WTF is with hotel that charge for wi-fi access.
 

I got the hat trick this week. Three hotels that charge for wi-fi access. Usually I ask in advance and boycott those that charge for this. This time I forgot.

First hotel 20 euro flat charge per day. Second hotel 25 euro per day. Today, 3rd hotel, 15 Euro per day.

Incredibly rude when you're paying good money for a room IMO. But I live and die by my internet access and have to pay it.

What's up with is? I'm guessing so many business travellers just expense these costs that the hotels feel OK charging these usurious rates...

I can almost understand charging. But that's a helluva big charge.

How about my current gripe - charging for wifi then providing piss poor service? I'm in an Embassy Suites right now that charges $9.95 daily for wifi, then has incredibly slow connection speed and an intermittent signal. If you're going to charge for it then making it blazing fast, because this is BS.

Id ***** until they refunded the 10bucks matt

Internet access is not free. If they provide good access they have to pay for the access, and they aren't paying $30 a month for residential broadband. Then not only are they paying for a fast commercial service, but I'm sure they have to pay for tech support. And not everyone wants the access so they probably don't roll the cost into the room.

Or it's possible that they are just trying to make a little extra dough.like when banks were charging for online bill pay despite it saving them money in the long run. Although I'm sure the initial outlay was costly for that as well.

That is EXACTLY my peeve... I often work from hotels and the charge-for-internet is annoying but at least I can get pass the costs on. What is ridiculous is to pay $10 and the connection is absolutely worthless. If it won't work, I will not pay for it.

One way around this is for me to use my wireless card. Though the card is fairly slow, it is still faster than almost any hotel wireless (and frequently faster than the hard-wired hotels).

In short - if you are going to charge for a service, then the service needs to be good, including internet access.

angela

My Verizon wireless card keeps me sane on the road. It is fast enough.

It's ironic how the cheaper hotels somehow don't charge for wi-fi. Why don't they expensive also charge for cable tv or cleaning your room? There are plenty of costs to keep the doors open. Charging for wi-fi is a cash grab. It doesn't cost the hotel a dime more whether you use their wi-fi or not. I use my company's AT&T air card wherever wi-fi isn't free. I'll never pay that fee.

Well you can't be 100% sure that there is no additional cost whether guests use it or not.

Hotels are not in the WIFI service business and will contract out to a 3rd party to maintain the access control and billing back end.

Not unreasonable to assume a deal could be negotiated for a hotel to either pay one all inclusive price or a reduced recurring with rev share per user.

They could even see it as a necessary service that needs to be provided and they pay nothing for it with 100% of fees going to the provider.

Rick, it does cost em a dime more if it's used or not, that's the whole point.
It's not just for the traffic, but also for the Wi-fi infrastructure.
It takes a bit more then a home wifi router to cover an entire hotel with several floors and hundreds of rooms. Decent wifi gear can cost serious moolah.

So i guess it's easier for a small time hotel with just 8 rooms, then it is for a big one.
That being said, in the grand scheme of things in a hotel .. I doubt that the wifi infra is a big percentage of the monthly costs and write offs. So 20 bucks a day is very steep..
5-10 seems more fair to me. Keep in mind, nothing is free.
If you have free wifi, that means that they included the charge in the hotel price.
Then i guess it's fine if you do use it.. But those who don't are paying for something they don't need. Can't please everybody all the time i gues.

This is why my next move is going to be the new iPhone 5 w/ unlimited data and 4G tethering. I will be able to use it as a fast modem for my laptop anywhere, (including at home). No more paying separately for home internet or looking for wifi spots during the day. If I happen to be somewhere with free wifi, fine. I'll use it to save my phone battery. Otherwise, it's going to be connectivity everywhere all the time, including rolling down the road in the middle of nowhere. My most tech-savvy young friend has this now and works on his laptop while his GF drives on commutes to SF from LA.

Whatever it costs the hotel, it's a miniscule percentage of the $15 at the very least they charge. I'd feel less robbed if they also charged for cable and every other amenity. In fact, it's a real pain in the ass when I do expense reports because I can't just put down the dollar figure at the bottom of the receipt. I have to break it down by every tax and charge and for each night. I would think cable tv costs them plenty more, as does washing the linens every day for someone who's spending several days there.

If they charge, I don't use it.

I use my Verizon aircard. I need to compare the cost to adding tethering to my ATT iPhone, but sometimes it is better to have the Verizon network.

Why isn't it free at home? And I have to do my own sheets!

Most of them block you once you try to hit port 80 (the web). That is , DNS and other services work, just as soon as you open a web browser you get blocked.

Which means that a SSH tunnel to a proxy server or a VPN should work just fine...

In fact, I may or may not know someone who may or may not have set up a "rogue" DHCP server during a large conference along with an ad-hoc wireless network to give free access to their coworkers...

