{"id":23357,"date":"2023-06-21T21:30:26","date_gmt":"2023-06-21T21:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/06\/21\/marriott-faces-guest-lawsuit-over-junk-fees-at-los-angeles-hotels-the-points-guy\/"},"modified":"2023-06-21T21:30:26","modified_gmt":"2023-06-21T21:30:26","slug":"marriott-faces-guest-lawsuit-over-junk-fees-at-los-angeles-hotels-the-points-guy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2023\/06\/21\/marriott-faces-guest-lawsuit-over-junk-fees-at-los-angeles-hotels-the-points-guy\/","title":{"rendered":"Marriott faces guest lawsuit over \u2018junk fees\u2019 at Los Angeles hotels – The Points Guy"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Nobody likes those random extra fees that go by various names \u2014 resort fees, destination fees, amenity fees or urban fees, just to mention a few of the monikers \u2014 that get tacked onto nightly hotel room rates.<\/p>\n

Some don\u2019t like it so much that they\u2019re willing to file a lawsuit against the world\u2019s largest hotel company.<\/p>\n

Hotel guests filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Marriott International in Los Angeles County Superior Court for what they allege were nightly surcharges on room rates that violated California\u2019s consumer protection and unfair competition laws<\/a>. The fees were labeled as \u201cHotel Worker Protection Ordinance Cost Surcharge\u201d on guest bills and ran anywhere from $10 to $14 per night, depending on the hotel.<\/p>\n

Those charges first appeared in response to an ordinance signed last year by then-Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. That measure requires Los Angeles hotels to provide workers with security devices like a panic button to better protect themselves against potential sexual assault. The measure also required larger hotels to provide higher wages to housekeepers cleaning above a certain threshold during a shift.<\/p>\n

But the lawsuit maintains that the surcharge \u2014 billed as covering the costs associated with the employee protection measure \u2014 goes well above what it would actually cost a hotel owner.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Los Angeles Airport Marriott, for example, is a 1,004-room hotel that typically averages around an occupancy rate above 80%. Even at just 80% occupancy (803 occupied rooms per night), however, the hotel makes over $10,000 per night from guests by charging the [Hotel Worker Protection Ordinance] Fee\u2014working out to over $3,600,000 annually at that single hotel,\u201d reads the lawsuit. \u201cThe HWPO Fee is nothing more than a \u2018junk fee\u2019 under the guise of \u2018worker protection,\u2019 directly benefiting Marriott at the expense of their guests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Representatives with Marriott declined to comment when contacted by TPG.<\/p>\n

Multiple Marriott-affiliated properties are highlighted in the lawsuit: the Los Angeles Airport Marriott, the Courtyard by Marriott Los Angeles LAX\/Century Boulevard, the Residence Inn by Marriott Los Angeles LAX\/Century Boulevard and the Four Points by Sheraton Los Angeles International Airport.<\/p>\n

While most of the hotels accused of charging the fee were located near Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), the lawsuit also names the Beverly Hills Marriott.<\/p>\n

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Fee fatigue<\/h2>\n

The lawsuit arrives amid swelling anti-fee fervor across the travel sector. U.S. President Joe Biden earlier this year even targeted resort fees<\/a> in his State of the Union address amid a push to eliminate hidden fees, which are widespread in the travel industry, as part of his Junk Fee Prevention Act.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll ban surprise resort fees that hotels tack on to your bill,\u201d Biden said in the address. \u201cThese fees can cost you up to $90 a night at hotels that aren\u2019t even resorts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marriott settled with the Pennsylvania attorney general over a lawsuit targeting its resort fee practice, and the company now maintains that hotels include the fee as part of an initially advertised nightly rate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, separate lawsuits in Texas were launched against Hyatt<\/a> and Hilton<\/a> over their respective resort fee practices.<\/p>\n

While Marriott is once again in the legal hot seat over surcharges added to its room rates, the company\u2019s CEO, Anthony Capuano, earlier this year touted the hotel brand\u2019s leadership in bundling resort fees into nightly rates.<\/p>\n

The fees aren\u2019t going away, but better transparency might be the end game for the broader industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not as if those were hidden somehow. We’re simply further clarifying and enhancing that transparency,\u201d Capuano said on the company\u2019s first-quarter earnings call. \u201cI will leave it to the state [attorneys general] around the rest of the country for the rest of the industry. But I am pleased that we will lead the industry in terms of the transparency of our disclosure for our guests.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related reading:<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Nobody likes those random extra fees that go by various names \u2014 resort fees, destination fees, amenity fees or urban fees, just to mention a few of the monikers \u2014 that get tacked onto nightly hotel room rates. Some don\u2019t like it so much that they\u2019re willing to file a lawsuit against the world\u2019s largest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-23357","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-travel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}