Most travelers don’t pay resort fees for their stays. Fortunately, some hotel loyalty programs, including World of Hyatt and Hilton Honors, waive resort fees for award stays. World of Hyatt also waives resort fees for paid stays for its premium Globalist members.
But even if you can’t use hotel points or elite status to avoid resort fees, you can choose not to stay at hotels that charge those fees. However, as Traveling For Miles wrote last week, some travelers may not see these fees when booking stays with IHG One Rewards.
Fortunately, there’s an easy way to ensure resort fees are reflected when booking IHG stays. In this post I explain how.
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How to view resort fees when booking IHG paid stays
Let’s consider a stay in New York City as an example, as IHG has several New York hotels that charge a nightly service fee. Sign in to your IHG account and start your search as usual.
Once you click search, you will see a list of hotels where the service charge is well below the nightly rate.
When you select a hotel, you will see the rooms that you can book. Again, each room type shows the service charge below the room rate.
If you click on “View Prices” and navigate through some screens to select a specific price, you will be taken to the final page where you can pay and complete your reservation. On this page you can see additional fees of $40.17 and taxes of $74.94.
You can expand these fields to see that the additional charges are actually the convenience charge and the taxes include state taxes, city taxes, and an occupancy fee.
The first page of results makes it easy to see if a hotel charges a resort or amenity fee. So you can avoid these hotels if you wish.
Related: What is IHG One Rewards elite status worth?
How to view resort fees when booking IHG award stays
Plus, it’s easy to avoid resort fees and additional fees when redeeming IHG points. Here is the results page when I display the price in points for the same stay. As you can see, the service fee is shown on this page under the nightly points rate for properties that charge such a fee.
If you select a hotel with a service fee, the fee will not appear on the room selection page.
But on the last page, before you complete your reservation, you will see a box for “Additional Fees”.
If you expand the additional charges field, you will see the $40.17 service charge.
IHG could make the service fee clearer on that last booking page. For example, IHG could list the service charge amount right next to the additional charges field, rather than forcing guests to expand the field to view it. And IHG should list the total cost as 84,000 points plus $40.17 in this example because that would be the total cost that the guest would have to incur.
Related: Hotel resort fees are out of control and must end now
Why you might be missing out on resort fees when you book IHG stays
So far you may be wondering why we are writing this post. Although the last page before completing an award stay should clearly show the service charge, potential guests might see the service charge on the first page of results before selecting that hotel.
However, if you check the “Show rates with taxes and fees” box on the results page, you may not notice the service charge at properties that charge it. I tend to check this box when looking for paid stays as I’m primarily interested in the total cost of my stay.
I think it’s okay that IHG doesn’t list the service charge separately on the paid stay results page when you choose to show rates with taxes and fees.
However, the problem occurs when you switch to showing point rates and check the “Show prices with taxes and fees” checkbox. If this box is checked, the results page will show the points you need to redeem but not the service fee. The results page even states that taxes and fees are included, which is not the case for the service fee.
Of course, you’ll still see the service charge if you expand the additional charges box on the last page before confirming your award stay. And you’ll also see this fee when you check the rate details for your stay.
While the service charge may not be clearly stated during some booking processes, it’s easy to find once you know where to look. Unfortunately, travelers who do not frequently book IHG stays may overlook the convenience fee and be surprised by this fee at the hotel.
See also: I stayed at the InterContinental New York Times Square as a Platinum Ambassador: That’s how it was
bottom line
The easiest way to avoid staying at IHG hotels that charge resort or amenity fees is to uncheck the “Show rates with taxes and fees” box and select a hotel for which these fees do not appear in the search results .
I also recommend checking the rate details page before booking as this page will show any additional fees you may have to pay, the nightly rate breakdown and the cancellation policy. This way you can see most of the important information about your stay in one place before you book.
Also see: The 19 Best IHG Hotels in the World
