Orbitz is apparently in trouble with the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) for violating rules related to price advertising. The online ticket agent was hit with a $60,000 fine on Monday for displaying advertisements for ticket prices that did not include taxes or fees.
The problems with Orbitz's ticket price advertising strategy were actually two fold. The first problem were advertisements on the site showing ticket prices with no mention of taxes or fees. When users clicked those ads they would have to scroll down to the very bottom of the next page and read the fine print to find out which taxes and fees would be tacked on to the advertised price. The second major issue was that the company was advertising fares that were no longer available. When users would click those advertisements they were taken to pages displaying completely different prices from what was advertised.
“Consumers have a right to know the full price they will be paying for air fares,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said. “We established airline price advertising rules to protect the consumer and will take enforcement action when these rules are violated.”
Current DOT rules require advertised prices for air travel to include all carrier-imposed surcharges. The only fees that do not need to be included in ticket prices include government imposed fees and taxes that might be assessed on a per passenger basis. It's important that the government fees be displayed prominently so the customer can easily figure out exactly what the final cost of the ticket will be. Additionally, there must be a reasonable number of seats at the advertised price offered to consumers.
An updated DOT rule to protect consumers will go into effect on January 24, 2012 requiring all of those government imposed fees and taxes to also be included in advertised ticket prices. That pretty much means next year what you see is what you get when it comes to ticket prices for air travel.
This will hopefully teach Orbitz a lesson about following the rules but more importantly it serves as a warning to consumers to be very careful about what you are buying. Reading the fine print is unfortunately important especially when it comes to buying tickets or other items from online retailers.
Do you buy tickets from Orbitz? Have you ever had issues with a discrepancy between the final price of your ticket and what was advertised? If you experienced any of this advertisement tomfoolery I would love to hear about it in the comments.