I wonder why he went to the effort . . . ;)

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1317591293.jpg

Ian

Yep.
I too have my secretary ask when she makes a reservation for me. If they say there is a fee, we try elsewhere. I used to get charged about everywhere, but now most US hotels offer it free to get your business. One of the positives of the capitalist system.

You need to stay at crappy motor hotels... wireless is free and you get complimentary stale muffins for breakfast!

The worst ripoff I have experienced was at a Hilton where the WiFi fee was $13.95/day, but you had to relog about every 1/2 hr. That was frustrating. What is that all about... like the session times out and you have to enter your room number again.

If airports can provide free public internet access why can't hotels?

Airport access sucks. Buy an air card if you travel a lot. Around 65-80 a month.

4 and 5 star hotels = high end business travelers = ala carte for internet and usually parking. I Priceline a lot and stay in 4 - 5 star hotels (probably 20 in the last month already). I'm getting killed on internet and parking fees. Parking is running $25-$40 a night. I usually park down the street somewhere to save a few bucks. I'm running a jailbroken iPhone with unlimited data, so can usually get my internet that way, although I am seeing some hotels block my wireless connection to my iPhone. The situation is much, much worse in Europe. Pretty much as a rule, they're going to charge you for Internet access. Funny as it sounds, I had no problem finding free Internet anywhere in Costa Rica recently. The irony!

While no help in Europe, all Hampton Inns are free WiFi. Slow - yes - especially during peak times at night. And Hilton for Gold & Diamond members. I guess that's why I have 271,244 points - just 2 1/2 years accumulation.

Ian

I was in a downtown Boston hotel over the weekend and they wanted $10 per day for wifi and $42 per day to park the car. I parked at an outlying airport and used my iphone all the time. Train fare was $5.25 one way. I don't like getting screwed. Was there for three nights so saved aprox $140 over my stay.

I stayed at the Palomar in Westwood last week and parking was $30 per night. I parked for free on the corner where two hour parking was only enforced from 8am to 6pm.

I've got a about a billion nights with Marriott. Love the chain but I can't figure out why they charge for internet in the 'full service' hotel, but give it away in the Courtyard and others.

Worse yet, they bandwidth and lag is terrible!

I got hit with a "resort fee" at a Vegas strip hotel. $18 per day. Mandatory.

In addition to wi-fi, it also allowed for use of the pool and gym, and their "business center" of about 5 computers with printer in the lobby.

As far as everything Ive seen, the iPhone 5 isn't going to be 4 g. We will know soon enough.

You would think that Japan would be huge on wifi...not. Every hotel I have stayed at there was wired only...for a fee. Japan is very anti-wifi.

Most domestic chain hotels (Hilton, Marriott, etc...) offer free WiFi to their top level points holders. That said I always expense the $10/night internet fee. LOL.

Seems the ala-carte method is really big in the travel world these days:

- ~ $12 - $20 a day for wifi
- Up to $35.00 per bag to be checked on an airplane.
- Airlines are also charging 'Preferred seating' for those who want to sit in the wing isle, or towards the front of the aircraft.

This is getting crazy.
-Z-man.

It's almost impossible to find free wi-fi when traveling abroad anymore. I have Verizon aircard and tried to use it in Mexico, but was scared off by the warning of big charges.

Anyone have experience in Europe with buying an air card there? What are the costs?

A lot of the hotels charge for Wifi per machine. The Wired charge is usually about the same. I have gone around this be taking a mini wifi-router with me on the road. It shows up as 1 machine to the network once the inital logon is done.

I am also now carrying a mini cellular wifi router (Mifi) which works very well. At first I had trouble in that it wouldn't charge and operate as a router at the same time. It now behaves!

This unit also allows a micro-USB to be installed and it operates as a mini-NAS. Pretty slick.

Pickup an AT&T MiFi. You can switch on an international data plan. You get a fixed amount of data per month. You can switch the plan on and off by calling AT&T. The charges are prorated (on and off) but the amount of Data is NOT prorated. Weird, but that is how it is setup.

You can also purchase a Mifi Unit from Telcel and then buy data from them. The price is pretty reasonable.

Courtyard's are all free and if you are Gold or Plat with Marriott there is never a charge for internet in any of their hotels. Thats a major reason why we stay at this chain over 100 nights a year.

Excellent advice as always from RB......Many Thanks.....

I'm with Joe on this. A Marriott hotel is always one of my first choices and Internet connectivity is tops among the reasons.

I have been staying at a Courtyard near my daughter's house at least twice a month since my grandson was born. Now I know that it will vary from hotel to hotel, but the one where I have been staying has superb Internet connectivity. I take my laptop with me and connect it to the flat-panel TV in the room with a HDMI cable. Then I have been able to stream content (movies, TV shows) flawlessly and watch them on TV. That's a damn good shared connection.

I am, and don't get charged, but it still bothers me! I do enjoy my extra fluffy bathmat though. :D