"Early" checkout cleaning fee?

[Sheriff Woody]

Has anyone heard this one before? We used some points for a four-night stay at the South Beach Resort in Myrtle Beach. I guess the standard stay in a timeshare resort is a week, but we are allowed to book shorter stays throught RCI. Anyway, upon checkout we were charged $49 for an early checkout fee. Apparently, they use that fee to pay a housekeeper to come in midweek to clean the unit we used. Otherwise, I guess they would only have a housekeeping staff come in on Saturdays to clean all the units at once after all the weekly guests check out.

I guess I shouldn't complain, it's only $49, but I wish I would have been informed of this fee at the time of booking. And, I wouldn't consider it an early checkout since I checked out at exactly the date and time I contracted to do so.

 

[Crystal_27]

WOW - $49 to clean a room that you only stayed in for 4 days? I think that's very excessive. I don't think that it would hurt to call management about this...you are correct that you should have been told when you booked the room. That stinks but hopefully you can get it credited... Good luck!

 

[Chuck S]

If the resort offers shorter stays through RCI, they should disclose any associated fees, at least at the time of confirmation. If they failed to do so, I would complain directy to the resort by snail mail, with a CC to DVC.

 

[Brian Noble]

There are a few resorts that do this---they were originally set up as full-week-only stays, and pass the additional cleaning costs of more frequent cleanings on to the guests. Usually, they are disclosed in the exchange paperwork.

South Beach's Points reservation information includes the following:

**MANDATORY CLEANING FEES MAY APPLY TO RCI RSRVTN STU: US$33, 1BR: US$38, 2BR: US$47-$64, AND 3BR: US$80.

My guess is that if you check your exchange paperwork, you'll find that statement on there. That said, the Member Services rep who confirmed this stay for you should have told you about these fees. When I call RCI directly, they are always careful to do so. If you were not, you should absolutely write a short note to Member Services telling them so.

 

[Dean]

MOST resorts that allow stays shorter than a week through RCI charge a cleaning fee. Even if it's not listed on the website, the confirmation and RCI rules gives them the right to do so. It's not really an early check out fee but a less than a week cleaning fee. The reality is that many resorts charge fees in such a way to make money on them. For many RCI exchanges it's actually as cheap or cheaper to do a full week exchange than to pay the exchange fee plus the cleaning fee which can be quite high at times. Likely not for DVC due to the inherently high value of a DVC point. Basically assume a cleaning fee for any stay not exactly 7 days or more and if you don't get it, just be happy.