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Comment by tempsy | Hacker News Reader

This seems like a pretty weak example of being "ripped off." He's complaining about a 15 eur charge for a one-way car rental? One ways are notoriously expensive...that reservation was probably a few hundred dollars.

I don't think there's a more egregious rip off than mandatory "resort/destination fees" - a lot of hotels charge $40-50+/day extra on top of the stated room rate as a daily "fee" for the pleasure of using the gym or internet. Marriott is currently being sued in several states for these fees. Write about that if you want to discuss a "rip off" - not a 15 eur fee.

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I think the modest fee allowed him to comment on perhaps being let off lightly in this case. Like, he paid 15 more than he'd expected, and while his partner was fuming, he was sorta thinking "well, coulda' been worse!"

So it might have been a reasonable device to use for expressing this dynamic.

Yeah and the really lame thing about the hotel situation is when browsing and comparing rates, they all show the rate without the inclusion of those "resort fees". Suddenly your $60 / night room is really double that at checkout.

At least (in my experience) hotels tend to charge those resort fees at the time of booking, instead of at the time of check-in.

Sorry, I didn't mean checkout as in checking out from the hotel. That was checkout from the booking site, when you're ready to enter in your billing details (shopping cart style) to pay for the room you just browsed on their site. The issue is the browsing experience on the main site and Google results shows $60 but at payment time it's really $100-150 because of non-avoidable resort fees and taxes.

It's one of those "dark patterns" that feels scammy.

Yeah, it's annoying, but it, at most wastes a few minutes of your time, when comparison shopping.

Compare it to getting off an airplane, arriving at the car rental kiosk to pick up your reservation, and discovering that your options consist of shelling out $100 in bullshit fees, in order to actually get your car - the car that you've placed a non-refundable reservation for.

(And even if you throw a fit, and get a refund, your only option is to go across the street, and eat a $150 markup on a same-day car rental, instead.)

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