It has been that way in Australia for years, since before OneWorld was even created. I do not see why it has become a problem now.

Law of Unintended Consequences
 

Those countries passed laws doing a "favor" for consumers. Here is one of the unintended consequences. I'm sympathetic to OW. They probably spent a lot of programming time to set up the website to display price estimates by country. OW probably only recently became aware of their perceived violation of the law, & wanted to avoid possible fines.

The requirement to display full retail prices is a good one, but in the case of OW Fares you would hope common sense prevails and a guide to extra taxes would be enough. But then gov't authorities are not the most common sense organizations.

Also, I don't think it matters that OW headquarters are in US, if they want to trade in Aust, Sin or any other country that has these regulations, then they must abide.

Australia only introduced laws requiring all-inclusive pricing in the past 12 to 18 months.

I didn't think the rules applied to websites registered overseas. For example, I'm in Australia and if I go to aa.com I get non-inclusive prices. However, if I go to americanairlines.com.au I get inclusive pricing. So I would have thought that if you accessed the oneworld website either from a country that doesn't have inclusive pricing laws or by selecting such a country (eg. accessing the site from Australia but choosing to view the US version of the site) you would be able to see the non-inclusive pricing. Apparently not.

No, they introduced laws requiring comparative unit pricing around 18 months ago. The ACCC has required all inclusive pricing for years.

This media release from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (the government body responsible for competition and consumer issues) refers to 29 May 2009 as the day pricing inclusive of fees and taxes for airlines was introduced.

Specifically, it says:I would argue that as oneworld is not an airline in itself it would not fall under this provision. Additionally, American Airlines (specifically referred to in this release) carries out business in Australia but their aa.com website doesn't comply - because it's US-based. My point is, as above, if you're accessing a website originating in another country, for purchase of a good in another country (eg. purchasing a LONE5 ex-Hungary), it shouldn't be an issue for the Australian authorities. So change the drop-down menu for Australia and state "not available due to regulations blah blah blah" but leave the other countries in place.

Inclusive Pricing was basically legislated as far back as the introduction of the Oz GST.

For many years companies, including airlines, perceived a workaround and advertised base prices with large Asterisks! e.g.:The ACCC believed this was in contravention of the legislation but the way it was worded made compliance enforcement difficult.

So a year or three ago, the legislation was re-written to make it absolutely clear such advertising would be in contravention.

So now such advertising has to be in the form:
One side note with inclusive pricing is in the Vehicle Retail/User car industry.

Advertising has changed from the form: to

I like many of the ways things are done in OZ. No tipping, reasonable/livable minimum wage, adding taxes (0.5% and 1% for 50K+/100K+) for recovery from natural disasters (QL flooding), etc. Very fair and fiscally responsible IMO.

I also think their efforts with regard to introducing laws requiring all-inclusive pricing are noble but fall short. They neglected to get rid of the pesky 1.5% fee for paying with credit card I find hotels charging. I mean really, probably 99% of hotel patrons patrons pay with credit cards, so why should the rate not include THAT fee? It defeats the purpose of their all-inclusive pricing initiative. They get a big :td: for this one IMO. [/rant off and thank you for your indulgence]

Actually that wasn't negligence, but deliberate action. The intention was to reduce credit card transaction costs overall by allowing merchants to impose surcharges and then compete on them.

Clearly it didn't work out the way they intended.

Agree.

The difference is, the advertised rate by the hotels can be obtained by paying cash or a debit card. With the airline advertising, the "advertised" price which excluded the taxes was never attainable as the taxes and surcharges were mandatory and applied to all the tickets sold.

In Serfty's example, where an Airline might advertise


The airline has to make available a means of payment which won't incur the 10$ fee.

Credit Card Surcharge
 

In the US, most merchants' contracts with credit card companies forbid them from adding a surcharge for use of a credit card. The merchant may give a discount for cash, but not a surcharge for CC.

That's how it worked in Australia too before the recent reforms.

The law was changed in Australia in order to forbid such restrictions.

Dave

As long as there is another way to pay the bill it is deliberately legal. At IHG hotels, for example, the 1.5% fee is avoided on pre-pay rates . For those with Australian accounts, I believe that eftpos transactions are also exempt the fee too at the hotel as well as , of course, cash

You can avoid the fee, so why should those that choose to use another payment method subsidise those that want to use credit cards

Dave

Also at Hilton (in Australia) on advance purchase bookings, although it's not made clear.