December 18, 2024
You know all those fees that pop up when you go to by concert tickets or you try and book a hotel? Like service fees or resort fees or convenience fees or breathing fees – you know all those nonsense fees that those booking websites surprise you with at the end when you’re trying to pay????
Well – the federal trade commission just said no more.
Today – the FTC issued a final rule that’s been in the works since 2022. This move is all part of President Biden’s government wide mandate to cut out junk fees for every day Americans. The rule specifically targets live-event ticketing websites and short-term lodging websites. Under this rule the FTC is now prohibiting what they call bait-and-switch pricing and other tactics used by these companies to hide what you are actually going to be charges in the end for tickets or hotel stays when you click purchase.
It’s very important to understand – the FTC is not saying these companies can’t charge you those fees. They absolutely can still charge you those fees. What the FTC is saying is – live-event ticketing websites and hotel booking websites need to be transparent and tell you up front what that concert or that hotel stay is going to cost you. No more burying what you’re actually going to pay at the end of the checkout process. Or surprising you when you check in to the hotel. In fact – the rule requires businesses to display the total price more prominently than most other pricing information on their booking websites.
The rule specifically says it will be considered an unfair or deceptive practice for live-event booking websites and short-term lodging websites to…
Offer, display, or advertise any price of live-event tickets or short-term lodging without clearly and conspicuously disclosing the true total price inclusive of all mandatory fees, with limited exceptions for fees that businesses may not know upfront; and
It will be an unfair or deceptive practice misrepresent any fee or charge in any offer, display, or ad for live-event tickets or short-term lodging.
This rule is schedule to take effect in April of 2025. And the FTC says they aren’t done yet – they also warned *all* other industries to be on notice that they are going to be looking very carefully at everyone who is using these same “bait-and-switch pricing tactics.”
Between now and April it’s very likely that these live-event and hotel booking companies are going to sue the federal government over this rule and because it won’t actually take effect until the trump administration takes over – it’ll be up to trump’s attorney general to defend this rule. We will have to see if the new attorney general wants to defend it.
Read more from the FTC here.
