How to Avoid Resort Fees in Hawaii: 6 Smart Strategies

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The good news is that a 2025 FTC law requires hotels to disclose mandatory fees, like resort fees. The bad news is you can still expect to pay $40 to $57 in resort fees. Here are our proven ways to avoid resort fees in Hawaii.

Resort fees can feel offensive. Hawaii is already an expensive place to visit, making those extra fees sting. My pet peeve is when the resort fee includes items like K-cups, towels, and Wi-Fi in the room.

Let’s keep our aloha spirits high and discuss ways to avoid these pesky fees. It isn’t easy, but here are strategies to skip the fees.

6 Ways to Avoid Resort Fees in Hawaii

Avoiding a resort fee in Hawaii isn’t quite a vacation miracle, but it is challenging. A little planning up front can save you a considerable amount of money.

As we say in our family, money saved on a trip to Hawaii is more Mai Tais at the pool!

1. Book Your Hawaii Hotel with Points

The simplest way to avoid resort fees in Hawaii is to book rooms with points. World of Hyatt and Hilton Honors reward programs waive resort fees on award travel.

Both hotel chains have lovely properties across the Hawaiian Islands, except that Hyatt doesn’t have hotels on the Big Island!

Hilton-branded and Hyatt-branded credit cards can help you quickly earn points. However, the strategy we use is to have bank credit cards (not tied to a specific hotel brand). These travel credit cards allow you to earn points faster with sign-up bonuses and higher point redemption values.

We earn points, which we then transfer from our bank credit card to World of Hyatt, for example. It doesn’t sound easy, but it’s a simple process. This is how we can afford to travel to Hawaii multiple times a year. See what is in our wallets at the button below.

Find a Hawaii hotel to book with points & avoid those fees:

• Hyatt Hotels in Hawaii and How to Book with Points
• Where to Stay in Hawaii with Points: 31 Top Hotels

2. Hold Elite Status (Some Brands)

My brother, a traveling salesman, makes this option look easy. For the rest of us, this may be challenging.

Work your way up a hotel’s loyalty program to become an elite status member.

Some Hawaii hotel brands don’t charge resort fees to their most loyal members. World of Hyatt, for example, waives resort fees for Globalist members—their highest elite status level.

3. Use Credit Card Statement Credits

Our favorite travel credit cards offer statement credits that can be used to cover your resort fee.

A statement credit is a credit that your card issuer will apply to your account balance. For example, a popular statement credit is TSA PreCheck/Global Entry.

To avoid the resort fee in Hawaii hotels, choose a travel card that reimburses the resort fee as a statement credit.

Some travel credit cards offer the ability to make reservations through the card’s travel portal. The travel portal may provide resort credits and/or waive the resort fees.

4. Choose a Hotel With No Resort Fee

This option sounds like the simplest way to avoid resort fees in Hawaii, but it is a needle-in-a-haystack scenario.

When searching for your ideal Hawaii hotel, check if it includes a resort fee or offers discounts. Now that resort fees are included in the price, they will show the resort fee at checkout in the itemized list of expenses (rate, taxes, and fees).

I am a member of the newsletters for our favorite hotels in Hawaii. They will advertise discounts, free nights, and, when resort fees are waived.

For Oahu (our free Oahu travel guide), the most popular Hawaiian island to visit, here are resorts with no resort fees. Click the links to learn more and book.

• Aulani, A Disney Resort & Spa
• Surfjack Hotel & Swim Club
• Halekulani – a luxury hotel in Waikiki, beachfront
• Halepuna Waikiki by Halekulani – across the street from the Halekulani
• Courtyard Oahu North Shore – best for those visiting the Polynesian Cultural Center or doing things to do in Laie
• Ala Moana Hotel – boutique hotel at the Ala Moana Center (shopping mall)

We have also stayed at all of these, except the Ala Moana Hotel. We can vouch that these are excellent places to avoid the resort fees in Hawaii. We have videos to prove it!

5. Stay at a Vacation Rental in Hawaii

Airbnb and Vrbo have also become more transparent in their pricing due to the FTC law. When price shopping, you will be able to compare prices better now.

You can avoid resort fees in Hawaii by booking a vacation rental. Local vacation rentals or vacation rental complexes may not charge you an additional fee for staying there.

We like to split our time between a vacation rental and a luxury hotel when we visit Hawaii, it helps us save money! And yes, vacation rentals are legal in Hawaii.

Vacation rentals are not always a sure way to avoid resort fees in Hawaii. Some vacation rental communities charge a resort fee to justify the use of amenities like the pool and BBQ grills.

Vacation rentals may not call it a resort fee, but they will charge you additional fees at checkout or check-in. Parking, pool key, extra cleaning fees, etc, are equivalent to a resort fee.

We felt slapped in the face when we stayed in Kiahuna Plantations on Kauai. The property manager of our unit charged us an additional $35 a night at check-in. We felt trapped. While we enjoy staying at Kiahuna Plantations, we will be more careful to understand the fees next time.

