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Fighting Back Against Hotel Internet Access Fees

I'm a cranky traveler at the best of times, and when I get charged outrageous fees for Internet access by supposedly fine hotels I get really aggravated.

A few months ago on a business trip I stayed at the Westin La Paloma, outside Tucson, and was amazed to find that they charged me nearly 30 bucks for Internet access. This is a posh, $300/night resort hotel -- and they're charging business travelers for a Web connection, in 2008. I thought it was ridiculous and told the manager so.

Travel writer Joe Brancatelli, in his Seat 2B column on Portfolio.com, points out that a decade ago luxury hotels charged a dollar or so for every phone call from the room, while cheaper joints tended to include the cost of local calls in the room rate. That question is now moot, since no business traveler in her right mind uses the landline phone in the room anymore. "But the deep, philosophical disagreements are back -- over the price hotels may or may not charge to access high-speed Internet and Wi-Fi service."

Down-market, "select-service" properties like Courtyard by Marriott, Hampton Inn, and Four Points by Sheraton tend to offer free and usually reliable high-speed Web access as part of the expected amenities, while five-star joints tend to tack on ridiculous fees for plugging into the network. Brancatelli quotes a couple of hoteliers, speaking anonymously, defending the practice -- franchisees "live and die with the bottom line," one hotel chain executive says, "and they're worried about the rising cost of providing Internet service."

That's nonsense. Internet service is getting cheaper, not more expensive, and hotels already are shelling out for multiple T1 lines for their own internal use. The cost of providing the service to guests is marginal, and hotels are pocketing the sizable difference between that and what they charge per night for the privilege of a high-speed connection.

The real answer to why luxury hotels charge for broadband is "Because they can." Nickel-and-diming business travelers works because a) they can't go without the access, and b) they'll just expense it and their companies will eat the charges.

It's time to fight back. I've started asking hotels, up front upon making a reservation, if they provide Internet access, and if they charge for it I'll often go elsewhere. (Earlier this month I stayed at the gracious Hotel Nikko, in San Francisco, and they have recently eliminated their per-night Internet access fee.) If I do stay in a place that charges, I'll complain to the management -- some hotels will wipe the fee if you're vociferous enough about it.

And these fees will soon enough go the way of the landline bedside phone, as more and more travelers come equipped with their own portable connections -- either through a facilities-based subscription service, like Boingo, or via a carrier technology like EV-DO.

With rising energy costs and the spread of new like-you're-there Web conferencing technologies, hotels are forced to cater more and more to business travelers' needs. Getting rid of tacked-on Internet access fees is a good place to start.

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