As every week, I receive the top20 newsletter from Travelzoo with their best offers they found on the web. If you look at the first offer, RyanAir advertises seats from £0.02 but forget to list hidden additional costs like Airport checkin and baggage handling charges. I believe this (again) misleads the consumer and the purpose of showing these super low fares is to attract the candid traveller to look further.
When looking deeper into Travelzoo site, you can find this page where they say "Unless otherwise indicated, companies listing deals on Travelzoo may not include all applicable taxes, charges and government-imposed fees in the price you see"...
I think there is no excuse today for not displaying these taxes. This is deliberate and some lessons haven't been learnt here. Any thoughts?
This has been an ongoing battle in so many areas, and as far back as I can remember.
I recently became aware of this again with many hotels still listing room prices without VAT (shown only later, and unclear that it is not included in rate), for example on Marriott.com for London.
In the US (and for US hotels) the various local and state taxes are very rarely included in rates or detailed clearly.
Airlines are playing silly games with these days with fuel surcharges, which are added on later in the booking process. I came across this recently also on BA reward bookings.
My view is that fuel is a cost of doing business. If costs rise, then I would expect the price of the product to increase.
But then maybe this is a good approach…. If widely adopted, the next time we buy eggs at the supermarket the dozen might cost 3.99 and there will be a 1.00 fuel (or feed) surcharge!
Posted by: Michael Madison | Thursday, September 25, 2008 at 07:48 PM
This has to be addressed if the travel industry wants to maintain integrity during soft economic times. Consumers shouldn't need to shudder when booking flights, knowing that there will be barraged by additional fees and surcharges. I agree with Michael, if the expenses of running your business rise, then increase your prices.
When will we see truce price transparency/integrity in the travel & tourism industry?
Phil
Posted by: Philip Caines | Friday, September 26, 2008 at 08:16 PM
Travelmole resorts on increasing pressure on BA to include fuel surcharges in their published fares. Good so.
BA's arguments against doing this are silly and unprofessional. I guess it takes real innovators like Emirates (as cited in the article) to get it right!
http://www.travelmole.com/stories/1131710.php?mpnlog=1&m_id=s~T_vbbn
Posted by: Michael Madison | Monday, September 29, 2008 at 04:48 PM
Hi -- the offer published on Travelzoo did state the baggage charges: Travelzoo tip: The FREE flights are for passengers carrying hand luggage only. One piece of checked baggage and airport check-in costs an additional £24 per return journey. Airport check-in alone is £4 each way. It also explained the card payment charges in the terms and conditions on the same page
Posted by: Ange | Wednesday, October 01, 2008 at 10:12 AM