6. Make Your Case at Check-Out to Remove the Fees

This is the trickiest option to avoid resort fees in Hawaii. Drink a cup of confidence and prepare your arguments to remove those resort fees from your bill.

I recommend doing this in person, at checkout. A hotel employee may (albeit with low likelihood) be able to remove the resort fees from your bill.

The best strategy is to argue that the amenities you are being charged for were not provided. Issues such as the pool or gym being out of service, dirty, or unavailable due to crowds can justify not paying the resort fee. Perhaps there were no towels available, no availability for yoga classes or lei-making workshops. Or the Wi-Fi was weak or broken in your room.

I’m not saying you should make things up that were not available, but do your homework. Understand the amenities your Hawaii resort provides with its resort fee. Use those amenities during your stay, as you are paying for them! ‘

If the amenities are not available or adequate, consider asking for a discount, resort credit, late checkout, or a complete removal of the resort fees.

Always ask with aloha! Kindness goes a long way. We’ve always had excellent service at Hawaii resorts, especially at luxury hotels. Take care of the staff, and they may help you avoid those resort fees.

Hawaii Hotels with the Highest and Lowest Resort Fees

My wife Erica and I have stayed at dozens of hotels in Hawaii, as we share in our Where to Stay directory. We have avoided paying resort fees and paid them in full, but we always make a note of how much they cost.

The most expensive we have paid is $57 per night at the Grand Wailea on Maui. They include scuba lessons and family photographs, but is $57 a night worth it?

These are the hotels with the highest to lowest resort fees in Hawaii. These are calculated on a resort fee per nightly rate basis.

• Hilton
• IHG
• Hyatt
• Marriott
• Wyndham

Reminder: Resort fees vary by hotel; we calculated the average fee per hotel brand to compile our list. Please check resort fees when booking your Hawaii hotel so you know how much to pay.

I share resort fees for these popular hotels to book with points here. It provides examples of what you should expect to pay in resort fees.

What You Get With Resort Fees in Hawaii

If I can’t avoid resort fees in Hawaii, I make sure to maximize their benefits!

I love researching what we get for an expensive resort fee. The Wailea Beach Resort, a Marriott property on Maui, is our personal favorite for all its activities.

We understand their $57 resort fee (kinda) because they provide so many free, no-strings-attached activities. They also make it easy to attend by walk-in or by reserving on their portal (no app required).

Here are activities and perks at luxury hotels in Hawaii that are included in your resort fee.

• lei-making classes
• yoga classes
• hula lessons
• ukulele lessons
• Hawaiian cultural activities
• lei greeting
• champagne greeting
• kids’ clubs
• Outrigger canoe ride
• Educational activities

The list of what they can provide when you pick a good resort is endless.

But some resorts will charge an additional fee for a special sunrise yoga class or pilates class. Resorts typically offer a daily board of activities at check-in. See what is complimentary (resort fee inclusion) and what is extra.

I’m afraid many hotels in Hawaii provide very little with their resort fee. Luxury hotels, such as Westin, Four Seasons, Andaz, and Fairmonts, provide various activities.

The value hotels will charge $30 for a resort fee, but guests won’t receive much in return.

Activities and perks that should be part of your hotel stay, but are instead considered benefits of the resort fee:

• Wi-Fi
• Kurig coffee in the room
• Towels at the pool
• Sunscreen

Yeah, these “perks” of a resort fee make me feel ripped off in Hawaii. While a hotel may have a low nightly rate, I feel nickel-and-dimed the whole time I’m staying there.

We find that the most excellent hotel perks and benefits come from booking through our credit card’s travel portals. Through the reservation portal, we can get early check-in, late checkout, complimentary breakfast, and resort credits. This is real money for us and makes our trip more comfortable.

Why Do Hawaii Hotels Charge Resort Fees?

Hawaii hotels charge resort fees for a few reasons. Before the FTC required hotels to provide more transparent pricing, a lower base rate could attract more customers. Hotels then make up the difference in revenue by charging a resort fee.

Another reason they charge resort fees, per hotels, is to reduce the commissions paid to travel agents.

If a hotel promises to pay 5% of base rates to travel agents, then it would owe $5 on a $100 nightly room. By charging a resort fee, the hotel could lower the base rate, resulting in a smaller commission for the agent.

How We Avoid Resort Fees in Hawaii

I shared six strategies to avoid resort fees in Hawaii. By far, the easiest ones to implement are booking a hotel with points (a free (almost) night and no resort fees) and booking a hotel that doesn’t have a resort fee.

As almost all hotels in Hawaii have learned they can get away with charging a resort fee, we lean heavily on using reward points.

To book a free night in Hawaii, see Erica’s Beginner’s Guide to Hawaii on Points. She does her best to keep it simple.

Jumpstart your way to avoiding resort fees and getting a free night with our recommended travel cards. Have a great trip to Hawaii!