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Subscribe to RSSThe U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has fined Orbitz, the online travel agency, $60,000 for violating rules prohibiting deceptive advertising in air travel.
“Consumers have a right to know the full price they will be paying for air fares,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement announcing the fine.
According to DOT, the company violated government regulations earlier this year by displaying advertisements on its website that did not adequately disclose required information on additional taxes and fees.
“The rules say they can break taxes and fees out separately but that there must be a prominent link that takes consumers directly to that information,” said DOT spokesman Bill Mosley. “We found that consumers weren’t notified of the charges until they arrived at the following page and scrolled down to the bottom.
“The information was a little harder to find than we’d expect them to make it,” Mosley told msnbc.com.
DOT also determined that the company engaged in deceptive advertising by displaying fares that were no longer available. “We don’t want them to advertise a low fare to lure consumers into a website where they can’t find that fare, but there are higher fares available,” Mosley said.
In accepting DOT’s ruling, Orbitz cited mitigating factors, including “a lack of clear and consistent guidance to carriers and ticket agents” on how to comply with the rule as well as a “data processing” issue that caused older, but unavailable, fares to show up. Orbitz also stated that consumers were warned that unavailable fares were considered “found” fares — that is, low fares recently found by other users — and might no longer be available for purchase.
“Orbitz is in compliance with DOT advertising requirements and the glitch that resulted in how fares were displayed for a short period of time earlier this year has been addressed,” said spokesperson Marita Hudson Thomas.
The issue of deceptive advertising in air travel continues to be a major focus at DOT. In August, the agency fined JetBlue Airways $50,000 for advertising violations; in September, it took similar action and fined Virgin Atlantic Airways the same amount.
In fact, when other violations, such as code-share disclosures and accessibility issues are included, the agency has assessed $4.8 million in fines in 49 consent orders since Jan. 1, said Mosley.
More fines for violations of advertising regulations are likely in the future given pending rules requiring that all advertised fares include government taxes and fees without making consumers follow links or hunt for fine print.
That rule, initially proposed for later this month, will go into effect Jan. 24, 2012.
Related stories:
- DOT cracks down on deceptive advertising by airlines
- Airlines nickel and dime passengers -- for $21 billion
- DOT aims to shed light on airline fees
Rob Lovitt is a longtime travel writer who still believes the journey is as important as the destination. Follow him at Twitter.
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Deceptive advertising? There isn't a single business out there that doesn't use deceptive advertising. Why pick on Orbitz? Look at fast food restaurants, they have pictures of what they say you will get when you order a menu item. What you get does not resemble the picture in any way. Or how about supermarket items. In the frozen food section they show something on the outside of the box that you could only dream would be on the inside. What you get does not even remotely resemble what is inside. Sorry Orbitz, I guess you're the fall guy this week. Too bad Ralph Nader never went at these big businesses. The fines could probably pay off the national debt.
Actually Nader always went after the BIG businesses. One of his very first fights was against the automobile industry concerning seatbelts (an optional item during the 60s).
They didn't invest enough in buying politicians...
A $60,000 fine is nothing. Try adding a few zeros on to it if you really want to change a bad behavior.
"Deceptive advertising"?????? Really??????
I know a real POS that went to work for them. I'm not surprised to here this.
*hear
little fines, little joke, their lobbyist makes that in a month ! Obitz made over $35 million from those ads. They buy more asswipe paper than $50,000 in a year. Come'on man ! Government workers will never justify their huge paychecks and benies. Fire 75 % of them and send them to Greece to riot. ! Sucker MC
Fines assessed. It would be really interesting to hear how much has actually been collected.
I'm 50-50 on whether or not the lawyers fees would be more expensive than just paying the "paltry" fines.
$60,000 is a drop in the bucket---the fine does not come close to how much Orbitz has screwed the passengers with their deceptive practice---typical inadequate reaction by the federal gov't. The only punishment that would hit them hard would be for the consumer to use a competitor's site.
Have the Government Accounting Office (GAO) determine how much it cost the DOT to perform this investigation, then fine Orbitz ten times that amount.
I have followed links to prices from Kayak to Orbitz many times only to get caught in a loop when trying to get the total price. By the time you were done re-entering info and the like the price was always a lot higher.
I have also found that Southwest airlines uses very deceptive advertising for their "free flight, no blackout dates" credit card. I signed up for one of these cards and received the points for the free flight. I then went to the SW website to book airfare from LA to Orlando during the holidays and guess what? NO FLIGHTS OFFERED for over a week during that time? WTF? I called and was told by a SW rep that they "do not have blackout dates but that sometimes free flights aren't available." Double WTF??? I now use my SW card to purchase similarly priced airfare from other airlines and once I have enough free points I will fly SW again. Otherwise no way!
Orbitz sucks. I bought a fly/drive/hotel package this past August. I reserved a Toyota Prius, but the car rental company didn't have one available so they gave me another small car. The substitute car cost me a lot of extra gas money, so I complained to the rental car company, and Budget gave me a cash credit when I turned the car in. (I'm glad I kept the receipt for a paper trail.) But I'd paid Orbitz in advance.
It took two months of constant effort on my part (16 phone calls to Budget and Orbitz combined) for Orbitz to acknowledge and refund the money Budget had credited to THEM (for no reason at all - wtf did Orbitz deserve my 20 bucks?) back to ME.
It's the very last time I'll do business with Orbitz. They're dishonest and disingenuous. For a publicly-traded corporation, Orbitz is pretty brash in their manner of theft from customers. They should watch their backs.
Travel websites should also be investigated for their practices of gathering your comparison search information and using that info to finally deny you the cheapest fares by saying they're sold out.
Clear your computer cookies or use an entirely different computer to buy the best priced-tickets you have searched for if you don't want those fares to disappear.
All decptive advertizing should be targeted. Worse than what they list for Orbitz is the new thing when you order over the internet is to have have you click to accept terms & since no one does that you end up with recurring shipments. I've gotten to where i have to read the terms each time because of this nonsense.