Misled on flight cost.

Hi all,
I had a problem with EDreams flights website today. I was looking for a cheap flight to Southampton UK. I found what I was looking for a flight returning from Southampton on the 13th June at a cost of €35. Then booking the flight I had to go through the torture of not paying for bags, priority, seat, insurance, etc until it got to allow me to pay. I entered my credit card details and pressed pay. Immediately I was told that the airline had upped the price and it was now €81 + and I was told only one seat left at this price. I was wondering if any other fellow forum users was exposed to this trickery by eDreams. I am now waiting to see if my account has been debited as I had already pressed the buy button. Incidentally there was no back button alternative to stop the sale. I think if I hadn’t my wits about me I might have paid the higher sum. Gingerluke

I'm confused - what price did you actually pay for the flight?

Resellers can't lock in seat prices until you commit to pay, so that's just a feature of choosing not to book directly.

eDreams get some mixed TrustPilot reviews but a not so bad 3.9 score overall.

To get that lowest price it looks like you'd have had to sign up to some sort of "prime" subscription with edreams costing 55e a year.

The price was never 35e, it would have been 35e + 55e per year.

It looks like these resellers don't have to abide by the same rules on price advertising as the airlines themselves do, i.e. here it was impossible (not simply annoying as it would be with an airline) to just pay for the flight for 35e.

Why would anybody bother with a re-seller?

Why not simply book direct with the airline?

Protocol said:

Why would anybody bother with a re-seller?

Why not simply book direct with the airline?

Click to expand...

I assume because they "appear" cheaper.

Yep, they appear cheaper and they also pay so that they feature top of search results when people look up flights or airlines.

That's not very transparent where they auto enroll you in Prime to give you the (false?) advertised discount fare?

AL are €43 for the base fare on 13 June and they say €65 before prime or €40.99 with Prime.

So their business model is to make money on the Prime subs?

I say avoid!

The potential price volatility during the booking process seems to be covered in their terms and conditions. And as long as you're apprised of the actual price before you pay I guess that they're not doing anything wrong.