This holiday season, airlines have a gift for you: Hidden fees. These fees are waiting for you at the airport and will add to the other fees you paid when you bought the ticket. Happy Holidays!
Two pro-consumer groups, FlyersRights.org and Business Travel Coalition , along with dozens of corporations and national consumer groups, have joined forces to demand the Department of Transportation support restoring true comparison shopping for airline consumers.
Today kicks off a 30-day public awareness campaign, demanding transparency in airline ticketing and revealing all hidden fees, with the goal of true air travel comparison shopping.
During a slow economic recovery, the flying public is being financially damaged by the airlines' refusal to post the hidden ancillary fees next to the base fares so that flyers can compare apples to apples when comparison shopping for air fares.
By December 25, FlyersRights and BTC aim to have 25,000 signatures, thereby pressuring The White House to formally review this request and provide a public response.
The public is called upon to sign a White House "WE the People" petition and join the campaign to urge the Administration to require airlines to enact true comparison shopping for consumers.
Let's be frank. This is outrageous; these are deceptive pricing tactics being used to actively mislead flyers. Airlines use hidden ancillary charges as an indirect way to raise fares in a manner which makes it impossible to predict the total price of a ticket. Business travelers who have to account for their travel costs have to aggregate all of their receipts in order to get reimbursed and it is becoming impossible to handle under a system in which hidden fees can raise the cost of a ticket by up to 40 percent.