Single Supplements: Solo Travelers Face a Fee for Traveling on Their Own That Many Feel is Unfair

The single supplement is something many solo travelers face. It's really more of a penalty for traveling alone than anything else, forcing solo travelers to pay almost double for the same travel experience as those traveling with a companion.

Single supplements are a widespread practice in the travel industry, used by cruise companies as well as guided tour companies. The travel companies say these fees are justified because most accommodations are priced for double occupancy. The fees range from an additional 10 percent to an additional 100 percent above the standard rate.

"To sell that stateroom to only one person, that wouldn't necessarily make business sense for us," H.J. Harrison Liu, a spokesman for Royal Caribbean, told the New York Times.

Solo travelers disagree with this assessment, feeling they are being punished for traveling alone.

"It's the bane of the single person's travel existence," Bella DePaulo, a visiting professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, who studies what she calls "singlism," or the ways that single people are stereotyped and discriminated against.

While single supplements have been around for decades, as each year, the nation has a population that is increasingly single, it becomes more frustrating to the growing number of solo travelers. Last year, the Census Bureau released figures showing that there were 102 million unmarried people 18 and older in the U.S. in 2011, which is more than 44 percent of adults. That's also a large increase in the single population from 2006, when the number was 92 million unmarried people.

Approximately 12 percent of adults, whether married or unmarried, plan to travel solo this year, an increase from the seven percent who traveled solo last year, according to the American Express Spending & Saving Tracker.

Some companies, among them Rick Steves Europe Backroads, which offers many tour options, and G Adventures, have come up with a compromise, where they will waive the single supplement if the traveler agrees to be matched up with a roommate. If the travel company can't find a roommate, you still receive the room for the same price, without the single supplement.

Professor DePaulo thinks the entire concept of the single supplement is a bad business decision. Dropping the surcharge may cost companies and cause them to lose money short term, but long term they would gain the loyalty of single travelers.