EARLY CHECK-OUT FEES are the latest ruse by hotels to boost dwindling revenues. Although the practice has been around in the US for a couple of years, it is now creeping into Europe, warns Margaret Bowler, Hogg Robinson Group's (HRG) director of global hotel relations. She says that increasingly hotels are imposing an administration fee, or charging anything up to a full night's stay, for the privilege of changing a booking.
"It is ostensibly to stop travel bookers getting round any minimum stay requirement by, for example, booking three nights when only two are required. What it effectively means is that to combat the problem of someone booking a stay from Tuesday to Thursday and who then decides that the Thursday is no longer necessary, hotels are charging them for the privilege of staying on the peak Wednesday night."
Bowler claims there is no consistency in the extra charges. "It could be a US$50 admin charge or it could be the cost of a full night."
She advises buyers and bookers to ask hotel groups about their policy relating to early check-out fees. "Often a group will admit there is one but leaves it to individual hotels as to how it is applied." Buyers then have the choice of whether or not to work with that group.
Bowler also maintains that the last-room availability option is being steadily driven out of the market by hotels: "It now comes at a premium and unless you pay for it, you don't get it."