Even the savviest consumers step in traps.   One such trap is the infamous and infuriating resort fee charged by insidious hotels.   Attorneys have challenged these fees with varying degrees of success.   The courts generally permit them where the consumer has been given notice of the fees before or at the time of the booking.   

Enter Priceline.   It doesn't disclose the name of the hotel, let alone the fees that the hotel may charge.   So the Russian Roulette element of using Priceline is magnified because of parking, resort and other sundry fees that the Priceline-connected hotel may spring on an unsuspecting guest.   Sure enough, that happened to me recently despite my best efforts to avoid it. 

My failing strategy was to decline to bid on the resort category.  I limit my bidding to 4-star hotels and never select "resort".   It's worked pretty well, but a sleazy Scottsdale hotel (Scottsdale Plaza Hotel) chose to include "resort" in its title in order to justify this noxious charge.  And Priceline enabled this by categorizing the hotel as a 4-star hotel.   Note:  travelers reporting on Trip Advisor describe Scottsdale Plaza as a gussied up Motel 8 and generally pan the property.   Apparently, Priceline execs haven't checked this hotel out before giving it a 4-star rating. I dutifully called Priceline to ask it to cancel the reservation and the obnoxious Priceline customer service person Jai repeatedly parrotted the company line.   Talking to her was like talking to a wall....with an Indian accent.   I also lodged an e-mail complaint at the Priceline website and got a call back from its "executive office" and they repeated the same points as the first wall.   I agreed to disagree and hung up.    Just for full disclosure,  I got another call from Priceline's executive office and hour later and stating that they would cancel the reservation "as a courtesy" because I was a frequent customer.   But we'd gone too far now.   I was loaded for bear and ready to take on the offending Scottsdale Plaza.

The good news is that every hotel thrust has a consumer parry.   In the past, when a hotel has insisted upon applying the resort fee,  I've paid for it with a credit card and then contested the charge.   Both Visa & Mastercard have upheld my complaint and rescinded the charge.   Isn't life odd when the shifty credit card companies step in to PROTECT a consumer from a deceitful hotel.  

The other parry is one that I've honored for the better part of a decade -- whenever I come across a hotel that charges a resort fee, I tell them that I'll never return, no matter how much I enjoy the stay, because such fees are deceitful.   They should be incorporated into their rates so that I can make an informed decision about whether to book a stay with them.   And I've honored that pledge.  Charge a resort fee and you won't see me again.  I urge all other travelers to heed that pledge. 

And until Priceline changes its policy and starts giving customers options to bid on properties without added fees, then it isn't likely that I'll use them again.   Too bad -- it'd be an easy fix.   But I guess Priceline would rather enable sleazy hotel practices rather than standing up for its customers.   Long term: bad move, Priceline.