London Hotels Are Adding A Hidden 5% To Your Room Bill—If You Know To Ask, They’ll Take It Off

A reader who’d already tipped housekeeping and restaurant staff at St. Pancras London discovered the hotel had added another 5% of his nightly room rate for service. He says the charge was “neither discussed nor disclosed.” The Marriott Autograph Collection property’s explanation: the extra money was included in his “Accommodation Package.” They’d be happy to refund it if he asked. This is an increasingly common way for London hotels to collect more than their advertised room rate, while calling the difference optional. St. Pancras London. Credit: Marriott. Reader Bill shared the hotel’s October 15 response to his billing inquiry: The Accommodation Package includes both the accommodation rate and our discretionary service charge of 5% of the nightly room rate. The service charge is distributed among all members of our team as recognition of their service and contribution to our guests’ experience. Should you prefer not to contribute to the service charge, please let us know and we would be pleased to arrange a refund. That, of course, is how a hotel can pay workers lower wages – employees will accept less because they care about their total paycheck which includes these fees. It’s also a way for hotels to automatically adjust their personnel costs down in slow times, combating sticky wages. Bill requested the refund: Yes, I would like that refunded as I tipped housekeeping and wait staff directly. The wages and benefits of employees is implicit in the business model of a hotel rate and the opaque additional fee is offensive. Notice the hotel’s language: “Should you prefer not to contribute.” They’ve already collected the money. Now the guest has to tell someone working at the hotel that he’d like to take back a contribution to the staff. Guests who don’t scrutinize the bill pay it. Guests who notice but don’t want an awkward conversation may pay it, too. Calling it discretionary still has the hotel collecting more than the advertised room rate. I wrote about these 5% accommodation charges in March 2022, after a reader flagged one at Andaz London Liverpool Street. Hyatt told me they’d introduced the charge that January at the Andaz, Hyatt Regency London The Churchill, and Great Scotland Yard. They cited staffing shortages and said guests could have it removed. Four years later, it’s spread further. Here are examples from the hotels’ own current websites: Five London Hyatt properties publish a 5% accommodation service charge: Andaz London Liverpool Street, Hyatt Regency London The Churchill, Great Scotland Yard, Hyatt Regency London Blackfriars, and Hyatt Regency London Albert Embankment. The Savoy and The Landmark London: both disclose a discretionary 5% charge on accommodation. The Landmark separately adds 12.5% to food and drink bills. The BoTree and The Newman: both list a discretionary 5% room charge, alongside a separate 13.5% food and beverage charge. The Newman expressly says guests can ask to amend or remove discretionary charges when settling up. The Stratford: lists a 4% discretionary charge on accommodation bookings. Hyatt Regency London Albert Embankment. Credit: Hyatt The strongest argument for pooling gratuities is that it reaches employees guests don’t encounter, including people working behind the scenes. That’s a reasonable way to share money a guest chooses to contribute. It doesn’t explain why the hotel should assume permission to collect it. Since October 1, 2024, British law requires qualifying tips and service charges to be passed to workers and allocated fairly, without the employer taking a cut, and tips don’t count toward the minimum wage. There’s a tax advantage to this, too. Britain’s tax authority treats freely given tips and genuinely optional service charges as outside the scope of value added tax. That creates another reason to collect money this way instead of through a higher taxable room rate. But in order to make it an add-on charge, it has to be optional, which means the hotel has to remove it when on request. I’d rather a hotel charge what it needs to charge and pay its employees. If it wants to invite an additional contribution to a staff pool, it can ask before taking the money. A guest who wants to reward individual employees can still do that, as Bill already had. Hyatt Regency The Churchill When checking your bill, compare the nightly accommodation amount against your reservation confirmation. Don’t just look for a separate line labeled “service charge.” It can be buried. You can ask for it to be removed, or refunded if you’ve already paid, and request a revised bill. It’s bad enough that tipping (for everything from take out food to self-serve kiosks and even hotel booking websites) and service charges have become increasingly common in the States. Seeing it spread even more across the Pond is the kind of U.S. cultural imperialism I do not get behind. Let the British remain Brits. Topics on this page