It demanded that airlines include any such surcharge in their quoted fares. Fortunately, DOT has authority to police deceptive airline fare advertising, and this time it did its job. Unfortunately, no federal agency watches hotels as closely as DOT watches airlines, and I haven't yet seen any action by any individual state attorneys general. But splitting out a part of a total price, hiding it from the initial price quotes, and adding it later is clearly a deceptive practice for any service or product. I hope that the Federal Trade Commission or some individual states take action against offending hotels soon enough to protect consumers.
Hotels have to pay their soaring utility bills.
If that means hiking the rates, so be it. They usually hike prices when the cost of any other important input rises, as well. But deception is deception. Disguising the rate hike with a phony surcharge and not telling travelers about it, up front is inexcusable. Meanwhile, consumers have no choice but to add an energy surcharge to their already overburdened checklists.