Is it legal for British Airways to raise price on second page of booking?
 

BA was showing JFK-LHR award seats for
"Total Price (Including all taxes, fees, and carrier charges)
X Avios + $ 64.80"

I clicked Continue and it said I didn't have enough Avios to continue.
So I canceled my Aer Lingus award booking, which cost 20000 Avios + $110.90, paid the $55 cancellation fee, and transferred those EI Avios to BA.

When I went back to BA, picked the flight and clicked "Continue", it said:
"Taxes, fees and carrier charges per person: $199.80"

So they increased the fees more than 300% compared to what was originally shown, and there was no way for anyone to see the actual cost unless they put enough miles in their account first.

I thought US regulations required airlines to show actual, exact cost on the first step of the booking?

Whereas, with BA in this case, I had no idea, or even a hint, that the price was gonna triple, because they put the following label in the first page: "Total Price (Including all taxes, fees, and carrier charges)"
[for contrast, the fees on the second page is labeled: "Taxes, fees and carrier charges per person"]

Now my EI award seat is no longer available, and I see no alternative but to capitulate and book with the higher fees that were not disclosed initially. Is this type of trickery by BA legal under US Law?

I have put in a complaint about this to the GGL team - nothing heard back though. I was told some real porkies for the reason - including it was an average - nope!

I agree this is false advertising but it seems the BA IT department don't care.

Regards

aks120

File a consumer complaint with the U.S. Department of Transportation and you'll find out:

https://www.transportation.gov/airco...umer-complaint

This text is included on the flight selection page:

The prices shown are intended to help you choose your most appropriate journey. The exact total will be shown after you have selected your outbound flight and may be higher than the amount shown on this page.

That is indeed what it says, but I couldn’t imagine legalese saying prices as just guesses on a website would stand up to EU regulation (otherwise every company not wanting transparent pricing would have a field day). It might take a court case to demonstrate that though.

Which EU regulation says you can’t show indicative prices with a suitable note that the exact price is on the “your flight quote” page which you will see before committing?

I would lodge thw complaint with DOT and see what it says. If BA is in breach, you will hopefully get the money back. There is no good reason for BA to be unable to disclose fees accurately - of the $200 , $170 is just a BA surcharge; the oneway taxes are only $29.80

DOT has regulations regarding fare displays - given it is a flight from US, its rules do apply; under DOT rules, the full fare must be quoted at the 1st display - a breakdown of fare/axes/charges can be given

Even indicative pricing should be indicatrive. stating $64 and then changing to $200 is not really giving an indicative price

Pretty sure this subject has been discussed on here several times over the years. If they were up to no good you'd have thought they'd have been forced to stop doing it by now.

It certainly would be good to understand exactly what the DoT rules say - I have often seen it mentioned before but like you I don’t really have any understanding about whether BA are potentially in breach or not.

None (I expect), but then the entire body of EU regulation which says that pricing needs to be transparent and accurate from the beginning of a customer's booking process isn't worth the paper it's written on if the transparent prices companies provide early on in booking don't actually have to be real at all.

yes this would be my other point. We do see it mentioned but sadly there isn’t much follow up I have seen where people have reported the result of their complaint. If the OP does decide to submit something it would be very interesting and valuable to all to hear about what the result is.

Just added it to my post above - I think that this is the relevant one

this text isn't there, at least on the US site.
my issue is, they don't show the exact price on the next page unless you have enough avios.

well I think you have a way forward here by filing a DoT complaint. It would be great if you could update the board on how you get on.

On the quote page, for an economy booking I have just tested with, it does stateTotal Price (Including all taxes, fees, and carrier charges)
13000 Avios + £ 52.93
More pricing options
(You will see exact cost after you click 'Continue')

Despite having no Avios, I was able to continue and did then get a page with greyed out options from
13,000 plus £50.10 through to 4550 plus £115.10