Sweet online booking deals leave bitter taste

ST check finds opaque pricing on most of more than 20 hotel and airline booking sites

Expedia, Agoda, Booking.com and Hotels.com did not respond to queries on whether they would adopt the proposed guidelines. PHOTOS: EXPEDIA, AGODA, BOOKING.COM, HOTELS.COM
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A Straits Times check of more than 20 travel booking sites - including hotels, airlines and popular online travel agents such as Expedia and Agoda - found that most of them use these practices to varying degrees.

Of the 12 local hotels checked, half failed to include taxes and fees in the advertised price or indicate that they were excluded, as recommended in the proposed CCCS guidelines.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on October 17, 2019, with the headline Sweet online booking deals leave bitter taste. