Booking a flight? Beware of these hidden ticket fees

We’ve been warned about the airline ticket fees we can see. But what about the ones that aren’t disclosed?

Case in point: Today I was searching fares for my weekly trip to the New York City area. Because I’m a frequent traveler with US Airways, I started on its site.

I selected my departure and arrival airports, my dates, and searched by schedule. The site brought up a list of possible outbound and return flights. Here’s the base fare, before taxes and fees:

$376 Outbound + $370 Return = $746 Round Trip

Wait a minute. Why is the outbound $6 higher than the return? After all, I was traveling to and from the same airports and through the same hub.

After taxes and fees, the ticket priced out at $786.

On a hunch, I went to Priceline and pulled up the same itinerary. Priceline clearly states, “No booking fee on this flight.”

Sure enough, the total fare was $780 — a $6 difference.

An airline charging a booking fee on its own site? I though airlines guarantee the lowest fare through their sites and charge no booking fees.

Well, not really. Turns out US Airways has no lowest fare guarantee. Continental Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Northwest Airlines and United Airlines do. Priceline does not charge a booking fee, while Expedia, Orbitz, and Travelocity each charge a fee. But that’s clearly disclosed on their sites.

This experiment got me to thinking about the luggage fees. Those fees are now supposed to be disclosed at ticket purchase.

But are they? I decided to do some dummy bookings on a few sites to see. I first went to US Airways, where I tried to purchase the same round trip as mentioned before and there was no mention of a luggage fee for the second checked bag, referenced on another page on the US Airways web site.

I proceeded to Delta’s site to book a similar roundtrip and same thing — there was no mention of luggage fees on the purchase page, but after poking around a bit, I found
Delta’s excess baggage policy.

I thought the third time might be a charm at Northwest’s web site, but no, still no fee disclosure. It took some hunting to Northwest’s luggage fee policy.

None of these sites disclosed any other fees, such as pet fees. However, Delta and Northwest will offer to add on a rental car and a hotel to your reservation.

So what does this all mean to us as air travelers? It means than in addition to keeping up with rising fares, we should now look very carefully at the base fares we purchase, as well as research in advance any additional ticketing, luggage, pet, or other fees prior to booking. This will cut down on unwanted surprises when we arrive at the airport.

Travelers should take time to search multiple sites for fare differences, pay close attention to any published or embedded fees, and determine whether a site has a lowest fare or no booking fee guarantee.

Tagged as: disclose, Fee, US Airways