Companies use drip pricing to overcharge consumers

Re:Companies use drip pricing to overcharge consumers by imroot on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @06:24PM (#34512107)

Hotels are horrible for this.

This is what my itemized stay was for a single night:

2023-01-18 * Residence Inn

    expenses:travel:marriott         171.00 USD

    expenses:taxes:salestax:tx        10.26 USD

    expenses:taxes:salestax:tx:plano  11.97 USD  ; city hotel tax

    expenses:fees:recovery             1.28 USD  ; tax recovery fee

    expenses:fees:recovery             2.13 USD  ; parking recovery fee

    expenses:taxes:salestax:tx          .18 USD  ; taxes on parking recovery fee.

    assets:checking                 -196.82 USD  ; date: 1/20

A $2.13 "Parking Recovery Fee" is charged to cover the expense in building their parking garage...and then, they charge me another sales tax on top of the parking recovery fee, then charging me a recovery fee because they need to recover the credit card fees charged on the city and state sales tax items.

Resort fees are also becoming more and more common, even in hotels that shouldn't need a "resort fee" -- if I'm staying at an Embassy Suites in the middle of nowhere, Iowa, why do I need to pay a resort fee?

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Re:Companies use drip pricing to overcharge consumers by version_five on Tuesday January 24, 2023 @06:55PM (#34512384)

I once had a hotel charge me a $30 per night "urban fee" - literally it was called that- on top of the advertised nightly rate. It was for work travel so I just payed it. I emailed them (I know pointlessly) to tell them I was never coming back (it was a hotel i used to go to a lot) and they just ignored me. Imo it's criminal, and it also looks pathetic for the companies doing it.

I have a company, and if I charged made-up fees to my clients after quoting them a price, they'd tell me to get lost and I'd lose your business. You can always tell who has inappropriate market power

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Re:Companies use drip pricing to overcharge consumers by iceTA on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @05:01AM (#34516519)

Ah, a fellow (h)ledger/beancount user :)

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Re:Companies use drip pricing to overcharge consumers by jen20 on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @09:10AM (#34518409)

> why do I need to pay a resort fee?

Two reasons, neither of which is acceptable in my mind:

1: to reduce the price shown in aggregator websites (as the original article talks about)

2: to enact a stealth reduction in the value of points, since you cannot stay simply by redeeming them.

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