One of my little crusades is to have hotels simplify (and not try to make as much money off of) high-speed Internet access in your room. A fee of $9.95 for 24 hours of access seems to be becoming the norm but there are variations. A reader of this site who for some reason wishes to remain anonymous writes…
Here's the new scam. It says you get access for $9.95 a day but what they either don't tell you or tell you only in tiny print is that the day stops at check-out time even if you're not checking out that day. Let's say checkout time at the hotel is Noon. At 12 sharp, everyone's Internet access is the next day. If you first log on at 11:30 AM, then you're paying the $9.95 for that half hour and you have to pay another $9.95 after Noon even if you're only on for five minutes. You could wind up paying $20 for five minutes of Internet connectivity if it started at 11:57 AM. At the last hotel where I stayed, I found four days of Internet access billed on my credit card even though I'd only been at the hotel for three days. The problem was that I'd checked in and accessed the Internet before Noon. When I argued that I shouldn't be charged for four days of Internet service on a three day hotel stay, they erased one day of charges but still this kind of thing should not be tried, especially when their website said "$9.95 per 24 hours."
Good point. I notice that some hotels — particularly the kind that are not likely to attract business travellers on expense accounts — seem to be offering free in-room high speed web connects. Sure would be nice if this became the norm. $9.95 is okay if you're going to be doing some serious web browsing but what if you just want to check your e-mail and maybe the weather forecast for five minutes? I wonder if there are any stats on how much of that 24 hours the average hotel guest uses when he buys a full day of Internet access. I'm guessing not a lot.