Airlines, hotels and online booking sites face a ban on “rip-off” fees for luggage under plans for a crackdown on hidden charges.
Rishi Sunak has said he is worried about booking sites and other online sales companies obscuring the real cost of their services.
He has ordered a review of the way services are sold with the final bill far bigger than the initial estimate in a sales strategy known as “drip-selling”.
The Prime Minister wants to see more price transparency in booking and travel sites and is considering whether regulation is needed to make it easier for customers to shop around, according to The Times.
The travel sector has been singled out for using “underhand” pricing, with car hire companies as well as budget airlines and hotels routinely adding on fees to the advertised price before checkout.
Mr Sunak said during his visit to the US: “I think we’re all probably anecdotally and individually aware of this practice of, you know, you just get more and more things added on to the cost of something as you move through a process and there’s just not the kind of price transparency that you’d expect, we’re concerned about that.”
Before adding: “We want to make sure that we keep helping people with the cost of living.”
The Department for Business and Trade has been asked to conduct a review of ‘drip-selling’ to make recommendations on any extra rules needed.
A spokesman said: “This is a practice that we want to make sure that we’re across, looking at, to see how harmful it is and if we need to take further action.”
No details or timetable for the review have been set out.
