A resort fee is a mandatory daily charge added to your room rate that hotels claim covers amenities like WiFi, pool access, and the fitness center. In practice, it is a pricing tactic that lets hotels advertise a lower base rate while collecting the same total revenue. You can often avoid paying it, or at least reduce its sting, by booking direct with status, choosing a non-resort-fee property, or disputing the charge when the fee was not clearly disclosed at booking.
Resort fees provoke more traveler anger than almost any other hotel practice, and the anger is mostly justified. But the more useful question is not whether resort fees are unfair. It is how they actually work, what they cover and do not cover, which hotels charge them, and what you can practically do about them on your next booking.
What Resort Fees Actually Cover
The canonical resort fee bundle includes WiFi, local and sometimes long-distance phone calls, fitness center access, pool towels, and a vague line item described as “business center access” or “in-room coffee.” At the low end, this is a $25 to $35 daily charge at a mid-market Las Vegas or Orlando property. At the high end, it is $50 to $70 at a beachfront resort in Hawaii or Miami. The fee is per room, per night, applied to every night of your stay, and collected at checkout regardless of whether you use any of the included amenities.
The core deception is the bundling. WiFi and pool towels are not separate services at most hotels any more than hot water and elevator access are. They are part of the building. By packaging them as “resort services,” the hotel creates a line item it can add to your bill without increasing the advertised base rate. The base rate shows up in search results and on OTAs. The resort fee appears later in the booking flow or, in the worst cases, at check-in.
What Resort Fees Almost Never Cover
Resort fees do not cover parking, which is typically a separate $30 to $60 daily charge at urban and resort properties. They do not cover breakfast, resort activities, spa access, beach chair or cabana rentals, minibar, or anything you would reasonably associate with the word “resort.” The language is intentionally broad because broad language lets the hotel claim the fee covers an amenity set while excluding everything you would actually want.
There are exceptions. A small number of high-end resorts bundle genuinely valuable items into their fees: a daily food-and-beverage credit, a waived resort fee for loyalty members, or a fee that covers actual resort activities like snorkel gear or tennis court time. These are the minority. The majority of resort fees charge you for WiFi and a fitness center you will not visit and a local newspaper that no longer exists in physical form.
Who Charges Them and Why
Resort fees originated in Las Vegas in the late 1990s and spread to Orlando, Hawaii, Miami, and resort-heavy destinations. Today they are common at full-service hotels in tourist markets and nearly universal in Las Vegas, where Strip properties charge $35 to $55 per night and the fee can represent 25 to 40 percent of the advertised room rate during off-peak periods.
The economics are straightforward. A hotel that wants to collect $200 per night can either list at $200 with no fee or list at $165 plus a $35 resort fee. The $165 listing ranks higher in filtered search results. The traveler who sorts by price sees the lower number. The hotel collects the same $200. Until OTAs and metasearch platforms penalize this behavior or filter it out of price-sorted results, the incentive structure favors the fee.
Marriott, following a 2021 legal settlement with the Pennsylvania Attorney General, began including resort fees in the total price display during the booking process on its own channels. This was a disclosure improvement, not a fee elimination. The fee still exists; you just see it earlier in the flow. Hilton and Hyatt have made similar adjustments under regulatory pressure, but none of the major chains have eliminated the practice.
Direct Booking vs. OTA: The Fee Visibility Gap
One of the sharpest arguments for booking direct is fee transparency. Hotel brand sites, under pressure from state attorneys general and the FTC, generally show the resort fee as part of the total price before you enter payment information. OTAs are less consistent. Expedia and Booking.com show resort fees in the price breakdown, but the placement varies by property and platform version. If you are comparing hotels across multiple tabs on an OTA, you must check whether the displayed rate includes the fee.
The deeper issue is that OTAs do not earn a commission on resort fees. The resort fee goes entirely to the hotel, while the OTA commission applies only to the base room rate. This creates a perverse incentive: hotels are motivated to shift more of the total price into the resort fee to reduce their OTA commission costs. The result is a slow escalation of resort fees over time as hotels optimize around the commission structure. We examined the full direct-versus-OTA math in a separate analysis.
