Make extra hotel charges your last resort

I typically take my longest vacation of the year during Thanksgiving week, which coincides with my birthday. It also tends to be my most expensive trip of the year. So I'm always on the lookout for a good deal, and for ways to save money and get the most bang for the buck when I'm on the road.

Last week, I spent a few fantastic days after the holiday in Lake Tahoe. I stayed in an upscale hotel in a spectacular mountain setting, and there was a foot of new snow awaiting me on my birthday. Even better, I was thrilled with the deal I found. On the hotel's website, the cheapest room rate had been listed at about $220 per night. But I had booked an air-and-hotel package on Orbitz that effectively discounted the rate by about a third. (On Expedia, the exact vacation cost about $300 more, even higher than if I had booked the airfare and hotel separately.)

Though I believed I had already paid my entire bill in advance, when I checked out of the hotel, I noticed a curious series of charges and credits. First, even though my room was prepaid, I saw a $10 "resort fee" tacked on for each day of my stay. The resort fee was described as a "mandatory hotel charge" that included such amenities as telephone calls, use of the fitness center, bottled water, and a shuttle bus into town. When I questioned the fee, because I believed it had been included in my vacation booking, the desk clerk agreed to waive half the charge. But I then persisted that I should not be charged twice for the same amenities. Eventually, her supervisor confirmed that I had indeed already paid the resort fee, and she adjusted my account.

The second mysterious item on my bill was a $215 credit. The too-helpful desk clerk offered that I must have paid for my room by check. But she was thoroughly confused when I said I had pre-paid through an online travel agency. Instead of trying to sort out the mess, she suggested that the hotel would be happy to send me a refund for the balance on my account, and even gave my mailing address to the hotel's accounting department.

But what had really happened was that the payment Orbitz had sent the hotel for my stay (from its third-party vacation provider) had been posted to the wrong ledger. The amount Orbitz owed the hotel had been credited to my account, not to the hotel's books. So by offering me a refund, the desk clerk was effectively reducing the hotel's profit on my room to zero. What's interesting is that their revenue - which appears to be about $55 per night - is less than half of what I paid for the room.

It's no wonder, then, that hotels are asking their guests to pay an extra "resort fee." Like the "energy charges" some properties introduced a few years back, these are ways that hotels can increase their profits at a time when the booking pie is sliced ever more thinly among many competing channels, both off-line and online.

You probably can't avoid these fees if you choose to stay at a property that charges them. But you should definitely be aware of them - particularly if you might be paying them twice. And be sure to take advantage of the amenities they allow. Don't pay for bottled water, for example, if you're getting some for free in your room.

Fortunately for the hotel, the supervisor was able to straighten out the accounting debacle. But although I wasn't going to be issued a check I didn't deserve, I did remember another benefit that my hotel stay entitled me to. By signing up for the hotel's loyalty program, I was able to earn either hotel points or airline miles. And because I'm closing in on an award level, I chose to earn miles in American's frequent flier program. Within a few weeks, I should see my account balance increase by 500 miles, which has a value of $5 to $10.

Considering the price of my hotel room, that's small potatoes. But I'll think of it as a belated birthday present. Instead of paying an extra $40 in resort fees that I didn't need to, I earned miles just by asking for them. That'll get me one step closer to my next free ticket. And it shouldn't be a surprise that my favorite kind of vacation is one I take for free.