Well, since I work in hotels, I understand why they do this.
It's not all hotels, only some. It depends how upscale they are, how big a city it is, how important the parking is within the city, etc.
For example, people tend to desparately look for parking in places like Vegas, New Orleans, Anaheim, and New York. It's in very high demand with very few spaces. So hotels, etc, charge for parking. It puts more money in their pockets and discourages people from bringing vehicles that clog up the relatively few parking spaces they have.
It's also partly a money grab, I'll admit it. To the consumer, its a horrid thing to do. To the person offering it, its more money in their pockets.
People tend to complain alot more about services because they don't understand the why's behind the things they do. It's also harder to quantify services.
Every night I have people complain about paying as low as $55 (
AAA, CAA rate. The highest rate for one bed is $63 which is the rack rate. If your not here for business and have no card that grants you a discount, you will get the highest rate) a night for a room. Our lowest rate is $49 (truckers rate, one person, one bed) and it is a sign that is offered outside the building. People get very angry when they realize that its not offerred to everyone.
How dumb do you think we would have to be to offer everyone the lowest rate in the hotel? Some people even have the gaul to think that it should be offered with a room with 2 beds, even though they have 4 people and a dog with them. The $49 rate is almost our break rate. Thats why rates start at that and go up and rack rate is a little less than $20 higher. The hotel is in this to make money. It's not there for the guests pleasure. If the hotel can't make money, there is no reason for it to be in business.
It doesn't work the way people tend to want it to.
Most hotels offer immenities and things that ARE free (such as a pool) but they do need to make money somehow. Just because the customer thinks its high doesn't actually mean it is.
For example.... each night, it costs my hotel (which is only 100 rooms, I can't imagine how much it must cost if there were 1000) $5000 ($1000 goes on water alone, never mind the rest), wage costs, resources (things like food to sell in the restaurant), etc. That's basic running cost. So say that last night, we made $1582 because we gave everyone the lowest rate, didn't charge for any extras (which we don't. You get a free paper, and if you need it free toothbrushes and the like, and yes you get free parking). Considering that leaves a little over $3000 in bills to be paid, you can see how if this continued for a long time, we'd be shut down very quickly for lack of funds.
A hotel is NOT trying to be cruel to you by charging $6 a day for parking. They are trying to keep things up to a standard so they can offer all immenities that the guests like so much.
Of course, the rates must be reasonable (and why are you complaining about $6? It's pocket change), but that doesn't mean they should be free.
Now, if you don't want to pay for things like a minibar, talk to the desk. They will be happy to remove it and you won't have a fridge. See its a toss up, want the fridge or not? It costs money to buy those fridges (I've seen them trashed. Saw a screw driver shoved through it once by a guest and he thought he shouldn't have to pay for the damage because it was an accident) and it costs money for their upkeep.
As for long distance, when on vacation guests tend to make alot of phone calls and most of them are long distance. Calling it free is idiotic of course, but what it actually means is that anything beyond $15 is free. It's not a bad deal but long distance bills can run very high. Telus charges 57 cents a minute in Alberta to call to the United states. If a guest talked for a half hour, the money is gone. However, we don't ask for money unless you didn't give us a credit card. We are NOT going to pay for your long distance charges. If you paid in cash, we ask for a $20 deposit on the Long Distance. If you paid in Credit card, we charge it to your card to make sure that our long distance bill gets paid. It's reasonable.
The reason you are not told of the costs on the phone is because the hotels know you will leave. BUT they WILL tell you the extra costs on the phone if you just ASK them if there are extra charges.
Be a smart consumer. ASK!
Made me angry. It was like they purposely only put in a very small amount of parking so that people would be forced to use valet.
That's the way it should be.
