At some hotels, parking fees really take you for a ride

Michael Mahoney was feeling pretty good about the deals he unearthed for his recent San Francisco stay: a room for $159 a night at a top downtown hotel and a midsize rental car for $37 a day. Then he got the hotel’s bill for guest parking: $80 for his two-night stay. “I was shocked to find the parking was $3 [per day] more than my car rental,” said Mahoney, who declined to identify the hotel.

Ironically, it’s Mahoney’s business to know about lodging. He’s director of hospitality and leisure consulting in the Los Angeles office of Pricewater- houseCoopers, an international accounting company with headquarters in New York.

Mahoney’s experience shows just how far below the radar guest parking fees fly. Even the authoritative AAA TourBooks, which are, after all, geared to road trippers, don’t list these fees. (They change too often, an auto club spokeswoman said.) Some hotels list them on their Internet sites; some don’t.

A dozen or so room reservation clerks readily quoted parking fees when I phoned them recently. But you have to ask -- and you should, because booking a big-city hotel without finding out what parking costs is like blasting through an intersection without glancing at the traffic signals. You may, at the minimum, incur a financial fender bender. Parking, as Mahoney learned, can add 25% or more to your hotel bill.

The amount of the fee or whether one is even charged is unpredictable. A Ritz-Carlton or Marriott in Southern California has different parking fees from a Ritz-Carlton or Marriott in New York. A top-of-the-line hotel in Florida may charge you less than a middlebrow one in San Francisco. And if you stay at the prestigious Inn at Spanish Bay in Carmel, Calif., where the least expensive room ran $510 for a September night I recently checked, parking is free.

You can detect some patterns. Only 71% of city hotels give your car a free ride, compared with 95% along the highway and 91% at resorts, according to a 2001 survey prepared for the American Hotel & Lodging Assn., a trade group. (The survey didn’t contain fee amounts.) Luxury hotels, the survey found, are least likely to offer free parking and most apt to have valets.

The charges differ among cities. For valet parking -- the only type they offered -- the Los Angeles Marriott Downtown recently was charging $16.50 a night, the San Francisco Mar- riott Fisherman’s Wharf charged $35 and the New York Marriott Marquis in downtown Manhattan charged $55 for SUVs and $45 for other cars.

For Ritz-Carltons, self-parking was free, but valet parking cost $12 per night at Lake Las Vegas, near the Nevada gambling city, and valet parking (the only type offered) was $23 at Marina del Rey in Los Angeles, $45 in San Francisco and $50 at both Central Park and Battery Park in New York City. At Central Park you don’t even have in-and-out privileges, so you’re paying $50 to do nothing with your car.

Why the different charges? A big reason is that parking is land- and labor-intensive. These costs are higher in Manhattan or San Francisco than, say, on the outskirts of Las Vegas.

Hoteliers say they’re not gouging customers on parking. Many contract out the service in big cities and then pass along the rate they’ve negotiated with the garage, taking little or no profit, several experts in and outside the industry said.

Derek Flint, senior corporate director of rooms for Ritz-Carlton, said his New York hotels increased the parking rate to cover valets, but parking was “pretty well a break-even thing.”

Some hotels’ fees may even be comparative bargains. Parking at the Los Angeles Marriott Downtown is $16.50 a night, but private garages nearby charge up to $30 a day.

It’s hard to tell whether parking fees are going up overall at U.S. hotels because there are few statistics, so the evidence is anecdotal. Like some regular travelers I spoke with, consultant Mahoney thinks the rates have inched up. He thinks that’s because, with room rates having dropped during the last couple of years of travel industry turbulence, hotels can’t afford to run a department or service that loses money. So they increase parking charges to cover costs.

It’s a delicate dance because such charges, especially when they come as a surprise, may alienate customers. When travelers in focus groups identified their pet peeves about added hotel charges, parking and bottled water inspired the “greatest amount of passion,” said Linda Hirneise, a hotel expert and partner in the marketing company J.D. Power & Associates in Los Angeles.

There are ways to avoid a parking fee -- or at least lessen the pain. First ask the hotel what it charges and figure in that fee as you shop for rooms. Also ask whether there is self-parking nearby and what the rates are -- these may be less than the hotel’s valet parking.

Next, ask the hotel whether it has package deals that include parking. You may save a few dollars or actually pay less with a package than for the room alone.

When I recently called the Marriott in downtown San Francisco, where valet parking ran $38 a night, to book a room in September, I was quoted $229 a night for a “standard deluxe room,” or $179 with a AAA discount. But the hotel also had a package, with parking and breakfast for two, for $159 per night.

The Ritz-Carlton Battery Park recently quoted a bed-and-breakfast package with parking for $345 a night, compared with $450 a night for the room alone; even compared with a $299 Internet room rate I found, the package was a better deal. The Ritz-Carlton Marina del Rey had a similar package for $249 a night, versus $229 for the room alone. (These deals may no longer be available.)

Finally, consider keeping your car out of the city -- perfectly possible if you rented your wheels instead of driving your own into town. Do you really need a car in Manhattan or downtown San Francisco? At these prices, I think not.

Jane Engle welcomes comments and suggestions but cannot respond individually to letters and calls. Write Travel Insider, Los Angeles Times, 202 W. 1st St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, or e-mail jane.engle@latimes.com.