The Westin Casuarina Hotel & Spa in Las Vegas has begun charging an unpaid $50,000 convention fee to the attendees who already paid before they attended back in October. The company that set up the event, Austin-based The Coaching Center, hasn’t paid its bill yet, and “president Suzanne Black said she was trying to arrange a payment plan when she was told by Westin management that the hotel would recoup the bill from attendees.” Now people are finding charges anywhere from $600 to $1200 on their credit card bills. Even the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has said this isn’t standard practice, but Westin says it’s got fine print that proves it can hold you liable for any charges left unpaid on your visit.
“Conventioneer says hotel asks attendees to pay charges” [Houson Chronicle] (Thanks to David!)
(Photo: Starwood Hotels)
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@plustax: The difference being that most doctors’ offices make you sign a form saying that you’ll pay them if your insurance refuses. In this case, it sounds like the hotel never did that.
@Michael Belisle:
It’s the legal conclusions that people draw that bother me. Much of it is unsupported speculation, and they truly believe it is correct. Unfortunately, such unsupported legal conclusions lead other people to believe that it’s correct, and it simply fuels the publics general lack of knowledge, or incorrect understanding, of the legal system in general.
@legwork: rofl.
@lemur: “Right, on!” -> “Right on!”
Eeek. The: punctuation! fairy, ate, my… brains!
Hotels are like Best Buy: they lie. The price advertised is never the price you actually pay. There are always undisclosed fees. I’ve been hit with “Room safe” fees, waste fees, convention fees, resort fees, energy fees, pool fees, mandatory bell hope fees, not to mention all the local city taxes, state taxes and federal taxes, airport taxes and fees. Heck, I’ve had a bill where the extra fees were higher than the room charge!
Is it too late to add them to the Worst Company in America voting?
I find it laughable that instead of going after the company running the convention that actually owes you 50k, you go after all the attendees that did pay their bills. In addition to disputing this charge, I would go back and dispute the original room payment. Them knowingly applying fraudulent charges to your bill should be more than enough reason to invalidate the whole bill. Than I would cancel the credit card or at the very least get a new one with a new number issued.
As an SPG member I find this shameful – legal or not. I wrote a quick note expressing my displeasure.
@Pylon83: But this is the Internet. Everyone is qualified here: “I’m not a doctor, but I play one on the Internet.” It’s like a quasi-real-life MMORPG.
And yes, I am a qualified rocket scientist.
Douchebags get such a bad name here…
I stayed at the Hyatt Place in Las Vegas a few weeks ago. It’s a very recently renovated AmeriSuits. It has a very friendly staff.
Photos: [flickr.com] (first 4 rows about)
I would highly recommend staying with them again