Over the years, we’ve seen the increasing trend of hotels charging either resort fees or destination fees. These are essentially junk fees intended to sneakily boost revenue.
Different hotel groups have different ways they handle these fees on award bookings. For example, World of Hyatt waives these fees when redeeming points for all members, which is a nice touch. Marriott, on the other hand, doesn’t waive these fees when redeeming points.
However, here’s a new one — a Marriott property in Hawaii has found a way to charge a resort fee when redeeming points, but not when paying cash.
In this post:
Marriott hotel sneakily adds resort fee when redeeming points
Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, a Marriott Autograph Collection property in Hawaii, has started charging a $60 per night resort fees for stays as of August 1, 2026 (thanks to MAXDRVR flagging this). Resort fees are common in Hawaii, though historically the property has differentiated itself by not charging these.
So when you look at making a points booking, you’ll now notice the $60 daily fee disclosed. 
Okay, that sort of sucks, but this isn’t uncommon in Hawaii, so how mad can you really be? Well, here’s the interesting twist on this — the resort fee is only being charged when redeeming points, and not when paying cash. So this is quite literally a tax on award redemptions.
The hotel is trying to get away with this through a rather devious scheme. When you look at the cash rates, you’ll see that they all display as being “exempt from resort fee,” either in the actual rate name, or in the rate description.
Marriott isn’t great at enforcing its policies and holding hotels accountable, but I’d imagine that it would violate company guidelines to charge these fees only on award bookings. The argument here is clearly “oh, we charge a resort fee on all rates, but we waive it on select rates.”
What does the resort fee actually include, though?
You might be wondering how this will work. Will only those redeeming points get the benefits associated with the resort fee, or what about those paying cash, who are exempt from the fee? Here’s the long list of things included with the resort fee, per the hotel’s website:
- Daily cultural activities for two guests: sunrise ceremony, ukulele, coconut weaving, bamboo stamping, lei, hula, olelo language, koi feeding
- Welcome drink and towel service for two guests per stay
- Fresh orchid or kukui nut lei for two guests per stay
- Mauna Kea logo beach bag per room, per stay
- Mauna Kea logo water flasks for two guests per stay
- Daily 8AM morning seaside yoga class for two guests per stay
- Daily one hour stand-up paddle board rental for two guests
- Daily one hour snorkel gear rental for two guests
- Daily one hour boogie board rental for two guests
- Daily one hour kayak rental for two guests
- Daily enhanced high-speed internet access
- Bonvoy Elite amenity (Gold members and above) of daily $5 folio credit
I know everyone is going to be absolutely shocked to hear this, but these are all things that were previously included with stays. The only exception is the $5 daily folio credit, and that’s because elite member have to be provided a replacement benefit on resort fees when Wi-Fi is a benefit.
So that means everyone still gets the same benefits as before, it’s just that those redeeming points will have to pay an extra $60 per night for the privilege.
Bottom line
Mauna Kea Beach Hotel, a Marriott Autograph Collection property, has added a resort fee for stays as of August 1, 2026. Hotels typically aren’t allowed to only add resort fees on points bookings (for obvious reasons), but what’s going on here is that the hotel is simply waiving this fee when travelers pay cash.
It goes without saying that this is a really disappointing approach for a hotel to take. It also shows the difference in how Hyatt and Marriott approach loyalty — Hyatt waives resort fees on all award stays, while here we have a Marriott charging a resort fee exclusively on award stays.
What do you make of this hotel’s resort fee scheme on awards?
#deflag