How many times have you surfed from site to site in search of a hotel room, and stopped when the results page posted a low rate? Unless you've clicked through and determined the final charges, you really haven't comparison shopped at all. In yet another example of the mysteries that occur behind the screen, many major travel sites charge you booking fees when you use them to reserve a room. Now in principle, there's nothing wrong with being levied a fee for such services. But the lack of transparency about such charges—and the manner in which they're bundled into "taxes"—has set off a multi-million-dollar firestorm that could transform how hotel rooms are booked online.

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