily historical commitment/destination fee of $15.00 plus tax (subject to change) is applied to every room of your stay as part of our commitment to preserving the property’s historical identity and to provide the following services and amenities, which enhance the guest experience. Please contact the hotel directly for more information.
- Welcome Drink- Prohibition Punch
- 20% Disc Crocker Art Museum Admission
- BOGO Admission Sac History Museum
- 2 Free Games- Flat Stick Pub
- Free App- Punch Bowl Social
- Beach Hut Deli 10% off or free chips & fountain drink (purchase of large sandwich)
- Medici Pizza 10% off
- Tru Spa $30 off treatment of $120 or more
- $5 off Dry Cleaning
I’m not seeing anything concerning historical preservation, are you?
A Globalist reader tells Live And Let’s Fly:
Sacramento Hyatt Centric unique “Historic Preservation Fee” took some arguing to have it removed and a manager to do it. They tried to argue that this did not qualify for globalist benefit as it’s not a resort or destination fee but rather to assure the historic preservation of the building. I asked if this is imposed by the city as a tax and they said no. I pushed that given this fact it is nothing more than a resort fee disguised. She wouldn’t take it off until calling a manager who relented.
Top-tier World of Hyatt Globalists members are entitled to have resort fees waived. But over time these “resort” fees have morphed well beyond resorts to include a wide range of hotels and been re-classified as “destination” fees. Here, it is not surprising (or unique) that this $17.43/day fee includes a laundry list of amenities that most guests do not need. The surprising thing is that there is nothing said about what portion of that fee, if any at all, goes toward the historical preservation of the property.
And of course, building maintenance has always been considered as part of the package. It is absurd that a hotel wants to break this out as a separate charge.
A $273/night rate becomes $335/night with all the taxes and fees added (including an occupancy tax, tourism tax, tourism assessment, infrastructure fee from the City of Sacramento, and the aforementioned destination fee):
It’s time for mandatory all-in pricing at US hotels and time for an end to scam “destination fees” unless every guest has the option of opting out of them.
image: Hyatt
Geez, they don’t even try to hide it in the price summary! If you’re going to paint it as something other than a resort fee, you might want to be consistent when you print the bill. Is it waived if your room is in the rather ugly and clashing modern addition?
I have noticed that, regardless of the chain, many of these fees originate in either Las Vegas or the Bay Area. There must be something to the economics of both areas that encourages these fees.
It’s spreading well beyond Vegas and Bay Area. Hawaii has had resort fees for a bit and I recently came across “destination fees” at Hyatt properties in Washington DC and in New Orleans. Junk fees – shameless cash grab.
There was no historic preservation anyway. They kept two sides of the original building, and only the brick facade at that. The hotel is 99% new construction.
https://livinginurbansac.blogspot.com/2019/10/hyatt-centric-hotel.html
Wow. I’m not surprised.
Up next: ‘toilet paper use fee’, ‘toilet flush fee’, ‘use of bed pillow fee’ and ‘tv remote sanitizing fee’ ! One more: ‘lightbulb / lighting recovery fee’.
Pretty clear the technique being used here. By calling it an Historical Commitment Fee I am sure that most will be confused that it is some sort of city assessment (unless they dig to read more) when checking out and seeing it listed amongst all the local taxes. Much like city convention center fees etc that cities impose as a room tax. It’s amazing to what lengths hotels will go to grab these extra charges. It’s becoming almost a comical game of wording and spin. Are they really that desperate?
Just corporate greed. It’s the American way.
Ok, its at this point that there should be transparent pricing legislation to put an end to this. Clearly, hotel companies are abusing the concept of fees to advertise materially lower prices than what customers have to pay at check-out. Anything cost/fee/price that is mandatory must be in the advertised headline price.
100
Not as if they are always publishing cheaper rates with it. I was looking at this Hyatt Centric out of curiosity (though Matthew gave one rate example) and there are many nights, most likely during city-wide conventions, that verged on $500 a night. That fee still lists during these higher rate periods.
