La Quinta has announced a change to their policies and it’s a negative one if you ever stay at their properties with your dog.
One of La Quinta’s unique selling points has long been that it’s a pet-friendly chain. Not only that, but they didn’t charge a pet fee.
That can offer huge savings, especially if you’re traveling with a dog and just need somewhere to stay for one night. I’ve found that the majority of Hyatt Places are pet-friendly, but they tend to have a $75 pet fee when staying 1-6 nights. Pet-friendly Marriott properties are usually even more expensive, charging $100 regardless of your length of stay. That’s not bad if you’re staying a week or more, but is prohibitively expensive for a one night stop.
Seeing as many La Quinta properties can be booked for $75-$100, having your pet stay free effectively means you’d be getting the hotel room free when comparing prices to the pet fees Hyatt Place and Marriott pet-friendly properties charge.
La Quinta was bought by Wyndham about a year ago and they unfortunately appear to have followed Marriott’s lead in introducing a new customer-unfriendly policy while dressing it up as an enhancement that’s there for our benefit. Hidden in a recent email, they advised the following:
La Quinta by Wyndham has always been one of the pet-friendliest brands in the hotel business – we know pets are beloved members of the family, and we love welcoming and hosting them. As of January 2019, select hotels may now implement a small fee for guests staying with their pets, helping our hotels to continue providing the best possible experience for guests and the extended members of their families.
When checking their new pet policy, the following term has been added:
An optional pet fee may be charged at check in ($20 per night for maximum of $40 per stay per room). Authorized service animals are not subject to a pet fee.
Yep, charging guests $40 is providing them with a much better experience than when they were charged $0. And think of the poor dogs – that’s $40 less that can be spent on Kong toys and Greenies.
To be (slightly) fair to Wyndham, this isn’t as bad as it could have been. $20 per night with a maximum cost per stay of $40 is still far cheaper than the majority of pet-friendly hotels. However, when one of your brand’s USPs has been to offer pet-friendly accommodation with no fees, it’s not going to be the kind of change that enamors loyal La Quinta Rewards members to your takeover of their chain.
The good thing is that this change appears to have been left in the hands of individual La Quinta properties, so they’re free to continue not charging a pet fee if they wish. I imagine that customers with pets will have a lot to say when checking in if a pet fee isn’t prominently featured when booking, so it’d be interesting to know if feedback reverses a property’s decision to implement a pet fee.
Even if a pet fee is made clear when booking directly, many customers book their stays through an OTA. Hotels.com does a fairly good job of listing pet fees for properties, but it’s located at the bottom of the page. It’ll therefore be easily missed by guests who are used to there being no pet fee at La Quinta properties, as there’d be no reason for them to check for a fee.
We’re traveling full-time with our dog, so I’d been hoping Wyndham would follow La Quinta’s lead and eliminate pet fees from all their brands. Sadly, it’s gone the other way. That leaves Red Roof Inn and Kimpton as the only two hotel chains (that I’m aware of) that are all pet-friendly and don’t charge a pet fee.
Question
If you ever stay at La Quinta hotels with a pet, would a pet fee like this affect whether you book there? Let us know in the comments below.
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We stayed in the Ankeny Iowa LaQuinta this past weekend—booked online and were not told about a “pet fee” for our dog until we were checking in. There was no pet fee with previous stays and that is the reason that we loved staying with this chain. As we didn’t arrive to the Hotel until 8:30 pm, and were gone and on the road the next morning at 7:00 a.m., spending $122 with the additional $$ for our pet to be there for less than 12 hours is ridiculous. We will think twice about staying there again. (additionally the eggs tasted terrible–pure powdered eggs)
Absolutely! We have 2 ESA dogs we’re not told in advance of the pet fee, and charged $50 for 2 small dogs and a one night stay. The desk clerk was extremely rude and threatened to kick us out of the hotel because we were being “disruptive” questioning the policy. He gave us a letter “from the ADA” and I refused to read it and stated that’s an interpretation by the company at la Quinta. That was my causing a “scene” and he told us we would not be able to stay….as diamond members it will be a cold day in hell before we use La Quinta again!
In December, we were charged an extra $50 for one night at LQ in Kingman. Arizona.
They are inserting an invisible “each” to the $25 nightly fees.
We will use our LQ points and ditch them.
These pet fees are out control! Recently I’m seeing $50-75 pet fees which make one night road trips almost double in cost when bringing a pet 🙁
We will no longer be staying with laquinta since we were never told about it and the charge was not added till we checked out . It’s all about the money . Our room had dog hairs (husky) all over it , so the extra money is not going to clean the room .
As a dog show person, it was one of the ways to make it ‘more affordable’ to stay in a home away from home for a week. You can have 4 people stay in one room for the same rate but add a pet and it costs more ?
Add what they are doing to us with the gas pricing, this is a sport that will be feeling the pain. The towns will feel it too with fewer people and less spending.
Who is the adult in any of these decision meetings ?
[…] for our two nights now that La Quinta is part of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts (all their properties used to allow dogs to stay for free when they were a standalone hotel […]
I just contacted the La Quinta in Bowling Green, KY where we regularly stay when traveling from LA to OH. The woman who answered the phone confirmed that they were now charging a pet fee. I told her that we were repeat customers and that I thought it was a bad policy to have. As I was telling her that we would no longer stay there, she hung up on me. Who in their right mind would pay $40 extra dollars for a room that only cost $58. I hope that the Wyndham Group reconsiders but that would be a long shot. I guess that we’ll be back to the Red Roofs for now.
I was disappointed this last week when we arrived for our stay at LaQuinta in Hollister, Missouri. To my surprise, they instituted a new charge of $10 per pet per day. I said that I wouldn’t have stayed at the hotel if I’d known. The clerk blamed it on Wyndham’s new mandates. Now from this article, I find that the hotel could have chosen NOT to charge. Luckily, because we were going to leave, she waived the pet fee, but we cut our trip short. We won’t be staying at La Quintas if they charge a pet fee.
I will reconsider staying at LaQuinta from now on. I always stayed at LaQunitas because they did not charge for pets.
[…] my account just in case we end up staying at a La Quinta as that’s a pet-friendly brand (albeit one which now sometimes charges a pet fee) which is now part of Wyndham […]
Don’t enjoy waking up to barking dogs!
We have always stayed at LaQuinta only because of their no pet fee. This has not always been convenient to our travel schedule, but we were willing to deal with the inconvenience. After this Winter, 2020 trip that was already booked, the honeymoon is over. Bye, Bye Wyndham.
Just stayed at two of our usual La Quinta hotels. Surprised at 1st one saying there is now a fee. Second hotel did not charge extra. The fee makes me sad, but La Quinta is still the most accommodating I have come across, as we always travel with our pets
We just found out about the new policy for dogs when we pulled into the hotel in Georgia. We travel quite a bit and we have stayed at La Quinta with NO exceptions. We don’t even look at the room price. Those days are over. We have gone out of our way to stay at LQ. There have been mornings along the 95 corridor where every parking spot in LQ is full and every other hotel at that exit is empty. From this point forward we will check the price at every location. You have lost your moat. Its all about price now.
It may be my imagine but whenever we call in for something now there seems to be a hint of an asian accent. The communication is difficult to say the least. I had to ask the young lady to slow down twice so I could understandable.
Sincerely hope all of this adds to your stock price.
Your just live everybody else now. Good luck.