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| - My mom just left Caesar's Palace, where she stayed because it was the site of a convention she was attending, and she wanted to share her experience with future unsuspecting guests. Like most Las Vegas facilities, it is overpriced. But Caesars has a special fee that seems designed to deceive and defraud:
Caesars has a little tray on the top of a cabinet with nine items considered part of their mini bar, even though they do not need refrigeration and they're really just taking up prime surface space in your hotel room. The two least expensive are small bottles of water costing $7.97 each. Most of the other items, such as Cheese Crackers, cost $14.07. One item costs $30.27 ("Intimacy package"!).
My mom looked at the high cost/low value items, decided she had no intention of using them, and moved all the items six inches away to a small open shelf to gain more space for her conference and exhibition material. She didn't use any of it.
Upon departure she noticed a $25 restocking fee -- no fee for use of any of the junk (because she didn't use any of it), just a $25 fee for someone to literally move the stuff a few inches. After the stuff that some people do in their hotel room that staff has to clean up that doesn't incur a special fee this was pretty incredible. The front desk person insisted that this fee was noted on the room card. So my mom asked to see the room card. This is what she saw: A list of items and their prices, printed in at least 14 pica size, and there at the very end, in tiny tiny type (less than 6 pica) was the notice about the restocking fee charge. The manager, Mr. Barrientos, insisted that he could not remove the fee and said it was because maybe these (unrefrigerated, sitting-out) items would spoil outside of the refrigerator (ummm yeah, okay -- they weren't in it to begin with) and even moving all the items six inches back to the restocking tray would incur the fee. In fact, based on these rules they'd charge the fee even if you moved the items INTO the refrigerator. Melanie, at the Caesars Billing department, stated that management insisted these fees be charged without exception. It's gotta be the only thing in Vegas "without exception."
So my mom concluded that the notice in tiny, tiny type, after the fee list, was meant to pay lip service to what is probably a legal requirement of prior notification, while actually deceiving the customer.
So beware, if you choose to stay at any Caesars properties, get out your magnifying glass to read the tiny print in your room, and check your bill carefully before departure -- Caesars is going bankrupt and wants every bit of your money now, no matter what. Honestly, being completely implacable and marring the last taste of someone's vacation over $25 -- bad show and classless, Caesars. Booooo booooo booooo.
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