Hidden fees on Hotels.com, Beware

This post is for those who might search "hidden fees on hotels.com".

Up until yesterday my experience with hotels.com has been pretty good. In most cases hotels with fees clearly show them as you check out under the section called "taxes and fees".

In the example below the fees might be steep but I can't complain because they are clearly displayed to the user on checkout. I'll get to the example I'm complaining about later!

Yet in other cases hotels.com sneakily hides these fees. Making it so the average user never sees them unless they click on the cancellation policy.

Below you will see the default position of the hidden fees on the left. On the right you can see the hidden fees $15 + $30 which only appear after clicking cancellation policy. As someone booking on the same day why would I have a need to cancel, and thus why would I have clicked that?

Upon messaging their customer support on Twitter I found out about the user-experience nightmare. Apparently "fees and taxes" doesn't necessarily include all fees. As the customer support explained on twitter, I shouldn't have assumed "fees and taxes" includes all fees. Instead I should have clicked on the link labeled "Cancellation Policy".

"...If you would like, I can help you walk through our website to view these fees at the booking page?"

No thanks I know how to use a website. It's your designers who should be fixing this.

Given I've already booked the hotel and am contacting them from it I don't see how showing me how to use the website is of any help. It was only a further insult given the situation.

They also called the small hotel several times asking them to drop the fee, when the problem was clearly with the website and not the hotel at all. This only furthered my annoyance by bringing attention to me as a guest and placing the blame on the hotel.

Other times I've been very happy with the service of hotels.com but in this case I only feel tricked and annoyed by the "help" I've received.