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(Mis)Uses of Technology

by Mike Masnick

Wed, Dec 4th 2002 9:21am





Expedia To Charge Booking Fees

from the what's-that? dept

Weren't we just talking about companies charging bogus fees to try to sneak more money out of their customers? Expedia has now announced that any ticket you buy from them will require an extra $5 "booking fee", that I'm sure isn't added to your shopping cart until the final checkout screen. I'd like to know exactly what that "booking fee" represents other than a way to get more money out of people. I've used Expedia in the past, but now I'm going to be a bit more careful before I use them again. The whole point behind using an online travel service like Expedia was to cut out the travel agent middlemen so that there wouldn't be these extra fees. This may also give people extra incentive to book directly from airline sites. For example, I just flew on JetBlue, where they make it $5 cheaper if you book online.

3 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  

    Human nature hasn't changed

    identicon
    dorpus, Dec 4th, 2002 @ 12:16pm

    Dot-coms are the new middlemen, just as greedy and dishonest as the generation of travel agents before them. They will find excuses about "costs of new technologies" to inflate prices.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    No Subject Given

    identicon
    definitely anonymous, Dec 4th, 2002 @ 6:39pm

    Hey, how about that - Expedia realise they need to make money too.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Re: No Subject Given

    icon
    Mike (profile), Dec 4th, 2002 @ 11:13pm

    Yeah, yeah. I have no problem with anyone making any money. In fact, I encourage it. But, when the way to do that is to make yourself less competitive by adding sneaky fees... I have to wonder how smart a move it is.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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