Not everyone is internet saavy, and he or she could go to an agent but this is a good move, and like

Today s sweeping rulemaking proposal by the Transportation Department is so enormous, it can t be analyzed in a single post. But let s not bury the lede as they say in journalism: The government wants to do us all a big favor by requiring airlines to post a full price including all mandatory fees.
The Department is considering changing its enforcement policy concerning this rule to enforce royal carribean cruises the "full price advertising" provision of the rule as it is written and, consistent with longstanding Department enforcement policy, to clarify that the rule applies to ticket agents.
Given technological innovations and new methods of communication, carriers and ticket agents are finding new and creative ways to advertise airfares, some of which circumvent the spirit if not the letter of the full- price advertising rule and Department enforcement policy.
Consumers now receive airfare solicitations through print advertisements, radio advertisements, internet advertisements, and solicitations sent directly to consumers via email newsletters, social networking websites, text messages, and applications designed for many different kinds of cell phones. The ease and speed of information sharing also allows airfare information to be presented to consumers in many different forms.
Even in cases where those forms of advertising comply in a technical sense with our enforcement policy with regard to the full-price advertising rule, we are concerned that in many cases consumers are not easily able to determine the total cost of air transportation services or are deceived regarding the true price.
Accordingly, we believe consumers would be better served if we enforce our existing full-price rule as written and prohibit royal carribean cruises the practice royal carribean cruises of advertising fares that exclude any mandatory fees or surcharges, regardless of the source.
The proposal goes on to say the government no longer see[s] a useful purpose in presenting what purportedly are "fares" to consumers that do not include numerous required charges and, in our view only act to confuse or deceive consumers regarding the true full price and to make price comparisons difficult or improbable.
The proposed rule, as part of the current full-price advertising rule, would also apply to carriers and ticket agents that advertise royal carribean cruises tours which include air transportation. Examples of such opt-out procedures royal carribean cruises the Department has seen in recent years include fees for travel insurance, rental cars, transfers between airports and hotels, priority boarding, premium seats, and extra legroom.
Sounds as if the government is as tired as customers with having to wade through a myriad of footnotes and hyperlinks regarding government taxes and fees. It s time for airline to make the full-price calculation royal carribean cruises themselves to establish which among many displayed "fares" is the real fare.
Government intervention in a free market wouldn t be necessary if the companies in said market could be trusted to work in the best interests of everyone. But they can t; they only ever work for themselves. Hence the requirement of regulation and intervention.
I m not sure if this is as big a deal as you re making it out to be. Airlines, and the mainstream travel royal carribean cruises sites (the travelocitys, the expedias, the orbitzs of the world) already display the full price. royal carribean cruises This may cut down on the deceptive print advertisements you see for international travel ( Europe! For as low as $199! , nevermind that that s one way and doesn t include about $500 in taxes and surcharges), however.
I think that it is unnecessary government intervention in a free market. If you don t like how an airline price it tickets, you don t have to fly them. Unless you are traveling to a small market, you can always fly Southwest, AirTran and Frontier which does a better job of disclosing royal carribean cruises their prices according to the critics.
Government intervention in a free market would not be necessary if consumers actual paid attention regulations for consumers are necessary when consumers act like clueless idiots and do things royal carribean cruises without thinking or questioning. If people acted like everyone they dealt with was trying to take advantage of them and learned what they needed royal carribean cruises to learn about what they intend to buy consumer protections would not be necessary. . . . people would vote with their wallets intelligently and the market would react to that -= meaning bookings on opt-out airline junk would go away forcing the carrier to stop doing it.
Heck, I had a local company stuff a flyer on my windshield the other day. I went to the shop spoke to the owner and told him that he LOST my business permanently because of the annoyance of having to pull his flyer off my windshield I handed it back to him and told him to throw it out. If MORE people did that, then we d get alot less guerrilla marketing.
Guess it depends on the government s definition of mandatory . If they mean the government taxes and fees and stuff like those irritating peak travel surcharges royal carribean cruises , then fine (though you can figure that out already by doing a search on Kayak). But if they start defining too many things as mandatory baggage fees, meal fees, etc. it ll start cluttering up fare displays unnecessarily. Not to mention, I m lazy, and I don t want to have to start unchecking a bunch of boxes for stuff I don t want to figure out what I actually need to pay.
Now if only the government would mandate the same things for hotels. If you ask me, the mandatory but always nicely buried-in-fine-print resort fee is far more deceptive than anything you might find in an airline advertisement.
Discretionary fees are fees that a reasonable number of people can avoid. Luggage fees for example. As much as they are hated, many people do not pay them, whether because of elite status or better packing.
Let me put it this way: There s a good reason I use Kayak to look up airfares. In addition to searching the Legacy Carries plus JetBlue, it folds up all of the taxes and fees, and can even add on the baggage fees. Southwest includes the taxes on its site voluntarily, on the initial search results page..
The way I look at it is like this. Suppose you need a dozen eggs. At the grocers the price of the eggs is clearly marked $1.95, and at the Farmers Market organic locally farmed eggs are $2.50. Being budget conscious you go to the grocers, but when you get to the register you re charged an additional $.50 for the carton the eggs come in, plus $.20 security fee for the store s surveillance system, plus $.15 for a bag to carry the eggs out of the store, royal carribean cruises and finally $.10 tax.
I typically don t agree with the govt getting in our business, but this is one of a few instances that I do appreciate their getting involved. The govt isn t telling airlines what to charge- just forcing them to simply state the whole price of the ticket upfront voila transparency :-). I believe this may stop the tricky bait and switch advertisements we see so often (until the airlines can think up some other schemes), and hopefully as consmers we won t have to be so paranoid when purchasing a ticket.
Not everyone is internet saavy, and he or she could go to an agent but this is a good move, and like stated above i ll be even more happy to see these rules applied to the hotel industry too. Thanks for the info Chris
How does the ultimate fare price change if every carrier has to pay the same government fee on an airport by airport basis? My ultimate question would be what pet government (airport official) project is the fee funding? Look at your local airport, royal carribean cruises study the additional fees, and look hard where they go. I would recommend looking up the airport financials; you may be surprised what you find.
I m definitely a free market person and I think anyone who is a free market type person should support this. More transparancy is what makes up a true free market. Not who can hide the real cost or externalize those costs best. Make sure I have the information easily and nondeceptively available to make the best decision for what I want and I ll do it.
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