Hotels, Resorts Tack on Extra Fees, Tips for Summer Travel

  • Tipping is becoming commonplace across more services and venues.
  • The rise of unexpected gratuity charges and other fees might affect your summer travel plans.
  • Consumers are growing weary of encountering these charges, especially when they come as a surprise.

As tipping infiltrates unexpected services and venues — from your local Chipotle to self-service beer fridges at sports stadiums — your summer travel plans may not be immune.

Take The Montague on the Gardens, a four-star hotel in London.

On top of a nightly charge of as much as £918, or about $1142, the hotel charges guests a daily £15, or $19, service fee.

The fee — which a guest can request to be removed — is “a payment that recognizes and rewards all employees for exceeding

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Do hotel keys store my personal data?

Traveling always comes with complications. Our By The Way Concierge column will take your travel dilemmas to the experts to help you navigate the new normal. Want to see your question answered? Submit it here.

Can you settle a score? A friend insists that hotel key cards contain all your information, including credit card numbers. I maintain that they only have the dates for which the card is valid to enter the room. — Edith G., Laurel, Md.

I’ll admit, I was suspicious when a few big hotels declined to comment on this column. But once I spoke with nearly a dozen experts, I learned hotel key cards don’t carry your sensitive information.

Curt Cashour, spokesperson for the American Hotel and Lodging Association, pointed me to an article from Snopes that shows the rumor started at least 20 years ago.

Apparently a detective with the

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How these residents created an eco-friendly destination

BRECKENRIDGE, Colo. − There’s a lot to love about Breckenridge. The mountain town is often considered one of the best ski resorts in the US and welcomes up to 1 million visitors a year.

Though “Breck,” as the locals call it, is charming and walkable – an uncommon feature for many mountain towns – the real focal point is, of course, the mountain itself: five peaks and the highest chairlift in North America, which reaches nearly 13,000 feet. Locals like to say the entire town is ski in, ski out.

Breckenridge may also be one of the most sustainable tourist destinations in the country, thanks to its dedicated community – as other ski resorts are grappling with climate change which threatens their very existence.

Residents have a habit of coming up with new, creative initiatives to push stewardship education, such as Precious Plastics, which gives unrecyclable plastic a second life,

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Ottawa man says hotel in Laval, Que., should warn guests that car thefts are a problem

Jose Velasquez was enjoying his stay at the Sheraton Hotel in Laval, Que., when he traveled there from Ottawa recently for his son’s hockey tournament — until his car disappeared.

He tried to track it down with GPS, but the results weren’t much help.

“At first I thought maybe I parked it elsewhere, but it shows me exactly where I parked it, and I knew it was gone,” said Velasquez.

The night before his own car was stolen, Velasquez had heard of other car thefts at the same hotel, located just off Highway 15, north of Montreal.

“I didn’t think my car was in danger because maybe it’s a rare occurrence,” he said.

Yet another hockey parent complained on Facebook about the frequency of car thefts at the Sheraton in Laval, warning people not to stay at the hotel.

More patrols needed: APA head

George Iny, the head of the

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Passion for Italy Podcast #16: Italian Holiday

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Ciao this is Allison Spiegel with Passion For Italy Travel in New York. Happy holidays! As we start to wrap up a year that has seen such significant change and heartbreak, we are reminded of how lucky we are to be healthy and safe, and we hope all of you are as well. While we have been unable to travel abroad this year, nothing can take away our ability to dream about our next travel destination. Vacation days and time away with family and friends are precious, and will feel even more special when the world opens its borders once again, and we can get back to exploring the places we love.

This holiday season, I have been reminiscing about a trip my family took to Italy last December. Usually during the holiday break, we travel somewhere

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