Travel Tips

Travel Tip: Hidden Travel Fees

It’s no surprise that hidden fees lurk in every corner of the travel industry, but some are sneakier than others.

If you have to cancel your non-refundable airline ticket, you get credited the value of the ticket for use within a year. Sounds reasonable, right?

Well, if you’re only cancelling one leg of your round-trip flight—don’t expect to recoup half the cost of the ticket…each leg is valued differently so you could end up with very little credit.

Then there’s the airlines’ change fees—about $150 domestically. And if you booked through a travel agent like Orbitz, there’s probably an additional administrative cost.

Translation: You could wipe out the entire value of your credit.

We’ve all heard of those nasty resort fees and, in fact, one NYU study projects the hotel industry will collect $1.95 billion on those fees alone.

Even though providers are required to advertise these resort fees, it’s not always clear. When you see a great hotel rate on a site like Priceline, it’s only after you click on it that you see the additional taxes and fees.

But the FTC is now paying close attention to what they call “drip pricing” and warned several hotels to be transparent in the booking process.

Ultimately, the hope is that advertised rates will someday become more consistent, so we can make more informed decisions.

Keep reading for more travel tips.