You’ve found what looks like the perfect hotel deal online. The advertised rate seems too good to pass up. You click through, enter your payment information, and right before checkout, boom. The price jumps by thirty or forty bucks a night. Welcome to the world of resort fees, one of the travel industry’s most frustrating practices that’s been quietly inflating your hotel bills for years.
These sneaky charges have become so widespread that regulators finally stepped in. Here’s what you need to know.
What Exactly Are Resort Fees and Why Do Hotels Love Them?
Resort fees, also known as facility fees, destination fees, or service fees, are mandatory charges piled on top of a hotel’s room rate. A resort fee is an additional fee that a guest is charged by an accommodation provider, usually calculated on a per day basis, in addition to a base room rate. Hotels claim these fees cover amenities like WiFi, gym access, pool towels, and local phone calls. The catch? You pay whether you use these services or not.
NerdWallet found that the average U.S. resort fee in early 2023 was about $42.41 per night (roughly 11% of the room cost). In certain destinations, especially Las Vegas, the fees can soar even higher. Major Las Vegas properties charge between $37 and $50 per night in resort fees, with some premium hotels like the Bellagio and Aria charging $50 plus tax.
Hotels prefer this pricing strategy because it allows them to advertise lower room rates while still maximizing revenue. When you’re comparison shopping and see a room for ninety dollars a night, it looks more attractive than one listed at one hundred and thirty dollars, even if the total ends up identical after fees. Advertising a room without including the resort fee in the price enables the hotel to advertise a lower room rate than the actual price of the room.
The Legal Battle Against Hidden Fees Is Finally Here
Beginning May 10, 2025, U.S. hotels and short-term rentals must display all mandatory charges, such as resort or cleaning fees, at the start of the booking process. The Federal Trade Commission’s Junk Fees Rule requires that businesses clearly and conspicuously disclose the true total price inclusive of all mandatory fees whenever they offer, display, or advertise any price of live-event tickets or short-term lodging. This represents a massive shift in how hotels can advertise their prices.
California’s SB 478 was signed by Governor Newsom in October 2023 and became effective July 1, 2024. California already enacted laws that went into effect in July 2024, requiring all extra costs to be incorporated into advertised prices in certain industries, including hotel resort fees. Several states have taken action even before the federal rule. In May 2023, the Texas Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Hyatt Hotels for violating Texas consumer protection laws by marketing hotel rooms at prices that were not available to the public as advertised, and reached settlements with Marriott International to ensure proper disclosure of resort fees.
According to the American Hotel and Lodging Association, only 6 percent of hotels nationwide charge a mandatory resort/destination/amenity fee, at an average of $26 per night, though a 2018 report found that hotels collect nearly $3 billion a year in fees and surcharges on top of nightly rates.
Where Resort Fees Hit Hardest
Not all destinations are created equal when it comes to these extra charges. Las Vegas hotels are notorious for their high resort fees that are tacked onto the nightly room rate. It’s pretty common to find rooms advertised for bargain prices, only to discover the resort fee costs more than the room itself. At places like Excalibur, inexpensive rooms for as little as $35 per night exist, but the nightly resort fee is likely to cost more than the room on those inexpensive nights, more than doubling your actual price paid.
Hawaii presents another challenge. Resort fees can be a bummer, especially when you travel somewhere like Honolulu, where every hotel seems to have one. Beach destinations throughout the Caribbean and Mexico have also adopted this practice. Meanwhile, some luxury properties push the limits entirely. The nightly resort fee at Dorado Beach, a Ritz-Carlton Reserve property in Puerto Rico, is $150 – more than many hotel rooms cost.
Interestingly, resort fees aren’t limited to actual resorts anymore. You might notice resort fees at properties you wouldn’t consider a resort, like hotels in big cities like New York City, where they get away with it by calling it a destination fee, but it’s basically the same thing. Urban hotels have caught on to this revenue trick.
Smart Strategies to Avoid Paying Resort Fees
One of the easiest ways to avoid resort fees is by booking an award stay, as many hotels will waive the resort fees on stays booked with points, with Hyatt and Hilton always waiving resort fees when you book a room with points. This alone can save you roughly forty to sixty dollars per night at many properties.
Elite status with certain hotel chains offers another escape route. If you’re a Hyatt Globalist member, you’ll enjoy waived resort fees on all stays, and this top tier status comes with lots of other benefits, like room upgrades and free breakfast. MGM Rewards can help you avoid resort fees with Gold status and higher, and conveniently, World of Hyatt Explorist and Globalist status match to Gold in the MGM Rewards program.
Some travelers take a more direct approach. While many hotels claim their resort fees are mandatory, that’s not necessarily true, and guests can take a stand against paying these surcharges. One strategy that sometimes works is to simply ask not to pay the resort fee, especially if you’re not going to use the included amenities or if something is unavailable for some reason, though this “ask nicely” strategy obviously doesn’t always work. If the gym is closed or the WiFi doesn’t work during your stay, you have legitimate grounds to request a refund.
One option is to dispute the charge with your credit card company, as no credit card company believes their customers should be subject to such travel scams. Another option is filing a consumer complaint with the attorney general of the state where the hotel is located or your home state if you booked your stay online, as many people have successfully gotten back their resort fees this way.
The Future of Resort Fees
The FTC estimates that the Junk Fees Rule will save consumers up to 53 million hours per year of wasted time spent searching for the total price for live-event tickets and short-term lodging, with this time savings equivalent to more than $11 billion over the next decade. That’s a staggering number that shows just how much confusion these pricing tactics have caused.
The new regulations don’t ban resort fees outright. Hotels can still charge them. The FTC was clear that the hotel junk fees rule does not prohibit any type or amount of fee, but rather it requires hotels to disclose the final price of a stay upfront, including all mandatory fees and charges. What changes is when and how prominently you see the true cost.
Let’s be real, resort fees have frustrated travelers for decades. The practice felt like a bait and switch because it was one. Now that transparency is legally required, comparison shopping becomes genuinely useful again. You can finally see which hotel actually offers the best value without doing mental math at checkout.
The power is shifting back to you as a consumer. Armed with knowledge about how resort fees work, where they’re most common, and which strategies help you avoid them, you’re better equipped to navigate hotel bookings. Whether you choose to book with points, negotiate at the front desk, or simply select properties that don’t charge these fees, you have options. What’s your take on this whole resort fee situation? Have you ever successfully gotten one waived?
