121–130 of 396 posts
Taxes and fees should be mandated for all prices up front. This is how it works in most of the world, there's no good reason it shouldn't work that way here in the US. Someone will come along and point out an edge case, but for the vast majority of retail situations this is doable.
Tons of industries affected by this, though hospitality comes to mind as being particularly egregious. "resort fees" you can't get out of where they tell you what you're "getting" for those fees, Airbnb service fees, cleaning fees, things that should all be spread across the nightly rate. The feds doing this for airfare was the best thing to happen for consumers shopping for flights. Ideally we would take it further…
3rd party charges 14-18% commission, and a lot of big hotel uses resort fee to reduce the commission.
I just wish the big brand uses the power like airlines (3% commission) and negotiate the commission down to 3%.
Tons of industries affected by this, though hospitality comes to mind as being particularly egregious. "resort fees" you can't get out of where they tell you what you're "getting" for those fees, Airbnb service fees, cleaning fees, things that should all be spread across the nightly rate. The feds doing this for airfare was the best thing to happen for consumers shopping for flights. Ideally we would take it further…
I agree with you on almost all of this, but I think the cleaning fee is different. It represents an actual cost for an actual activity. I think AirBnb should show initial totals with it included, so you're never surprised by it. But it shouldn't be rolled up into the nightly rate because it really is a one-off. As an example, right now I'm looking at doing an extended trip, on the order of 2-4 weeks. I just need one…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Personally I find it very interesting that a $20 restaurant meal might only be netting $1 to the owner. Makes me feel like going out isn’t actually that bad of a deal.
Lots of retail businesses have less than 5% profit margin. Even insurance companies, including health insurance, have less than 5% profit margins.
Tons of industries affected by this, though hospitality comes to mind as being particularly egregious. "resort fees" you can't get out of where they tell you what you're "getting" for those fees, Airbnb service fees, cleaning fees, things that should all be spread across the nightly rate. The feds doing this for airfare was the best thing to happen for consumers shopping for flights. Ideally we would take it further…
The thing is, cleaning genuinely costs a bunch when a guest departs. It’s a per-stay cost.
This doesn’t mean it’s reasonable to hide it. Having a rate structure that has a nightly rate plus a per-visit rate or, equivalently, a first-night rate and an additional-night rate is just fine as long as it’s advertised. And a search for a stay of a given duration should show the all-in price.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with you on almost all of this, but I think the cleaning fee is different. It represents an actual cost for an actual activity. I think AirBnb should show initial totals with it included, so you're never surprised by it. But it shouldn't be rolled up into the nightly rate because it really is a one-off. As an example, right now I'm looking at doing an extended trip, on the order of 2-4 weeks. I just need one…
The cleaning fee is part of doing business. I don’t pay my taxi driver for car registration or oil changes either.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I think AirBnb should show initial totals with it included, so you're never surprised by it. But it shouldn't be rolled up into the nightly rate because it really is a one-off. I disagree with this, and it's easily handled on the backend too. If the cleaning fee is e.g once per trip or once every few days, smear that cost across the cost of the stay for your effective nightly rate. Frankly, how much it costs to cle…
>If the cleaning fee is e.g once per trip or once every few days, smear that cost across the cost of the stay for your effective nightly rate. This misses the point that it's useful to have the one-time costs separated from the nightly costs so that consumers can better understand if they can get a better nightly cost by extending their stay (or even ideally from having options over those fixed costs.) It's the same…
No mention of the ludicrous conglomeration of mobile phone fees?
Yeah that is annoying as hell. Comcast mobile is actually very clear and open- they have no hidden fees. Surprising from them. Verizon can f off, 20%+ extra "fees" all the time.. glad I'm done with them.
I think a lot of comments here are missing the reason as to why these hidden fees have become so much more prevalent in the past 20 or so years. The short of it is that comparison pricing is now much easier to do because of the Internet, and many, if not a majority, of shoppers will just sort by price ascending and pick the first result (or, only pick from the first couple results). Thus, there is a huge incentive fo…
Well, of course bait-and-switch is going to result in a higher conversion rate than showing the price up front. I'd like to not be swindled, but if the marketplace is half-swindlers and half-honest people, it's highly likely I'll be taken in by the former. What the kind of heuristic am I expected to use to avoid getting swindled?
Giant, bold text that says "price is all-inclusive. No additional fees!"