I've posted before about the resort fees that are proliferating in a great many standard hotels. You check out of an urban property and learn that $20 a day has been added to your bill for a fitness room you never entered, for an in-room safe that remained untouched, for a coffee maker you never used. It's becoming more and more important to inquire as to whether the hotel plans such unanticipated fees, and then to demand that they not be charged as a condition of your rental.

Note, too, that cancellation charges have recently skyrocketed. Time was when you could cancel without penalty up until 24 hours in advance of arrival. At many hotels, that right will now require a full week's advance notice. Again, inquire in advance, and get some indication -- like an e-mail sent to your home address -- that reasonable cancellation penalties will be in effect.

And then there's the most recent ploy: fuel surcharges. As of next month, hotels in Jamaica (other than the Sandals properties, which have publicly and adamantly refused to impose them) will begin charging up to an extra $10 more per night to guests. The reason given is -- you got it -- because of rising energy costs.

I'm sorry, but $10 a day is mathematically excessive to me (and apparently was so regarded by the Sandals chain). Unless tourists are bringing their electric cars to Jamaica and charging them up using the bathroom outlets, there is little chance that anyone could use the equivalent of an additional $10 of electricity in a day's vacation.

And it gets worse. Just before Thanksgiving, many of the major cruise lines tacked on their own fuel surcharges, despite the fact that many guests had already agreed upon a lower price. The extra charge amounts to $5 to $7 per passenger per day. Multiplied out for a ship carrying 2,500 passengers on a week's cruise, the $7 fee comes to an additional $123,000 for the line, which seems greatly excessive. (I haven't actually seen the ledgers that would prove the need, but I doubt that the cruise ships, which are flagged internationally and don't have to open their books to American oversight, would be in a rush to show me what their accountants have concluded.)

Extra fees are usually a major sign of disrespect that a company has for its customers. They are an indication that the company you're dealing with sees you as a walking dollar sign and not as someone to be pleased by a superior product.

Such disrespectful treatment of consumers will bounce back to haunt the companies that deploy surcharges lightly.

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Labels: accommodations, cruises