$150 for free local calls? Wow. I could then just leave my cell phone at home.

You’re wrong. I’ve worked in the hospitality industry for decades. As long as the fee is clearly shown in the pricing prior to the time you click the confirm button, it’s legal.

But, hey. Clearly, you know more than all the high-price law firms that the various hotel groups have hired over the past few decades since resort fees were created.

Your wrong…..resort fee’s are classical false advertising (example, what does it cost on hotels.com)….a lot more than advertised!

The only lawsuit that might work is if a non-resort fee hotel sues hotels with resort fees (or a hotel group like Hilton, Marriott that allows the fees). The non-resort fee hotel could make the claim they are at a competitive disadvantage because search results don’t include the fees in the initial results.

Of course even if the non-resort fee hotel wins, that doesn’t mean the end of the fees. Websites could simply add the fees to the search results, if they want.

A more likely scenario would be if a city/county/state sued hotels over what Scott mentions: the fact that hotels aren’t paying the full tax rate on the resort fees. As such, these government entities are losing tax revenue.

This type of lawsuit would have the same affect as the suits filed by the Attorney’s General of Nebraska and DC. Hotel websites would either need to be customized to comply to each lawsuit (unlikely) or all resort fees would disappear.

In the end, however, I’m not sure it matters. If resort fees disappear, it’s not like the overall price of a hotel stay is going to drop. In fact, because the guest now has to pay the full tax rate, the price will go up by a couple of cents for every dollar.