Delayed Again

So I’ve started to notice that as the economy struggles travelers are being faced with new fees everywhere.  I’m not talking about the airline luggage fees (I have elite status and don’t pay those).  I’m talking about rental car companies, hotels, etc.  Two recent incidents have really brought these fees to the surface for me:

1. When returning a rental car at Budget at the John Wayne Airport yesterday, the agent wanted to charge me a refueling fee because I drove less than 75 miles.  I returned the car with a full tank and drove so little (my hotel was within a mile) that I didn’t need to refuel.  However, it took some wrangling for me to get the fee waived from my bill.  I guess gone are the days where a full tank was all you needed.
2. Yesterday I pulled up to my hotel The Dallas Marriott Quorum only to find that it’s small, convenient lot had been turned into a valet parking lot.  I was forced to park in the garage and pay $10 a night.  Part of what made this hotel attractive was that it was a small, intimate property where you could park within feet of the front entry.
3. Hotels, at least full-service hotels, have not figured out yet that business travelers expect free WiFi throughout the property.  The same hotel only had wired access for $9.95 a day.  Come on guys, get it right.

I’ll be interested to see if Marriott uses its Twitter page to actually respond to the complaint I made or if it’s purely a marketing tool for their cutesy messages.  It would be nice if they were more like Zappos or Totspot and actually used to respond to customer communications.