In a new ‘sweep-clean’ operation carried out jointly by the European Commission and the member states, 235 price comparison and flight reservation sites will soon be required to comply with EU legislation because at present, they mislead consumers by displaying sometimes inaccurate prices.
This was the result, announced on Friday 7 April, of a new investigation in October 2016 by the Commission and EU consumer watchdogs into 352 price comparison and flight reservation sites in 26 EU member states, Norway and Iceland. The sites compare prices for lodging, transport (flights, ferries, train and bus) and car-hire. These are the services currently most frequently complained about by consumers.
Two-thirds of the investigated sites display unreliable prices. The site operators will now be contacted by the Consumer Protection Cooperation network (CPC) and will have to adjust their practices to comply with EU consumer protection legislation, which requires that they guarantee full price transparency and present offers in a clear manner early on in the reservation process.
The investigation revealed four main service pricing problems. In a third of cases, the displayed price was not the same as the end price. In a fifth of cases, promotional offers were not actually available. In nearly a third of cases, the total price or the way it was calculated was unclear. Finally, in a quarter of cases, websites did not state that comments about limited availability, of a room for example, only applied to them. (Original version in French by Jan Kordys)