Why did my hotel charge me a $250 cleaning fee?

A: If you didn’t smoke in your room, you shouldn’t have to pay a $250 cleaning fee.

But the Candlewood Suites Hawthorne says it has photographic evidence that someone used tobacco products in your room. If it has time-stamped pictures of your room with cigarette butts in the trash, then it would be difficult to fight a $250 cleaning fee.

I contacted Candlewood Suites to see if it could share the photos. I’ll tell you what happened in just a moment.

But first, I have a few thoughts on smoking in hotel rooms. When you light up in a hotel room, the stench of the smoke lingers for the next guest to inhale. I’m fine with you doing that kind of thing in your own home, but please don’t subject future travelers to your carcinogens.

I’ve been a guest at the Candlewood Suites Hawthorne in Hawthorne, California, several times. After my most recent stay, the hotel charged my debit card an extra $250. I was clueless as to why the hotel would be putting extra charges on my debit card.

I called the hotel to ask about it. The woman who answered the phone listened to my concerns and then quickly transferred me to a number that rang busy, and then disconnected me. I called several times after that but got no answer.

I felt like something suspicious was going on, so I reported it to my bank and to Candlewood’s parent company, InterContinental Hotels Group. An IHG representative promised there would be an investigation.

I waited a few days and called the hotel back. I spoke with the manager, who told me the $250 was a smoking fee. I explained that I’m a nonsmoker and a traveling nurse. The hotel manager said hotel staff took a picture of tobacco in the trash can from my room, “So we have proof.” She said when I checked in, I signed a smoking policy, and that I had disobeyed that policy.

I’m not a smoker. The manager said I could do whatever I wanted, I would not get the $250 back. I’ve called IHG again and it promised to escalate my case, but so far I’ve heard nothing. Can you help?

— Annika Pigford, Atlanta

In other words, I fully support the right of a hotel like the Candlewood Suites Hawthorne to charge its guests a $250 cleaning fee for smoking in the room.

But there’s a right way and a wrong way to do it. The hotel should have contacted you after your stay, presented you with the evidence, and offered you a way to appeal the smoking penalty. Adding a charge without explanation is the wrong way.

You needed to push this case up the chain of command in writing. It looks like you started with an email but then called IHG’s corporate headquarters. The problem with calling is that there’s no documentation of your conversation, at least on your end. If you had sent a brief, polite email to one of the executives at IHG, you might have resolved this long ago. I list the names, numbers and addresses of all the relevant managers for InterContinental Hotels Group on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org.

I never found out if Candlewood really had photos of your alleged tobacco products. After I contacted the hotel, a representative reached out to you and refunded the $250 cleaning fee.

If you need help with a coronavirus-related refund, contact me. You can send details through my advocacy site or email me.

Christopher Elliott is the chief advocacy officer of Elliott Advocacy, a nonprofit organization that helps consumers resolve their problems. Contact him at elliott.org/help or chris@elliott.org.