Why Resort Fees Survived the Junk-Fee Crackdown

For years, resort fees were the hotel industry's little checkout ambush. You would spot a room that looked tolerable, click through, and then discover that the advertised rate had a mandatory sidecar attached to it. The ambush has gotten harder to pull off. Since the Federal Trade Commission's junk-fee rule took effect in May 2025, hotels and vacation rentals have had to show the total price more clearly up front. And yet the resort fee, annoyingly healthy, is still with us.

That is because the fee was never only about concealment. Economists would call the broader tactic partitioned pricing, a close cousin of drip pricing. One purchase gets split into a base price and a mandatory extra charge, which can make the first number look friendlier and the second one sound strangely purposeful. In the hotel version, the room is the room, and then an amenity bundle arrives to explain why Wi-Fi, the gym, parking, beach umbrellas, shuttle rides or a pair of refillable water bottles apparently live in a separate economic universe.

The FTC's rule did change something important. The agency says a required resort fee has to be included in the total advertised price, and it has been explicit that the rule preserves fee flexibility rather than banning fees outright. In other words, the crackdown went after bait-and-switch presentation, not the hotel's right to keep using the charge itself. That distinction matters. If a fee survives after being dragged into daylight, it is not just a disclosure trick anymore. It is part of the pricing architecture.

That helps explain why hotels keep defending it. Caesars says its Las Vegas resort fee includes fitness-center access for two, daily in-room internet for two devices and local phone calls, and that the fee is incurred whether the amenities are used or not. Comped room? Still pay it. Resorts World, meanwhile, is currently running a "No Resort Fees" offer that waives a daily resort fee of $55 per room. That is revealing in its own way. Once a charge can be turned on for ordinary bookings and turned off for a promotion, it starts to behave less like a narrow reimbursement for amenities and more like a movable pricing piece.

The hotel likes this setup for several reasons. First, it protects the room rate, which is still the number travelers compare most instinctively across search results. Second, it creates a tidy value story around amenities that many guests now treat as basic rather than premium. Third, it gives the property a built-in lever for targeted generosity. Waiving a resort fee sounds like a meaningful concession even when the hotel has not actually changed the underlying logic of what the stay costs.

Hilton's resort properties show how elastic the bundle can become. At Embassy Suites by Hilton Scottsdale Resort, the daily resort charge includes Wi-Fi, self-parking, bikes, family games, tennis access, a shuttle and a dining discount. At Grand Wailea, the daily resort charge is layered on top of the room rate and tied to internet access, beach umbrellas, scuba clinics, bikes, hula and ukulele lessons, yoga classes and phone calls. Some of those perks are pleasant. Some feel a little like being told the towel now has a résumé.

To be fair, this is not every hotel. The American Hotel & Lodging Association says 93% of hotels do not charge mandatory resort fees. But the tactic remains influential precisely because it shows up where comparison shopping is intense and the amenity story is easy to embellish. The FTC's own economic work on resort fees found that separating the fee from the room rate raises consumers' search and cognitive costs unless the total price is shown first. Hotels may now have to show that total more clearly, but they still benefit from keeping the fee legible as its own category.

Why it works

It works because travelers anchor on the room before they philosophize about the fee. The base rate still feels like the emotional price of the stay, while the bundled charge gets mentally filed under "annoying but probably standard." Even when the full total is shown earlier than before, the separate line item keeps doing narrative work. It suggests the hotel is not simply charging more for the room. It is charging for a package of extras, some of which sound elective even when the charge is not.

It also survives competition because the fee creates merchandising options. A hotel can keep it, waive it for loyalty members, fold it into an "inclusive" package, or spotlight it in an email blast as a temporary savings event. That is a lot of flexibility from one line item. By contrast, cutting the base room rate is blunt, public and harder to reverse without looking expensive again.

What it says about spending now

The endurance of resort fees says something quietly important about modern spending. Consumers say they hate junk fees, regulators have made them easier to spot, and yet the fees that remain are often the ones that businesses can reframe as convenience, access or bundled value. The battle moved from secrecy to storytelling.

It also says households have become used to paying not just for the core thing, but for the frictionless version of the core thing. A hotel room is still sold as sleep. The separate bundle sells the version of the stay that feels properly equipped, properly connected and less irritating. That is why the resort fee persists. It no longer needs to pretend it is invisible. It just needs to sound organized.

The junk-fee crackdown did not kill resort fees. It promoted them from ambush to line item. And once a fee survives being seen clearly, it stops looking like a mistake in the booking flow and starts looking like what it really is: part of the room's business model.

Sources & further reading

This piece relies on current FTC guidance, the FTC's economic analysis of resort-fee pricing, and current hotel and resort pages that show how the fee is imposed, described, bundled or selectively waived.