Five pesky hotel charges and how to outsmart them

You never end up paying the sticker price at a nice hotel. Like every other sector of the modern travel industry, hotels amplify the bottom line by pelting customers with a barrage of extra charges, but if you're savvy, you can plan ahead and get out of many of the most annoying ones.

That's a pretty satisfying feeling, but it's even more satisfying when you can do it using the tools that the hotel itself gave you.

Parking

We plot and scheme in order to save a few bucks on the room rate through discounting sites such as Travelocity and Hotels.com, but in the time it takes to take your key out of your car's ignition, the hotels can make back whatever deal you sweat to scrounge up. For one night's parking in a city, you can be charged $15 to $30. Multiply that by the number of nights you're staying, and you'll feel the pain.