Everything started out as normal. I went to Miami for a conference and stayed in a perfectly adequate hotel. It did not offer coffee makers in the room, so the staff lent me a kettle to make my evening cup of tea. I attended the Wednesday morning sunrise yoga class on the hotel's rooftop terrace ("free" with my daily $35 — plus tax! — resort fee). I scanned the printed bill at checkout and everything looked fine.
Then, I checked my credit card bill a week later.
There, in my list of transactions, I found not one but two charges from the hotel. One was the amount from my folio — three nights of room charges, plus taxes and the annoying amenity fee. The other was for an additional $32.
Excuse me, what?
I racked my brain. I'm not a minibar girl. After years of being a mom and occasionally vegetarian, you can bet I travel with my own snacks and am not going to pay $5 for a Snickers bar (mass-market chocolate isn't going to satisfy me for that price). I didn't break anything. I used the in-room yoga mat, but I'd just paid $100 in amenity fees for that privilege.
What was the extra charge for?
So, I called the hotel to ask and was told it was for taking the umbrella ... as in, the golf umbrella in the corner of the closet that I never touched because it was not raining. Even if I had fallen in love with its stylish logo design and thought it would make an amazing souvenir, the gigantic umbrella would not have fit in my carry-on suitcase.
No, I did not steal the umbrella from my hotel room.
I explained this to the phone representative, who didn't even protest before she agreed to reverse the charge on my credit card bill. (I'm still waiting to see that reflected in my account.)
But the entire episode got me thinking: Are these accidental charges a common occurrence? And is there a travel takeaway from my experience?
To the latter question, the answer is yes.
Whenever I have a travel conundrum, the first thing I do is reach out to my colleagues at TPG, who collectively have logged millions of flight miles and hundreds (thousands?) of hotel nights.
Had they experienced these surprise charges?
Yes. Yes, they had.
Senior editor Christine Gallipeau had a Washington, D.C., hotel charge her twice for taxes and fees. Katie Genter, senior points and miles writer, nearly paid 18 euros ($19) extra when a hotel did not apply her food and beverage credit. Senior cruise writer Ashley Kosciolek twice found fraudulent minibar charges, and Caroline English, director of social media and brand, had to confront a Charlotte hotel about a bill for $100 worth of food that she allegedly charged at 3 a.m. (when that tired working mom was most definitely asleep).
But my favorite anecdote came from TPG's copy editor, Treena Simington,
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