This may be true for people paying base rates. However, I am pretty certain that if no one ever came up with the idea of resort fees, people who earn comped rooms for their play would still be getting rooms for free, instead of for $30-$40. That is the biggest problem I have with the fees.

I think if you have strong feelings about whether MGM is doing the right thing financially or the wrong thing financially, you should buy or short their stock, respectively.

Do you think that that the amount of play required for those comped rooms wouldnt be affected by the rates?

Doesn't surprise me much. If people have to pay to park, they're going to do it in a more central location. Park at Aria and there are a dozen casinos within reasonable walking distance. Park at Mandalay Bay and you can go to the Luxor.

Maybe they would be, but the point is that in some casinos no one gets truly free rooms anymore.

Are there really casinos that charge you resort fee if you roll high enough?

Hard to believe that Aria is comping corner suits (and up) but refuse to remove the resort fees if asked.

I wouldn;t say no one.

But why do you assume that if there weren't resprt fees that these epeople would still be getting free rooms.

essentially they are getting a very cheap casino rate and that may have happened anyway.

Fees are a way for casinos to make more money. The casinos have an obligation to corporate shareholders to try to maximize revenue. The ways to discourage or decrease these fees are to organize a massive boycott so that these fees are harmful to the bottom line (not happening) or use the regulatory power of government to force casinos to behave better (requires regime change).

This is nitpicky, but kind of important - this really only applies to big corporations with a lot of shareholders.

If LVL were to pool their money and open the LVL Hotel Casino and House of Degen, it'd be perfectly fine to have all chips be denominations of $3.50 and the casino to run a marginal profit or even loss. That's the privilege of being a small, closely held corporation. You can do what the shareholders want, and if the shareholders means you and your rich degen friend ... excellent.

But yeah, MGM, CET, LVS, and WYNN are going to face an angry mob even if they make record profits but the angry mob expected more.

Because room rates went gradually up over years and years, but many people still got free rooms, without being super high rollers. Now they do not, but the casino still gets to offer them "comped" rooms, which I'm sure sounds better to people than "$40 room rate" would. Basically, psychology matters. Even if you should be able to figure out things, almost everyone's brain can still be tricked on some level, and resort fees are a trick.

I have booked a comped room at MGM properties multiple times within the last year. Every time the resort fee was stated on the reservation, but never was I actually charged the fee. I never said a word about this, it just didn't get charged to my room folio.

At Venetian/ Palazzo if you have comped room you can opt in to pay it and receive the internet etc, but standard is not to charge it (you don't get interner though).

At CET yes they charge it but if you are a serous gambler you have diamond anyway.

So all this talk about "no more truly comped rooms" is bull****.

Well, not everyone meets your definition of a "serious gambler" I guess.

People I know were charged resort fees on comped rooms at MGM, when they first instituted them and were a surprise. You've probably just been lucky or you degened it up enough that they waived it. I know that used to be the policy at Venetian but my understanding is their resort fee is no longer optional.

I actually got the CET credit card just because you get the Platinum card with it, which they said would allow you to skip resort fees. Then 6 months later, before I had a chance to take a trip to Vegas, they took away the privilege.

So no more truly comped rooms for me or anyone I personally hang out with. No, we're not ballas....

Didn't MGM fall somewhat short of projected profit this week? And there wasn't really much organizing, people were just fed up.

That sounds more like incompetence on MGM's part than a change in their policy.

Yeah I didn't understand why he said that either. It was as believable to me as someone saying the parking fees aren't there to help them make money.

I just did at the Hard Rock and still do at Luxor.

Has anyone been successful in having resort fees removed? For example, I didn't use your wifi, I didnt use the hotel phone, and I did not use the fitness center, in fact I did not use ANY of the items listed in the "resort fee",,does such an excuse work??

No. The only way I've had them waived is:

1. At check in because of a comp.
2. At check in because I checked in so late I couldn't of used any of the stuff the resort fee covers during that night.
3. A host removes the resort fees (along with room charges) from my folio based on my play in the casino.
4. You or your significant other complain to the front desk supervisor about something wrong with your room or your stay and ask the resort fees to be waived to make up for the issues.

Those are the only 4 ways I've seen the resort fees waived. Simply asking not to pay them gets you an automated robot-type response from the person at the front desk.

Saying you didn't use something means nothing to them

I've done OK saying the wifi doesn't work

Did the wifi really not work?

No idea never tried to use it

Once my TV reception was all choppy so that complaint was legit

Cool lie bro

I don't know how anyone can say the resort fees aren't deceptive.
If you look at the room calendar all they show are the rates without the resort fees.

And they show the rate before taxes as well. But you don't get committed to purchase by looking at a rate calendar.

If you look in the fridge at Walmart, the tag tells you eggs are $0.99. Is that the amount of money you pay at the register?

I live 0.3 miles away from a state line that runs through the city. There are different sales taxes based on what state I am in and sometimes I can only tell by the fact if the grocery store sells liquor or not.

I would love to see a law that requires a business to show the final price immediately. That's the way it is in most countries. But the way it is right now, I don't see why resort fees are more deceptive than taxes are?