MGM Resorts, which controls many of the biggest casino-hotels in Las Vegas, has raised resort fees again—for the second time this year.
On Wednesday, December 4, the Bellagio, Aria, Vdara, and the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas all increased their mandatory daily fees by $5, to $55 per day.
Meanwhile, the following resorts now charge a whopping $50 a day on top of the room rate you already pay: MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, the Delano (a rise of $5), NoMad, and The Signature (a rise of $8).
At New York–New York, Luxor, and Excalibur, the new daily resort fee is $45 (up $5–$8). That’s often higher than the fake lowball price those lower-end hotels post as the room rate in the major hotel search engines so that those properties will appear in search results above competitors.
Basically, every single MGM Resorts hotel in Las Vegas will now cost you at least $45–$50 above whatever nightly price the hotel claims you’ll pay when it’s trying to get you to book.
Incredibly, this is the second time in 2024 that MGM has inflated these backdoor resort fees. The previous hike happened just 11 months ago.
And that’s not the only price hike in Vegas this week.
The same MGM Resorts hotels have cranked up parking rates for the second time in 12 months. Day visitors who park their own cars now pay $20 Monday through Thursday (previously $18) or $25 from Friday to Sunday (up from $23). Self-parking hotel guests must now pay at least $20 every day of the week, a rise of $2.
Valet parking is being hoisted to $40 a day at all MGM Resorts properties along the Strip. Some of them charged $25 before this week, so that’s a $15 hike in some joints.
But that’s still not all.
In September, Casino.org reported that MGM Resorts began quietly tacking on a $15-per-night “ICE Contact Center” fee—plus $6 in tax!—for people who booked their rooms by phone. Yes, that reservation fee is charged per night, not per booking.
If you’re waiting for added charges like resort fees to be outlawed as unfair business practice, as they have been in Europe and many other countries, keep waiting.
In June, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the No Hidden FEES Act of 2023, but even that doesn’t ban the hidden fees (the act’s name notwithstanding).
Our political leaders are probably too beholden to the hospitality corporations to legislate an outright ban. Instead, the bill merely requires the disclosure of fees from the start of the booking process.
Even so, the act still isn’t a law—since passing in the House, the bill has been languishing in the back halls of the Senate, awaiting a vote, presumably because hotel executives oppose the measure.
Don’t expect the United States to protect consumers from pricing shell games now. The big hotel executives are already salivating over the incoming administration’s unwillingness to impose regulations.
Which wolf wins? The one you feed. To punish the hotels that bleed you with under-the-table fees, you’re on your own to deny those companies your business.