Every now and then I’m going to have a post that’s not about a product or service that I’m reviewing, but more of a rant. Today is the day for the one that’s been bugging me for a long time. As a frequent travel I stay in hotels on a regular basis. Of course I travel with my laptop and access the internet while I’m in my room. I’ve found that internet charges range anywhere from FREE to $16.99/night (more overseas). I really got to thinking about this on my trip to Arizona a couple of months ago. While I was in Page Arizona I stayed at a Courtyard Marriott and the internet was FREE. Wi-Fi access throughout the building at no extra cost. As I was heading home I spent one night at a regular Marriott near the Phoenix Airport. Not only was there a charge for the internet, they even had tiered pricing for connecting at faster speeds. I thought, "wow they’ve even gone through extra trouble to be able to charge you more for a faster connection. Now while I wasn’t surprised by a charge for internet access, I was curious why Courtyard Marriott hotels can offer FREE internet access and charge less for their rooms than standard Marriott Hotels? The room rate for the Page Courtyard was $89/night (free Wi-Fi). The room rate for the airport Marriott was $120/night and the internet access for the basic speed for $9.95/night. I don’t even remember what the higher speed internet cost. As a Marriott Rewards Member I thought that this would have been a perfect way to "reward" me for my loyalty. Why not give the Marriott Rewards members free basic access and charge for the higher speeds?
Yeah, but…
I know what some of you are thinking. "Well Terry, the hotel has to pay for the internet connection. They also had to pay to have the rooms wired or to put in Wi-Fi routers throughout the building. Lastly not everyone is going to use the internet, so they are only charging the customers that do use the internet. Isn’t that fair?" You know you’re right! There definitely is a cost involved in setting up and maintaining internet for hundreds of rooms in a hotel. I don’t doubt that, nor do I pretend to know what it costs to do the installation and maintain it? However, I would argue back that most of these hotels have a pool and a gym that costs money to maintain and that not everyone is going to use either. Yet, there is rarely a Pool charge on your bill or a Gym Access Fee.
What about the lobby?
Yes, many hotels are starting to offer FREE Wi-Fi in the lobby. This makes even less sense. So let me get this straight. If I’m a guy off the street I can walk in, grab a nice comfy chair and surf the internet as long as I want for Free. However, if I’m paying for a room I have to pay for the convenience of accessing the internet in the room that I’m paying for?
BYOI
Yes, I also know that if you’re going to be traveling on a regular basis that it’s probably cheaper just to pay for a 3G card from a cellular carrier. I do have 3G cards and in fact that’s what I connect with most of the time when the hotel charges for internet. The point here is that I shouldn’t have to.
End of rant
OK, that’s it. I’m not expecting a miracle here. I just wanted to get that off my chest. Have a great Thursday!
UPDATE – Apparently I’m not alone. Check out this article.
I’m also a road warrior. I don’t mind paying if I can actually use it. More often than not, hotels limit bandwidth (or just don’t have enough to begin with) so that it’s pretty much useless.
I’d gladly pay more for higher speeds, providing there really was speed.
Marriott in San Francisco is ultra-fast. Courtyard in Nashville, TN – pretty much a dial-up connection – that they forgot to deposit quarters in!
It seems that they think if you can afford the nicer hotel, you can afford all the nickel and dime charges too. It’s the same with the Hilton line. The nicer linens aren’t worth the extra costs. 😉
Terry, sad to say but you’ve got the logic wrong and you won’t like the real reason. This has nothing to do with costs bit with profits. High end hotels charge because their customers – business travelers – pay. Low end hotels use free wifi as an advertising/differentiating tool (to differentiate from the reallly cheap motels). And from the hotels’ perspectives, the system works great (because the business traveler pays and keeps coming back)…. I think the NY Times wrote up the whole sordid affair a few years ago.
Terry….
I couldn’t agree with you more. Wireless should be a free service in hotels. Next time you need to stay near the airport in Phoenix, use the Courtyard Phoenix Airport: http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/phxca-courtyard-phoenix-airport/
Their internet is wired but free. Like you have talked about before, I travel with my Airport Express to make it wireless in my room and it works great.
Terry,
I do not travel much but I am in agreement with the “extras” that hotels add on.
I remember the days before cell phones the outrageous charges to use the phone…..The principle is like the golden rule, ” He who has the gold makes the rules”.
I don’t want to throw stones, but Marriott’s a huge profit center is from pornographic movies that offers palliative cravings for its guests. The charges for this service is offensive.
