Hotel Guest Charged ‘Mandatory City Fee’ To Pay For Parking Despite Not Having A Car
It's only the latest chapter in the company's story of sneaky upcharges.
PeopleImages | Shutterstock It kinda seems like absolutely everything is a scam these days, and travel is certainly no exception. But it seems one hotel chain has elevated the art of the scam to whole new heights: by charging people for services they're not even using.
Worse still, though, is how sneaky they're being about it, wedging in the charges on hotel bills in a place most people will never notice. Which means, yes, you've potentially paid these fees yourself without even knowing it.
A Marriott hotel charged a guest a 'mandatory' city parking fee despite not having a car.
We all know that when you stay at many hotels, there's a fee to park — if you actually bring a car to the hotel in the first place, right? Well, that's not the case when it comes to at least one Marriott hotel property in Texas, where a guest was charged for a parking fee at a Fairfield Inn despite not having brought a car.
Hryshchyshen Serhii | Shutterstock
The guest discovered the charge after reviewing her hotel bill, seen below, after checking out of her stay. She told travel-industry news site View From The Wing that she's stayed at this hotel numerous times and never noticed the fee before.
But looking at her bill and seeing a $2.87 "City Fee" listing gave her pause. That happened to be the exact amount the hotel charges for parking. "I stopped by the front desk and the agent happily removed it," the guest told the blog. "But had my brain not connected the same numbers, I’d have had no idea."
The parking fee was made to look like a city tax on the guest's hotel bill.
It's hard not to get the feeling that this was a deliberately dishonest ploy to wedge an extra $2.87 into hotel bills. Labeling it "City Fee" makes it seem like it is one of the myriad municipal taxes tacked onto most hotel bills.
Even worse, the guest was charged this "City Fee" repeatedly for each night she stayed at the hotel. It's easy to see how lucrative this could be for the hotel if enough people fail to notice the additional fees, as this guest nearly did. I can't remember the last time I actually checked a hotel bill myself!
Weirder still is the fact that the hotel staff didn't seem to understand what the fee even was. "According to the front desk, this parking fee is relatively new; it baffled him, too," the woman noted.
Marriott has been sued in the past for 'junk fees.'
It's not particularly surprising that the hotel staff were just as "baffled" by the fee as the guest was. Marriott is known to have significantly tightened its policies around junk fees following a class-action lawsuit settlement over its predatory practices.
That class-action lawsuit pertained to deceptive practices regarding Marriott's "resort fees" and other sneaky charges, which class members alleged were not clearly communicated, resulting in guests paying hefty sums of money they never properly agreed to.
The company was ordered to pay a settlement and change its policies, but repeatedly missed required deadlines to do so. In 2023, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ordered the company to pay an additional $225,000 in penalties for not following the rules of the suit.
Marriott's "City Fee" scam would seem to be in violation of a federal law requiring transparent hotel pricing, which was passed in December of 2024 and went into effect this past May. They've been caught violating this law before, too. All the more reason to actually read those hotel bills they shove under the door before you leave!
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
