In the Clint Eastwood movie Coogan’s Bluff, Eastwood’s character arrives in New York carrying a briefcase. A taxi driver charges him the rate with luggage. A front desk worker at his hotel charges him the rate without.
At the time, was this common? Why? I’m not sure I’ve ever seen rates like this.
It’s still common for cab drivers to charge passengers anything they can get away with. There’s more regulation now, and the emergence of Uber and other services has cut into the taxi business it wasn’t the least bit surprising at the time. I had cab drivers take the long way through town in NYC during the 80s and 90s. It wasn’t enough money for me at the time to bother about.
Here are the quotes:
Taxi driver: That’s $2.95, including the luggage.
Coogan: Tell me, how many stores are there named Bloomingdale’s in this town?
Taxi driver: One, why?
Coogan: We passed it twice.
Taxi driver: It’s still $2.95, including the luggage.
Coogan: Yeah, well there’s $3.00, including the tip.
Golden Hotel Room Clerk : Room 304. That’ll be $7 in advance.
Coogan: The sign says $5.
Golden Hotel Room Clerk: $7 without luggage.
[Coogan places briefcase on desk]
Golden Hotel Room Clerk: That ain’t luggage.
Coogan: There’s a cab driver in this town that’ll give you an argument.
I read that more as the cabbie and hotel clerk trying to put one over on the hick deputy from Arizona, and Clint indicating he knows they’re trying to take advantage of him.
Cabs absolutely used to (no idea if they still do) charge more if you put luggage in the trunk, but charging for a briefcase you carry with you is a scam. But I can’t imagine a reason to charge more for a hotel room because the person has no luggage.
Someone without luggage may be considered more likely to be renting the room for illicit purposes and possibly causing damage? Airlines used to find it suspicious when people traveled without luggage.
Good point, though a $5/night room in NYC seems like it’s catering to the poor/transient/prostitute crowd anyway.
And nowadays they charge you extra for a carryon…
Now I’m picturing the ultimate in cargo-wear: pants and shirts completely covered in large pockets, made especially for airline travel. 
I have a vest that was advertised that way. And i do always wear clothes with pockets on airplanes, although that’s for convenience of getting at stuff when I’m trapped in an airplane seat, not to replace my luggage. (But i have worn a jacket because otherwise i was carrying too much to board, and i didn’t want to check things.)
I fixed the spelling in the title.
Which has me wondering which of the three words was misspelled! I assume Coogan’s was spelled with two g’s.
Autocorrected to Cohan’s. 
WooHoooo!
Will be re-watching Coogan’s Bluff this evening.
Sure, but I’ve never seen a listed rate that depends on luggage in either of those businesses today. Was it common in the past?
I don’t recall seeing any listed rate for luggage either. Not in NYC or anywhere else. Not something I would have noted, and I rarely had a bag I didn’t carry in the back seat of cab with me. NYC cab drivers did things to increase the fare. In Boston I ended up with mostly nice happy cabdrivers most of the time. One even parked and turned off the meter so I could buy some toys for my kids.
Coogan faces a lot of negative experiences on his special assignment in New York.
It starts with getting cheated on the cab charge and luggage fees. I won’t go into spoilers. But nearly every person Coogan meets is either trying to hustle him or is hostile.
I’ve always liked this movie. Except for the dated hippie/psychedelic scenes. They’re obviously written by an outsider with little understanding of the counter-culture. It’s like Joe Friday meeting a hippie on Dragnet.
Don’t you wish prices today were similiar to Coogan’s experiences in 1967?
Of course compare that to wages.