Absurd travel rules that should be jettisoned

Return your rental car early without being charged more
Common sense tells you that if you return a rental car early, you should get a partial refund on your bill. But common sense doesn’t necessarily apply to the travel industry. For example, Alamo Rent A Car, not only charges a $15-per-day early-return fee, but it also recalculates your rate, charging you the same price that walk-up customers pay to rent a car without prior reservation. (In one case, that added $361 to one customer’s bill).

Now, I can understand charging a nominal early-return fee and likening it to a restocking fee charged by stores. But asking for more money for less of a product? That’s travel industry logic, but it doesn’t fly with travelers. Time to junk that rule.

Not pay a hotel’s resort fee
I’ve never met a hotel guest who likes paying a mandatory resort fee, which is a surcharge that covers little extras like beach towels, in-room coffeemakers and exercise equipment. The fees can add anywhere from 10 to 20 percent to the cost of your room. Hotels are not always up-front about the surcharges. Instead of quoting them as part of the room rate, they wait until after you’ve asked for a price, and then say, “Oh, by the way ... there’s a $15 a day resort fee. Here’s the real room rate.” In some cases, they wait until you’ve checked in to tell you about it. Not very sporting of them.

Charging extra for amenities that should be included in the hotel room is ludicrous. But not nearly as ludicrous as forcing every guest to pay for these amenities, whether they use them or not. The most-forward looking hotels have already either scrapped their resort fees or made them optional. Call me old-fashioned, but I think resort fees should take a permanent vacation.

This is just the top of a very long list of senseless, anti-customer rules imposed by the travel industry. You probably have a few of your own. (I’ll admit, I found picking just five wasn’t easy.)

Next time you run into a rule that doesn’t make sense, don’t be afraid to ask “why”? If enough people do, the travel industry might actually start listening.

I’ll be taking a closer look at what makes the travel business tick in a new weekly column that will appear here. Your comments are always welcome, and if you can’t get enough of my column, drop by my blog for daily insights into the world of travel.

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