Junk fees added onto services have reached incredibly obnoxious levels. When you stay at a hotel, rent a car, buy concert or sports tickets, or pay a utility bill, you are being smacked with all kinds of extra fees, many of which seem to make little sense or seem extraneous.
Resort fees are the most hated of all fees, and they appeared in the mid-2000s. Now they're extremely commonplace, especially in large cities. They were originally conceived to screw travel agents (as these are non-commissioned), but eventually the morphed into their primary purpose being to trick consumers using hotel price search engines. Almost every hotel in Las Vegas has a resort fee, with some over $50 per night. These fees are also taxable, as well.
Joe Biden has decided to declare war on junk fees. He's going after 5 types of fees:
1) Resort fees: These are tacked onto hotel rooms, and are not optional. They do not show up when you search for hotel prices online, making it tough to comparison shop.
2) Online ticket fees: Popularized by the dreadful TicketMaster, these fees are a way for the ticket broker to make additional money, and are also not disclosed when searching ticket prices online.
3) Early termination fees: Some cell phone, cable, and internet providers will put you on a contract, and there's a substantial fee for early termination. A few will even attempt to hit you with a "disconnect fee" even if you're not on a contract! The company providing my home phone in Vegas did this to me about 10 years ago, and I told them to eat shit. But those are still relatively uncommon, while early termination fees are very common.
4) Family seating fees on airlines: Some airlines, especially discount ones, charge you to select your seats. If families with children want to sit together, they are often forced to pay up, even though airlines are generally expected by law to do their best to make sure families sit together.
5) Credit card late fees: These are a huge moneymaker for banks. Most are around $39. Biden wants these set to a maximum of $8.
So how do I feel about this?
Believe it or not, I have mixed feelings. I think transparent pricing is what we need, and most of Europe already has a law against these type of fees (including auto-tips). However, the consumer is not going to see lower prices as a result of #1-#3 above.
Why?
Resort fees are not an extra charge. The hotel is simply chopping some money off the price they're charging, and moving it to the resort fee. So a $70 room with a $50 resort fee is really a $120 room. If resort fees are made illegal, they will simply charge $120 for the room! However, this does help the consumer comparison shop for hotel prices, and also prevents surprise billing.
Online ticket fees, like resort fees, are simply a way to hide a ticket's true price. However, if made illegal, just like the resort fees, the cost will be rolled into the base ticket price.
Early termination fees should NOT be eliminated. This is a mistake by Biden. There's nothing wrong with early termination fees, if you're getting a really good deal on the front end. If these are made illegal, companies will stop offering great up-front deals, knowing you could bounce after a month and cost them a lot of money. Making these illegal will actually HURT the smart consumer. The only termination fee which should be illegal is a disconnect fee, like the one I was charged in Vegas while not on any contract.
The "family seating on airlines fees" are inconsequential because you can just book seats without paying extra, and then ask people on the plane to switch with you. You'll almost always find willing people to do this. I suppose it's kinda nice to not have to do that, but this really isn't going to save the average consumer money.
The credit card late fee thing is the only one which will really help consumers, as the obnoxious $39 late fees are simply a money grab, and an $8 fee is much more reasonable. However, note that as long as you're not late too often, you can always talk yourself out of that fee by simply saying the statement never arrived.
Additionally, Biden is only SUGGESTING to Congress to pass the above laws. It is likely no action will even get taken. The one exception is the credit card fee situation, as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is about to actually force banks to adhere to the $8 maximum.
Here's a good article explaining the whole thing more in depth: https://viewfromthewing.com/presiden...g-will-change/
The article also notes that obnoxious rental car fees will still remain, as Biden doesn't seem concerned about those for some reason.
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Originally Posted by Dan Druff