According to research, the average time viewing these movies is 2 to 3 minutes tops.
It used to be the “7 deadly sins” had traction in the US corporate world.
I am not a moralist, or a “saint” by any means. From my perception, greed is causing a gowning distrust of corporations.
Ken in KY
I’ve given up on Internet connections at unknown locations. Partly because I’ve found Internet access at hotels unreliable or underwhelming in performance, but also out of security concerns. I don’t know who else is sniffing the wire (or the WiFi). I bought a USB broadband connection from AT&T. It works consistently in the places I’ve visited and I’m not sharing the connection with unknown folks.
The down side is that it’s more expensive. Since I don’t travel as frequently as some business people, there are often months where I’m paying for something I don’t need. It’s just very convenient to have whenever I want, particularly at locations where there isn’t any other alternative.
It’s all about the money. It always has been. If the demand is there, people will pay for the service until enough of us internet-hungry consumers complain often enough to the greedy hotel industry.
Terry, you are absolutely right on each of your points!
Geeze, seriously Terry? That’s a pretty simple one. (Bret pretty much nailed it) Funny how planes have business class and coach class. One doesn’t arrive at destination any faster than the other. I can’t figure it out.
I thought of the same thing not that long ago when passing an outside cafe’ advertising Free Wi-Fi. Reminds me ALOT of yester years when Hotels / Motels advertised "Free Color TV". Seems Wi-Fi has become the New Color TV 🙂
Lovin’ Your Blog!
nicky
Terry,
I agree with you overall but please be fair. When I stay at a Marriott Courtyard I can go down to the lobby and get as many free cups of coffee as I want! When I stay at a full service Marriott I have to pay for each cup of coffee. It seem the more expensive the hotel – the less that is included in the price. The less expensive the hotel – the more that is included. Mariott Fairfield Inns even have a free breakfast!
Terry
I would love for them to ask if I could trade in the phone service for internet service. (Will never happen). I agree that WiFi should be standard in the room.
Same thoughts from me. I don’t travel often but I do make a regular pilgrimage to a convention in Las Vegas every year and it’s a complaint I have every year (and it’s been getting more expensive recently.) The connections I pay for there are poor at best with drops and fouled up payments by the provider. (Most of those hotels don’t do their own – they have it contracted to an outside entity who covers large portions of the Strip.) This year I found myself doing everything on my iPhone because I could do it over the 3G and it didn’t cost me anything extra. Now if I can just get a way to tether my laptop to the iPhone, I’ll be good to go! What I couldn’t do over the phone I did at the Convention center – There’s a pay system in place there as well, but I found a small spot in the building where there was an unsecured connection – only problem was that I wasn’t the only one who found it…
It is ridiculous that you can get free internet at the lowly Super 8.. and pay $10-$15 when you stay at a Hilton, Sheraton, Marriott, Hyatt etc. Perhaps they assume that their primary customer is the ‘business traveler’ who will just put the coston their expense account. Shame on them. I much prefer to stay at nicer hotels. But internet is a must for us. Some have made it impossible for us to connect our own router and ‘share’ the connection we’re paying too much for… yet another gotcha. It annoys us so much, that ‘free internet’ has become a deciding factor when we select hotels.
they should charge what they want. you should stay where you want.
you should vote w your feet AND your mouth…
phoenix has lots of hotels.
As a frequent traveler I am always annoyed and offended by hotel internet charges. However, as I travel outside of the U.S. frequently the USB cards are not a good buy for me. Foreign internet charges can run as high as $35 a day: ouch!!!
A recent 2.5 week trip in Canada cost me big bucks in Internet charges. Reprieves included Granville Island Hotel in Vancouver and stays at Fairmont and Omni hotels that provide free Internet to their reward members.
If Fairmont and Omni, which are high-end hotels can “reward” their members, why not Hilton, Sheraton, Marriott and Hyatt????
I’ve noticed the disparity as well and have successfully had the charges removed from my bill at higher-end hotels, especially when it’s appeared that the hotel was gouging travelers in the hotel attending adjacent technology conferences. It appeared simply to be a way of adding profit on top of higher rates. We’re finding we’re tend to choose the hotels with free internet access over other hotels with the same rates and finding hotel policies are, indeed, driving us to lower tier hotels–as those chains expected. In effect, the higher end hotels are charging us for fancier decor, which we don’t care about, while skimping on the services we need or charging us extra for them. That equals higher prices for lower quality service at the higher end hotels and that’s a poor value proposition! It’s not much different than buying computer cables at big box stores and paying lots extra for convenience as Terry noted in a prior post.
