sampa : colin’s blog

…is that the more you pay for your hotel room, the greater the chance that the hotel will tack on an extra $10-$12 daily charge for internet connectivy.

I do a decent amount of travelling these days, and although a lot of the time my clients are paying for my hotel room I generally try to save them money by staying in the low-midrange category (Fairfield Inn, SpringHill Suites, Hampton Inn, etc.). It’s quite ironic that anything in this price range, or even lower (like a Comfort Inn) will always give you free connectivity, but as you start heading up the price bracket towards full-service, the chance becomes greater and greater that the hotel will tack on an extra daily charge for internet connectivity, sometimes accompanied by a charge for parking, along with of course the much higher base room rate.

Of course we all know that Internet connectivity costs effectively nothing to provide. I guess this pricing model reflects that fact that at the low end we’re talking about people/companies/clients that care about every dollar, and at the high-end the cost of a hotel room is hidden somewhere in insignificant fashion next to other expenses. Something still feels totally wrong about being shafted like this though…

Update 2005-10-15: See also Why hotel WiFi sucks, and NY Times v. Wall St. Journal on Hotel Internet Fees.