Holiday firms: give us a break from sneaky fees and bad service

However . . . behaviour might be better if children were seated away from their parents. A recent flight was spoiled by the irritating and and disruptive behaviour of the parents who were trying to amuse their infant who was not in the least interested in participating. Especially on return flights many adults get overtired and emotional and start misbehaving and making too much noise.

In the discussions about phone charges you have pointed out that it is unfair to charge people for something they don’t use. On that basis, why should those who don’t use Wi-Fi pay for it?

The costs of operating a wifi network are fixed, irrespective of usage volumes. Therefore there is no financial logic in charging according to usage. There are lots of services for which hotels don’t surcharge for usage, but which are used by only a fraction of guests, e.g. indoor swimming pools and gyms. On the other hand, most hotel guests do use wifi, and hotels know this. By surcharging for a fixed-cost amenity that most guests use, it serves only to facilitate a misleading indication of the headline price.

If the hotel is paying for unlimited use then the hotels are charging because they can. Don’t expect value for money at expensive hotels. It’s the same with extras on expensive cars. It has always been easier to profit from those prepared to spend more.

Hotels surcharge for wifi only to facilitate a misleading indication of headline price. For example, instead of advertising a price of €140/night, they advertise €120/night and then subsequently sting guests with a €20/night surcharge for wifi. Most guests end up paying this surcharge, so the hotel should include it in the headline price of the room. Excluding the surcharge from the headline price serves only to make the room look cheaper than it is, i.e. a misleading indication of price.

Why don’t these hotels also surcharge for electricity, water, heating and air-conditioning? Surcharging for wifi is no more justifiable. Internet access is a basic utility for most people in 2015, not an optional luxury.

As I said, they charge because they can. For me it is a higher priority to tackle companies that charge compulsory supplements such as damage waivers, but hopefully these will soon be a thing of the past.

Rather than doing an online booking, speak to the hotel, ask about charges and say you are not interested if there is a supplement for Wi-Fi use. Alternatively, vote with your feet and use the hotels that don’t charge.

Of course, “they charge because they can”. But this article is about whether these surcharges and drip pricing are acceptable. I say that they are not acceptable, because their objective is to facilitate a misleading indication of price.

Your suggestion to ask about wifi charges when booking is a good one. Another way I phrase the question is to ask for the total room price including wifi. If the total price is too high, then I haggle. I also give them a link to all my previous (mostly positive) reviews on Tripadvisor, which gives them an incentive to make me happy. I also find that many international 5* chains give me free wifi because of the status I have with them, but that doesn’t change my objection to the principle of surcharging.

Charges for breakfast in some 4* and 5* hotels can be really excessive, often around £25/$40/€35. Sometimes they offer a room rate with breakfast included, which is much better value for two people than for a single business traveller, and the difference works out at much less than the breakfast charge.

We always try to get a room with a fridge and often take our own cereal, cereal bowls and spoons. We do this mainly because of dietry requirements as we need a fridge for our own milk otherwise it gets lost in the kitchens.

A slight problem can arise when you remove items from a mini-bar that get automatically charged for !!!

We have also found that wherever breakfast is charged at an extortionate rate, there is often a very reasonably priced cafe not far away.

The last Conversation on this was a long time ago [“Summer holidays are ripping us off” – 30 July 2010] and school policies have hardened considerably since then, which puts even more pressure on the six week summer break. The travel companies cannot standardise the prices throughout the year because the airlines and the hotel operators use the price mechanism as a way of matching supply and demand. Another way of looking at it is that the summer prices are at the right level but there are off-season discounts for when there is spare capacity.

The internet is a fantastic thing but security of data is its Achilles heel. I cannot believe that every single call centre operative is 100% honest, has been checked, vetted and trained properly, and is being effectively supervised and managed to prevent data leaks. The words “accidentally” and “inadvertently” do not inspire much confidence in the Thomson statement that they “take data security very seriously”. As usual there is a promise to ensure that “this situation will not be repeated” – until it happens again, of course. There is not much Thomson can do to compensate customers because there is probably no way of knowing what their losses will be over time, but they could have been more accommodating over altering people’s bookings to reduce the risk of crime at their home addresses [although I think the timescales involved will probably not allow for much criminal activity unless the holiday is some weeks or months away]. An ICO fine is probably the best that can be hoped for to show firms that hold so much personal data that they really must invest substantially in better and more secure IT systems and staff control. This means dearer holidays but that is better than a criminal misuse of data.

I expect that no-one pays the full price, rather like these shops that always have SALE notices throughout the year. All that really matters is what price you are offered. Expect greater discounts if you can be prepared to be flexible and can make a late booking.