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| Submission date: 2005-08-22 - Date of Stay: June 2005 |
| Submitted by: Steve - From: United States |
| Type of Traveller: Family Traveller - Age Group: 51 - 60 |
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| Lousy Hotel with Flaky Surcharge |
| This place sucks. Dirty, naked pictures everywhere (welcome to Vegas!), mildew galore in the bathroom, etc., etc., etc. But they also cheat everybody out of $3.50 a night. Our reservation was made through Expedia, and was paid through Expedia. Upon check in I gave the Artisan my credit card for “incidentals”. We had no incidental charges. Upon checkout they charged my card $3.50 for “energy surcharge”. I complained, but was told that it had been posted upon check in, and the clerk pointed to a placard (which had not been obvious, nor pointed out at check in). This is nothing more than the Artisan’s attempt at petty theft. Here are the facts:
Nevada Power charges a base rate for energy which is regulated by the Public Service Commission, and applies a “Deferred Energy Accounting Adjustment” (DEAA), which is an adjustment allowed by the Public Service Commission to account for fluctuating energy charges. The adjustment can go up or down. The DEAA adjustment for Nevada Power Customers for the date of our stay at the Artisan (as posted at http://www.nevadapower.com/rates/tariffs/schedules/images/deaa.pdf). was $0.00450 per kilowatt hour (kwh). Our room was a two-bed room. I did not look at the nameplate of the air conditioning unit, but I’m estimating it wouldn’t have been more than a 10,000 or 12,000 btuh unit. To be conservative, I looked up catalog data for a 14,000 btuh unit, 9.3 EER (which is not very efficient by today’s standards). That unit draws 6.3 amps at 230 volts, or 1.5 kw. Now add in a conservative estimate of 300 watts (0.3 kw) of lighting. Now assume that the air conditioning was operating full blast (not cycling) and all lights were on for 24 hours. Total energy consumption would have been 1.8 kw * 24 hours = 43.2 kwh. The energy adjustment, then, would have been 43.2 kwh * $.00450 = $0.19. NINTEEN CENTS! I assure you, the real energy use would have been less than half of that! First, we were only in the room overnight. Second, my energy use assumptions are well overblown - my A/C assumption is oversized, and the A/C did cycle, and we used only a fraction of the lighting assumed.
So, then, Artisan’s “energy surcharge, is nothing more than a BIG CHEAT. No basis for it whatsoever.
This may seem petty, but 60+ rooms * $3.50 per night * 365 days a year = big bucks! I'm no attorney, but the word "fraud" doesn't seem to strong to me. At the very least the Artisan deals in deceptive advertising, as the baseless surcharge was not made known at booking nor check in. I'm sure the continuously running faucet in the tub cost them more than 19 cents. Maybe they should call their surcharge a "leaky plumbing surcharge". |
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