How hotels and airlines squeeze you for more

Extra fees for seat preferences, early check-in fees, surcharges for leaving your key inside your suite... Ever wondered how airlines and hotels can get away with charging you extra for things that you didn’t even sign up for (assuming you read the fine print)?

Scott McCartney, columnist who writes The Middle Seat blog for The Wall Street Journal every Thursday, analyses the clever, innovative and sometimes plain brazen ways in which hotels and airlines winnow a little extra out of their guests. These seemingly bizarre fees are levied on all sorts of additional services. And the businesses find legally defensible reasons to enforce them.

“It’s really creative stuff from the hotel and airline point of view,” admits McCartney. In the United States, hotel guests and passengers are coughing up additional charges of anything from $10 for an airline ticket boarding pass (if you forget to carry your printout) to $800 for oversized, overweight baggage. And if you want to take your pet along on your vacation, prepare to shell out all sorts of unexpected fees and surcharges.

Most airlines cite manpower and equipment use as reasons for charging hefty luggage fees. And though passengers and guests are very upset about these “nickel-and-dime” surcharges, they usually have no choice but to pay up.

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