Some third-party booking sites are charging high booking fees that experts are warning travelers to be aware of. “There are some online travel companies, or other travel agencies that do business online, that do not disclose this information clearly and who charge absolutely egregious fees,” said Henry Hartveldt, president of Atmosphere Research Group.
The group provides analysis about the travel industry, and notes that this has been the case with third-party sites for the past 15 years. There has been a lot of pushback against these practices.
Around 23% of travelers have reported being misled by third-party booking sites. In a 2018 survey by the American Hotel and Lodging Association, this equated to 28.5 million hotel stays worth around $5.2 billion. According to data, 4.7 billion people are expected to travel this year, meaning the risks for the high fees could increase.
Henry noted that while a large number of third-party booking sites aren't reliable, not all of them charge the hidden fees. Brands like Expedia and Booking.com partner with hotels and resorts and are dependable.
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Some of the smaller third-party sites can appear legit at first glance. According to Henry, he says that they “design pages to look like they may be a hotel or they are using a hotel logo but displaying that perhaps in a disproportionately large size.”
The Federal Trade Commission is currently in the process of banning “junk fees” that raise the prices of hotel rooms and other consumer purchases. In the past, federal regulators have brought complaints against third-party booking sites for their deceptive advertising practices.
In 2017, the FTC filed a complaint against a site called ReservationCounter.com and its parent companies due to consumers complaining that the site posed as the actual hotel websites they wanted to book through. The companies ended up settling with the agency over allegations that they misled buyers with deceptive marketing.
The smaller sites were provided hotel room inventory through the affiliate programs of larger companies. They signed agreements with platforms like Expedia, Priceline, and Orbitz to obtain inventory. However, the FTC said “they advertise and market the available hotel rooms through their own advertisements, websites, and call centers” in return for fees.
Melanie McGovern, spokesperson for the Better Business Bureau, said that it gets a lot of complaints from customers who mistake booking sites for the actual site of the hotel. “That’s a lot of the complaints we get about the third-party booking sites,” she said.
The BBB advises consumers to always review the terms and refund policies before booking. “It’s really important, as consumers, that we do those checks — that we check with BBB, that we check with our friends and family — to make sure that a site is real before we put any kind of information in it."
