Hotel Surcharges and Taxes - DAY LIGHT ROBBERY!
Guys and gals. In past few weeks, I've been to a few hotels, trying to do some in-Province vacationing.
The taxes and surcharges are literally at a ridiculous level now!
We just made a booking ... the cost of the room is $127.06 ... the Tax Recovery Charges & Service Fees are $59.29 ON TOP of that!
That is 47% of taxes and surcharges!!!
Tax recovery alone is over 30% of the bill ... WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON??? How are these hotels (and government) getting away
with this??
The restaurant in town does the same thing even on take out and refuses cash. Didn't the government all ready give them boatloads of our tax dollars?
"Tax Recovery" charge? WTF is that!?
Can I claim this when government tries to take MORE tax off me on every single thing I make or spend?
Or is it a one way street like usual?
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"If guns cause crime, all of mine are defective."
-Ted Nugent
All I can say is that inflation is definitely not the 2% or whatever they say ... this is insanity.
I'm sure true inflation is more like 15% ... if not more, and we are ALL that much poorer as a result of
all this spending the government is doing, and that doesn't even factor in the income tax increases (and primary
residence capital gain tax) that is coming.
It's explained here: Basically it charges for using a Travel Booking Web Site.
https://www.budgettravel.com/article...-charges_12117
you book a night's stay at a hotel through a major online travel agency, and you pay $100 plus "tax recovery charges" and service fees. The $100 rate includes a profit margin for the website, which is typically between 15 and 25 percent, according to Daniel Toja, CEO of Myhoteloutlet.com. For our example, we'll say that's the wholesale rate is $80, and the travel website adds on $20 to the price and charges you $100. The hotel then calculates a tax on the $80. That tax is passed on to you by the website. (By tax, I mean the whole grab bag of taxes and charges municipal and state governments slap on hotels, such as the "room tax" that some cities add.)
Interestingly, the travel website typically doesn't pay municipal or state taxes on its $20 mark-up on the $80 room or on its service fee.
What is the service fee? It's an effort to disguise the wholesale rate. Without it, anyone could look at the tax rate and the price paid and figure out what the wholesale rate is. But the service fee adds an element of mystery, confusing any competitor company trying to figure out how much a rival is discounting a room.
What does that mean for you?
Let's say four major travel websites are selling the same exact hotel for the same exact night for the same rate of $100.
When you attempt to actually buy the room from each site, you may be surprised to discover that each site charges a different final bill:
Expedia might charge $100 plus $20 in taxes and fees; Priceline might charge $25 in taxes and fees; Orbitz might charge $30 plus taxes and fees; and Travelocity might charge $35 in taxes and fees.
How can the final bills vary so much? After all, the tax rate is the same in every case (6%), and the retail rate is the same ($100) for each site.
The answer is simple: Changes in the service fee and the wholesale rate cause the final bills to vary among the sites. Hotels may have cut special deals with one website, offering deeper discounts. Or the website itself is running a sale to attract business.
I’m going to walk in and ask how much a room is
It's this type of thing that has put me off on-line travel discounters. Instead I join a hotel chain's loyalty program and book through their website. The price is usually competitive and perks and upgrades are easier to come by. Same with airlines.
Be a long time before I bow to that crap. I know the province has forced hotels to add a surcharge for the city coffers. But that amount, they can go suck eggs.
Here is a breakdown province by province of the various tourism taxes in effect.
https://www.tourguidecanada.com/taxes-in-canada.html
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