How to Avoid or Reduce Resort Fees
Book with elite status. Marriott Bonvoy Platinum, Titanium, and Ambassador members receive waived resort fees on award stays. Hilton Honors Gold and Diamond members receive waived resort fees on all stays, including paid rates, at most properties. World of Hyatt Globalist members do not pay resort fees on any stay. If you hold mid-tier or higher status with a major chain, the resort fee waiver alone can justify the loyalty commitment. For a broader assessment of which programs still deliver value, see our 2026 loyalty program analysis.
Book on points. Even without elite status, some programs waive resort fees on award stays. Hyatt waives resort fees for all members on award bookings, regardless of status tier. Marriott waives fees on award stays for elite members. Hilton charges resort fees on award stays unless you hold Gold status or higher. The rules vary by program and are worth checking before transferring points.
Choose non-resort-fee properties. In any given market, properties without resort fees exist. In Waikiki, the Hilton Hawaiian Village charges a resort fee; the nearby Laylow and Wayfinder do not. In Las Vegas, a shrinking number of casino-free properties like the Four Seasons and Waldorf Astoria charge no resort fee, though their base rates are higher. The math sometimes favors paying the higher base rate at a fee-free property over the lower advertised rate plus a mandatory fee. This is the same kind of calculation we walk through in our analysis of hotel cancellation policies: what you see on the booking page and what you actually pay at checkout can diverge substantially.
Dispute undisclosed fees. If the resort fee was not clearly disclosed during the booking process, you have grounds to dispute it at checkout and, if necessary, with your credit card issuer. The FTC’s 2024 rule on junk fees requires hotels to disclose total price, including mandatory fees, before the consumer enters payment information. If the hotel failed to do so, the charge is contestable. Ask the front desk to remove it; if they refuse, note the lack of disclosure and open a dispute with your card.
Negotiate at check-in. This works better than travelers expect, particularly at independent and non-chain properties. A polite question at the front desk: “I see the resort fee on my booking. Can you tell me what it covers and whether it can be removed?” produces a waiver roughly 20 to 30 percent of the time, especially at properties where the front desk has discretion and you are checking in outside peak periods.
The Regulatory Outlook
The FTC’s 2024 rule on junk fees, which took effect in early 2025, requires hotels and short-term rental platforms to disclose the total price including all mandatory fees upfront. This rule addresses the disclosure problem: it forces hotels to show the resort fee in the initial price, not bury it in the checkout flow. It does not ban resort fees, and hotels remain free to charge them as long as they disclose them.
State-level action has been more aggressive. California’s 2025 law requires resort fees to be included in the advertised room rate, effectively banning the split-display tactic. New York and Pennsylvania have pursued similar measures through their attorneys general. The trend is toward mandatory total-price display, which would eliminate the search-ranking advantage that resort fees currently provide and, over time, likely reduce their prevalence.
FAQ
Q: Can I refuse to pay a resort fee?
A: You can ask, and you should if the fee was not disclosed at booking. If the fee was disclosed, the hotel is within its rights to charge it, and refusing at checkout may result in the charge being added to your card after departure. Your strongest leverage is at booking, not at checkout: choose a fee-free property or book with status that waives the fee.
Q: Do resort fees apply to award stays?
A: It depends on the program and your status. Hyatt waives resort fees on all award stays for all members. Hilton waives them for Gold and Diamond members on all stays. Marriott waives them on award stays for Platinum and above. IHG and Wyndham generally do not waive resort fees on award stays. Check the specific program rules before transferring points.
Q: Why do hotels charge resort fees instead of just raising the room rate?
A: Because raising the room rate makes the hotel look more expensive in search results relative to competitors who split the same total into base rate plus fee. Resort fees also avoid OTA commissions, since OTAs collect their percentage on the base rate only. The practice persists because the incentive structure rewards it, not because travelers prefer it.
Q: Are resort fees taxable?
A: Yes, in most jurisdictions the resort fee is subject to the same state and local occupancy taxes as the room rate. This means a $35 resort fee in a market with 14 percent occupancy tax actually costs you roughly $40 per night. The total-tax effect is another reason the fee is more expensive than it appears.