A trip to Chicago should come with deep dish pizza, a boat ride on the river, and maybe a Cubs game if the weather cooperates. What it should not come with is a surprise bill waiting for you at the front desk. That’s exactly what happened to Mark Scullion and his girlfriend Hannah, who booked what they thought was a fully prepaid five-night stay at the Ambassador Hotel through a European travel agency called Love Holidays.
The trip itself sounds like a win. Wrigley Field, the lakefront, the Art Institute, and enough deep dish to require a nap afterward. The couple was celebrating a babymoon, since they’re expecting their first child and figured this would be their last just-the-two-of-us getaway for a while. Their confirmation showed a zero balance owed. Nothing left to pay. That’s usually the good part of prepaying for a trip.
Except when they checked in, the hotel told them they owed hundreds of dollars more. The hotel tried softening the blow with vouchers for free breakfast, drinks, dinner, and a spa discount, none of which the couple asked for or used. Scullion put it plainly: it looked like the hotel was trying to make the extra charges feel like a bonus package instead of what it actually was, a bill nobody agreed to.
Once the story got attention, the Ambassador Hotel sent Love Holidays a cease and desist letter, accusing the agency of not properly disclosing mandatory fees due at check-in. The hotel also told Love Holidays to stop taking bookings for its Chicago properties until the listings get fixed. Love Holidays says it’s committed to clear pricing and is looking into how the error happened.
The Fee Nobody Asked For
Travel editor Peter Greenberg didn’t hold back when asked about it. Beyond the resort fee that wasn’t disclosed, the hotel also tacked on a separate 40 dollar per night “service fee,” which is apparently the charge for the privilege of having made a reservation in the first place.
Greenberg compared it to an airline charging you extra just to show up at the airport before your flight. It’s a fair comparison, since arriving at the airport isn’t exactly optional if you want to fly anywhere.
Resort fees and service fees have become one of travel’s more irritating habits. They tend to show up after you’ve already committed to a price, which makes them feel less like a fee and more like a plot twist.
A Happy Ending, Eventually
Despite the check-in headache, the couple says they still had a great trip and plan to visit Chicago again. After the story was brought to the hotel’s attention, love holidays agreed to refund the fees.
It’s a reminder to read the fine print closely, even when a confirmation says the balance is zero. Sometimes zero has an asterisk attached to it.