This is a simple example of how broken our Federal Government is. Price transparency is a simple issue that is probably supported by 80%+ of Americans. Conservatives should like it because it supports free market choice, while liberals should like it because it fights corporations trying to screw consumers. The fix is neither complicated or controversial (the advertised price must include all taxes and fees). Nevertheless, it seems highly unlikely that we will see any meaningful Federal action on this issue in the foreseeable future. If they can’t handle simple issues such as this, good luck with the hard stuff.
The argument goes from the free market side is that the consumers should be made aware of the impact of taxation so they can reach out either to the politicians and vote accordingly or with their “dollars” and refuse to go to those locations. It sounds great, in theory, and does work in certain cases such as the sales tax that we see on nearly every business receipt where we live hence attempts to raise it become major political battles. With hotel and rental car taxes, it’s the out-of-towners that get hit so there’s little sympathy from the locals who see it as a great cash grab to avoid raising their own taxes.
So the addition of taxes to hotel/rental cars has been a popular sort of tax up to now and “resort fees” slid onto that stack. The camel got his nose under the tent by being able to add the taxes after the “base” price so why not slide in other fees as well? They are TWO different things, granted, so federal regulation is quite appropriate at least with the junk fees which are arbitrarily set by the resort rather than by the taxing authority across all hotels.
Of course, we assume that “free market” business and even “progressives” would be against hotels/rental cars bait-and-switching out-of-towners, but the grease money is spread bi-partisan by the special interest lobbies. Matt doesn’t like these fees and neither do we, but lobbyists and PACs funded by hotels and rental car firms “speak” louder.
Disgusting!! I simply ignore hotels that come with BS fees. That’s why I only spend my summer vacations in Europe. There is no BS on prices. You expect VAT and that’s it.
I believe it is against the law in the European Union to tag on resort and other fees you see in the US and Asia. The price of the room must include all mandatory fees in the EU.
The Biden administration wants to change how these fees are presented in the US to be more in line with the EU. But the Biden administration is getting push back from Republicans who are only interested in regulating drag queens, women’s bodies, and deregulating machine guns. Big surprise….
Guns > resort fees. We might need them someday. Like Ukraine.
https://i.postimg.cc/nrb0fQQZ/IMG-6014.png
@ Matthew — Now I want to stay here just so I can watch FCQ refuse to pay this rip-off fee.
I boycott any hotel that charges a “resort” or “destination” fee. The only way this BS ends is if enough people join me in tilting at these windmills.
If this is true, it’s disgraceful. Hotels charge enough as it is and any renovations, etc., should come out if their hefty profits.
Guests will be charged to flush the toilet next.
Visitors to the area should vote with their feet and walk to another hotel….
Be sure you leave them a bad review on TripAdvisor or wherever. If enough people do that, hopefully they’ll change their greediness.
Thanks for the heads up. I was about to make a booking at this property. It’s a lovely hotel, great staff and very convenient for any event at the Golden 1 Center. I’m happy to walk a few blocks down the street to the Hyatt Regency. Let them keep their lame disguised resort fee. Not worth an argument for $17. I’ll just take my business elsewhere.
I am familiar with a Hawaii resort property where the condos are individually/privately owned. Most owners stay a month or two in the winter and rent their units out the rest of the year. When it comes time for improvements in common area, the owners vote to increase the resort fees a few dollars. So the plumbing or roof repairs or parking lot paving is passed on to their renters.
This property leaves a lot to be desired. The breakfast is pretty darn good. However, be weary of having a room near their outdoor bar. On weekends the noise was incredibly loud and the FD didn’t warn us about the late night music. Nothing wrong with the bar itself but staff should disclose to guests where they are being placed. And at the time I was a Globalist too for what that is worth. The location of the hotel is where this property shines if you want to be close to Golden 1.