7 of the most devious hotel scams people fall for when booking a room

No one likes hidden fees, whether it's for a concert ticket or a hotel room.

Unfortunately for consumers, hidden fees are legal, and in some cities, unavoidable.

In Las Vegas, for example, it's a longstanding tradition for hotels to add a hefty "resort fee" to your bill, meaning a $60 room can actually cost upwards of $100, according to Jeff Russell, an entertainment travel consultant at Aspen Travel.

Some hotels, unable to claim "resort" status, have rolled out "amenity fees," he said. These mandatory daily charges supposedly pay for their pool, fitness center, or dining regardless of whether you actually use the amenities.

In some cities, there are also union-required porterage fees that can add $10 to $20 to the room, even if you carry your own bags. Other hotels add a daily fee for dining, again regardless of whether or not the guest eats, or even wants to eat, at the hotel.

These fees allow hotels to advertise lower rates without eating into profits. They're usually listed in the fine print of your booking agreement, but whenever staying in a nicer city, call the hotel and ask. Otherwise, your final bill could end up hundreds of dollars more than originally expected.

Most reputable hotels can be trusted to accurately describe the views from the room. However, when paying a great rate for an "ocean-view" room at a lower-priced hotel, you may end up seeing very little ocean. The same holds true for city views.

"'Ocean-view' simply means you get at least a sliver of a view from somewhere in the room," Russell told Business Insider. "An oceanfront room actually faces the ocean."

"If a hotel lists both an oceanfront room and an ocean-view room, know for a fact that the ocean-view will not be looking right out on the ocean," he said.

Some hotels will at least denote "partial ocean-view," though a glimpse of blue water out of a corner window could count as "partial."

A good tip when booking a room for the view is to look at price. A room with a full view of the ocean is usually at least $50 to $100 more than a standard room, Russell said. For a commanding view of a city, make sure your room is located on a high floor.

This scam is a result of both cultural differences and vague terminology. In some cases, it may be an honest mistake, while in others, language is intentionally left ambiguous to confuse the customer.

The best example is the European double room.

In the US, a double room almost always means a room with two double beds. But in Europe, it could also mean a room with two twin-size beds, like a college dorm; or even a room with just one double bed.

Other issues arrive if you try to bring more people than you mentioned in your booking form, like if you book a room under your name but your spouse joins you, or if you book a "family room" but don't tell somebody at the front desk that you actually need multiple beds.

Russell said he has seen clients who booked their own travel arrive in Europe to find a room type different from what they thought they'd booked. While hotels may even acknowledge the ambiguity, he said he's "seen them refuse to accommodate their new needs or charge exorbitant fees for adding a person."

According to Russell, these fees should be somewhere in the fine print. If you have to change room type, though, many hotels will charge you the current rate for booking a whole new reservation.

"And they don't have to do you any favors there," he said.

Usually you can avoid this by looking closely at the rooms on their website. If that fails, call the hotel directly and ask.

A hotel room in New York City, Paris, Tokyo, and other pricey destinations will usually cost more than $200 a night.

If you find an $80 room in one of those cities, beware.

"I will rarely, if ever, book a room for my clients in LA for under $100," Russell said. "I've heard horror stories from tour managers about what those cheap rooms are like. And even if it looks OK online, my experience is that pictures can be rigged but the price speaks loudly."

Even looking at the website or reading reviews can be misleading. Pictures can be from sneaky angles, or of a model room, or from 1995. And moteliers can get associates or paid trolls to give positive reviews. That disproportionately low price likely means wet carpets, dirty sheets and glassware, nonfunctional plumbing, mold, or worse.

Sometimes an online search will tell you if the hotel was built in the last five years or recently renovated. The best way to avoid this scam is simply to accept that a stay in a bigger city is going to cost more, and to stay away from the bargain basement deals.

Once you book your hotel room, you're good to go, right?

Wrong.

According to Russell, a "walk" is when a hotel oversells its rooms and then transfers some of its guests to another hotel. And it happens more often than you'd think.

"Usually they'll list whether or not they can walk guests in the fine print of your booking agreement," said Russell. "But if they're overbooked and you do have a walk clause, the first people to be walked are ones who booked through a third-party site."

Keep an eye out for this in your hotel agreement. Booking directly or through a travel agent usually ensures your room won't get walked. If you do end up being transferred — completely at the hotel's discretion — hopefully they'll walk you to a neighboring hotel. But there's no guarantee the new hotel will honor your room type, or that it will even be close.

"I've seen hotels walk people as far away as, for example, from San Diego to El Cajon," Russell said. That's about a 15-mile distance.

The online hotel booking market is full of sketchy sites that mislead and take advantage of customers at every turn.

A 2018 survey found that 23% of all consumers reported being misled when booking hotels, resulting in nearly $5.2 billion in fraudulent transactions.

Many of these third-party sites offer suspiciously cheap rates for rooms, but they're really just taking your money and running. The customer likely won't find about the scam until they show up with a confirmation that either isn't in the system or is for a room type different from the one the site actually reserved.

According to Chad Schyvincht, area manager for Viceroy Hotels San Francisco, third-party bookings are the primary cause of complaints and problems at check-in. Since many booking sites reserve the cheapest rooms possible, "guests who book on third-party sites will normally get the worst rooms in the hotel and be the first ones to get walked."

One of the most devious scams is run by predators who trick customers into thinking they're on a legit booking site.

Online thieves build sites with a similar URL to industry leaders, but with a slight typo — for example, "Travelacity" instead of Travelocity. Or they use Greek letters that resemble letters in the English alphabet in the URL.

These false storefronts look like the real deal. You can book a room and they'll generate a confirmation. But in reality, they've just stolen your personal information and credit card number.

"Some 55 million online hotel bookings are affected by fraudulent websites and call centers posing as hotel websites," according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

Falling for this scam means that showing up to your hotel without a reservation will be the least of your problems — your stolen credit card and identity are the bigger concerns. In most cases, you have little to no recourse except cancel your cards and monitor your credit score.

This is a standard but highly effective phishing scam. How do you avoid it? Be extra vigilant when using third-party booking sites. The best way to avoid these scams altogether is to book through your hotel directly or through a travel agent.