David Pogue had an interesting take on this last year in the New York Times: the less expensive places give it for free, the more expensive places charge for it. Doesn’t make any sense (other than greed). Perhaps they figure if you can afford to stay with them in the first place you have sufficient disposable you can afford it.
Tsk.
Jon.
The airport charges because they are expecting a high volume of business travelers who will just charge it to their company card. That is what drives up the cost of travel for regular folks in larger cities. Business can charge and use it as an expense for a tax deduction while regular travelers just get stung. Downtown restaurants are high-priced and they serve the tax-writeoff crowd.
This ain’t rocket science, folks.
Steve and Jon have it right. There is a clear correlation. The higher the price of the room the more they charge for incidentals. Holiday Inn Express, Hampton Inn, Courtyards and others have lower room rates and they offer free breakfast, free coffee and free internet access. The high end Hiltons and Marriotts have higher room rates and they charge for everything including internet access. I travel a lot on business and make it a point never to stay in those hotels. It just makes me mad knowing they are ripping me off so I won’t stay there.
The same goes for airports. The larger airports SFO, ORD, DEN and LAX have some sort of internet available for a charge. Smaller airports like PDX, ABE, SAN and LAS have free internet.
I have noticed that in most places the quality of free internet has gone up quite a bit. I still find some problems where some ports are turned off making it difficult to use email or view streamed video on a news site.
In the spirit of the season I say we dump “tea” (hotel coffee bags) in the “harbor” (hotel pool)
Agree 100% with you Terry. 3G card as alternative in USA is ok, but not for us in Europe with extortionate roaming charges. Psychologically I’d rather pay an extra $20 on the room and be given “free” wifi. Current practices are parsimonious and poor customer service
Yep, they do it because they can. As a Marriott Platinum Elite member, I find they will remove the internet charge if you ask them but I sure get your point. Unless there is something specific I need with my laptop, I just use the 3G from the iPhone instead.
My beef is the increasing charges for parking at the full serve Marriotts and other large hotels. Paying as much as $20 a day just to park in their lot? C’mon, get real.
Terry,
I agree with you that having to pay for wi-fi nowdays makes no sense. I travel almost every week for work, and this entire year I have yet to turn on the TV, use the phone (except to order food), or use the pool.
Not justifying it, but the reason that M. Courtyards and H. Garden Inns have free internet is because they are considered Business Traveler hotels. (not that I agree with it).
As a Hilton Diamond member, so far all Hilton hotels I stayed at removed the internet charges from my bill.
As someone mentioned above the reason big airports like ATL charge for internet is because business travelers like myself will just expense it in. This is where I get pissed off, is that hotels that are for business travellers dont charge for internet, but vacation hotels do 🙂
The airport in Hyderbad, India has a very interesting approach, they give 45 minutes of free internet, that would allow to check emails and etc.
P.S. The Denver Airport doesnt charge you, at least in the C gates…
Terry, I am an airline pilot and believe me I feel your pain. Everyone has figured out that the business
traveler, who expenses out the internet cost, is the reason uper tier hotels still charge for internet
access. I talked to the manager at our downtown Kansas City layover hotel one day while waiting for
the airport van. I was very surprised to find out the hotel made around $300,000 a year in internet
fees. That was more profit than the resturant made. They were well aware people hated internet fees,
but that kind of money was hard to give up, even though he knew they would eventually would have to. (Everyone
be sure and complain to the manager if you don’t like the fee. It’s the only thing that will change it.)
How about I stayed at a resort just recently and the price of WiFi was $49 a day. Oh, and it was here within the US border. I voiced my disgust to the management and got a “complimentary” code for the week. If I’m paying more than $400 a night, my WiFi better be an included amenity and come with someone who will check my email for me.
You are right on the money Terry. This is a travesty that only survives because corporate America is paying for it on the expense accounts…and then WE pay in the price of the goods and services we buy. Who knows, next the airlines will actually start charging for taking your baggage along with you on your flight. Naw, that could never happen.
Just stayed at a Marriott in San Francisco. The parking was an off-the-charts rate of $68 a day!
Makes the internet charge look very cheap. 🙂
I agree with you 100%!!!
The odd thing is that it seems that across the board, the more you pay for a hotel room, the less chance of free wifi. You can get free internet at pretty much any best western. but most of the swanky hotels charge for it… what’s up with that?!?!?