Hidden booking fees with holidaylettings

Fred_Casa

I recently booked a holiday house in France with holidaylettings (owned by Tripadvisor). It only became clear after I had paid the full amount that this included a 10% booking fee. The fee had not been mentioned anywhere during the booking process. When I rang them they said that they randomly (!) charge a fee of between 5-10%.

I am pretty scandalised by the behaviour of this consumer champion. Can they do this? My email and letter to them have remained unanswered.

shaun_from_Africa

Provided that the total amount that you paid was the same amount that you expected to pay, the booking fee is irrelevant.


If this is the case, all that Hollidaylettings have done is to advertise an all inclusive total price and not given a breakdown of how that price was calculated.

Fred_Casa

But shouldn't any agent (theatre, airline, holiday company) state upfront whether a booking fee is included in the total amount, particularly if it's as much as 10%? Otherwise you don't really know if it's a fair price or not. If I had known. I wouldn't have gone ahead.

shaun_from_Africa

Fred_Casa wrote: »

But shouldn't any agent (theatre, airline, holiday company) state upfront whether a booking fee is included in the total amount.

As far as I'm aware, there's no legal requirement that states they have to do this.
All they are doing is offering a product for sale at a set price and asking people if they want to buy at the advertised price.
Provided that the booking fee was included in the price that you were shown and this is the same price that you paid, they have done nothing wrong.

mchale

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5150770

knightstyle

Well the price you see is the price you pay and the fee is deducted before the owner is paid so why should you be upset or even know about this?
Just as shops pay the card company when you use your credit card, are you upset by this?
The fee is currently 3% plus VAT or 6 months free trial which I am about to use to advertise my house in France.

simpsian

As an owner/advertiser with HL, I am one of many that have been hit by their newly imposed pricing increase (5% to 6%, now 10%). No consultation, nor notice. We get charged 3% too and they keep all the deposits and rental until clients have left. Won't discuss it and Customer Support is useless. T&C say they can increase to 15% as and when they want. Appalling. We've taken the hit so far, but it's costing us over £70 for every weekly booking!!
Will be leaving asap.