7 Scamy Things I Hate About Airline Miles & Hotel Points

If I were to write a letter to an airline or hotel CEO, I’d likely want to bring up the ethics of some of the accepted scams that are out there.

A lot of my thoughts would be about transparency or about deceiving people. And for me that most often comes into play any time someone advertises one price and then charges another. It’s why it’s illegal in Europe to advertise a sale and then have a different “all in” price.

It’s not like they are adding the option of taxes, fuel, and resort fees… instead they just aren’t telling you about them until the end and sometimes in small print.

1) Fuel Surcharges

The biggest farce in the world of redeeming miles has to be fuel surcharges. Come on! They have nothing to do with the price of fuel and routes twice as long can have the same “fuel surcharges”.

The fact of the matter is that when an airline advertises a certain number of miles, almost no one understand that the unspoken rule is that you’ll also pay an arbitrary fee.

Rope you in with miles, and then when you go to use them there’s a random fee that has nothing to do with fuel. And even if it did, it doesn’t make any sense for the passenger to pay it. Yes, fuel is an expense. It’s equally logical to have the passenger pay the pilot fee, the Boeing purchase fee, the electricity fee, the advertising/marketing fee, the employees and management fee… and oh wait a minute, it’s now a full priced ticket.

Even if there was an ounce of non-crooked logic, it doesn’t matter. The fact is that the customers don’t know that using miles might mean paying an extra $600.

It’s illegal in a few countries in order to protect consumers against such bone headed policies. Knock it off.

 

2) Upgrades and discounts based on certain booking class

Talk about confusing the average person, lets talk fare class codes.

Geez, can’t you give a customer an actual perk without trying to make it impossible to use? That alone makes it a scam; it ropes people in and then they can’t use it. Who wants to run that kind of business?

But the biggest joke of all is that the rates “eligible” for upgrades or the discount codes are twice the price! Seriously, I have seen fares eligible for companion fares double the regular price, and more than the competitors. You would save money not using the companion pass.

And what’s the point? Just to get more money. But then just don’t give a “benefit”, right? But that’s the point of the bait and switch. They want to be able to rope people in with a benefit, and then they make it unusable so they don’t lose money.

Nothing is easy, nothing is logical, and it’s of no actual benefit to the customer.

 

3) Arbitrary Airline Fees

“Close-in” fees is something that many US airlines have, like AA and United. It’s generally $75 to book within 21 days of travel. Does it cost the airline more money to sell you tickets on day 21 over day 22? Of course not. They charge fees because they can.

A booking fee. Tell me that isn’t the dumbest thing you’ve ever heard?

Baggage fee. It is proven that airlines that don’t charge for baggage fees have quicker boarding times and therefore quicker turn around times. Despite it being in their interest and their customers’ interest not to nickel and dime… they do it anyways.

Change fee. When you change a flight they not only charge you the difference but a fee. Go figure.

When I was transiting through Dallas last year on American Airlines during a major snow storm, I made several attempts to change my ticket to the direct Chicago to Puerto Vallarta flight. No one would do it without a fee. Long story short Dallas got hit with snow and it was going to be 3 days until they could get me on the next flight. The next day I found a route that was in their rebooking terms, and AA had to pony up and pay for me to fly on someone else through Guadalajara. They had to pay more money and I, the customer, had to spend a night in Dallas (my own money) and in Guadalajara (my own money) while my friends were enjoying our week at the beach.

 

It’s kind of a chicken and egg thing. Are airlines broke and therefore treat their customers like idiots and charge stupid fees because they can? Or do they treat their customers like idiots and therefore are broke? My guess is the second.

Southwest has gotten rid of cancelation fees, baggage fees, booking fees, refund fees, etc… And guess what, they are one of the few profitable airlines.

 

Hotels

4) Resort Fees

This is just like fuel surcharges except it actually effects paid stays. The point of resort fees is to rank as a lower price on the search engine, except actually charge more money. This is called deceit… that’s bad.

There’s a reason people like me don’t enjoy Vegas. Vegas is known for scams being accepted. But a lot of things common in Vegas are considered bad practices elsewhere.

One hotel I stayed at had a resort fee that included internet and bike rentals. I would have had free internet anyways, but the bike rentals were something you still had to pay for on top of having already paid a “bike rental” fee as part of the resort fee! I kid you not.

Again, what’s the point? They are often “expenses” that a lot of hotels include in their price. Why not have a furniture fee? These are expenses; every business has them and every business includes them into their price.

 

5) “Room Types” galore

There are a million examples of this, IHG being the worst.

IHG gives “Ambassadors” a guaranteed upgrade at InterContinental. Guaranteed upgrade sounds cool… if it weren’t useless.

I believe I once counted a hotel having 19 different room categories. And the differences can be hilarious. One will have a coffee maker in the description and the other one won’t. Or same space in square meters… different adjectives.

Standard. Superior. Deluxe. Executive. These are honestly typical IC room categories before you get to any actual benefits like Club Rooms or Jr. Suites. And the definition of a jr. suite is usually that it has a couch.  The best part is that you can have a different view for each room type, making 8 or more categories before a club room.

The difference between superior and deluxe is probably unnoticeable to most guests, and yet, they’ve fulfilled their “guarantee” of an upgrade by arbitrarily naming rooms “deluxe”. What did your double upgrade as a Royal Ambassador get you? Nowadays, usually a coffee maker.

Even if they were to provide slightly more space, it hardly makes status worth it.

The London Classic has “the sophisticated 18 sqm rooms” with a “sumptuous king size bed”. Oh and it also isn’t available on points, that’s the other unsophisticated 18sqm very unLondon “Classic” room. That bed is soooo unsumptuous. Good thing you got a 1 category upgrade!

Maybe the most worthless hotel status of all the major chains.

 

Using Room Types to weasel out of award space

I’m looking for a room at the Radisson Austin on points and I notice that there’s a serious lack of availability all of a sudden, yet I keep seeing the lowest level of “Cityside Guestroom” (instead of the preferred “Lakeside Guestroom”) and yet there’s no availability. Tons of basic rooms no awards. Finally I find a date that has availability and it’s for a “Traditional Room”.

It’s a room with nearly the same description, it’s equally the lowest price for that date, and it even has in the description “Views of Downtown Austin”.

Like, “No, no. We’re out of “Traditional” rooms with views of Downtown Austin… we only have “Cityside” rooms left.”

So the only difference between the two rooms  is that one is categorized as the award room and one is not. But this way they can sell out of the very limited “traditional rooms” and not have to give award space.

 

6) “Upgrades when available”

I’m sorry, but either make a benefit or don’t. No hotel chains lives up to this. None. After any checkin you can look online and see that there are rooms for sale they didn’t upgrade you to. Not a big deal, don’t complain to the hotel, they have policies around this.

However, the chain often over-promises benefits to its members. Some say “upgrades up to suites”, some say “best available”, but most just say “upgrades when available”. So it could be one category, like I said above.

Again, I don’t encourage complaining when you know you’re not getting upgraded. It’s not an actual benefit of the hotel… just over-promising by the chain. Just know that it always happens.

 

7) Timeshares

I’m not saying that the CEOs of timeshares have to worry about their eternal fate, but I’d seriously recommend repentance.
You know the purchasers of timeshares? Old people. “Young people just don’t have the money for our products”. Stop your nonsense! I know it helps you sleep at night, but they’re the only ones falling for your deal.

You know the “target audience” of the prince of Africa scams? Old people. Do you think they sleep at night saying, “yea, it’s mostly old people because young people don’t have enough money to invest in Sierra Leone’s royal family’s gold mine that doesn’t exist.”

There are two reasons that they start with insanely high numbers during the time share sales pitch. The timeshare pitch I went to started with $140,000 plus a large yearly fee, and it ended with $2,000 for 15 years. Clearly it’s worth some small amount and the try to sell it to you for more.

The first reason they do this is because by the time they get to $40,000 you feel like you just got the discount of the year… which is a scam.

The second reason they do this is because some trusting person will say yes!

After that, walking around the resort I couldn’t help but feel sad for all the people that are roped into this.

Why not just have a good property that people want to return to? Many hotels do that. They create good experiences, get good ratings, keep people coming back and they charge people when people use their product.

 

Conclusion

Truly, companies who don’t treat their customers like idiots have more loyal followings than ones who do. There are exceptions, like Delta is profitable. But that’s because they also do a lot of things right to cater to their business audience. Plus, they took major bailouts, but minor details.

I constantly overhear people telling other people about Southwest and how they don’t have any fees. That’s free marketing. Everyone has a conversation about how much they hate airlines, and when they do, someone will step in and say, “that’s because you don’t fly Southwest. I one time had to cancel my entire trip and refunded the entire thing online in minutes. I rebooked for two weeks later and got two free checked bags.”

How do airlines not get that most people see their miles as unusable?

You have no idea how often I hear about how miles are worthless and this one time they couldn’t get a single ticket, and so on.

Southwest also has no black out dates and a good website. Oh and again, they are profitable. These aren’t mysteries, airlines; don’t treat people like idiots.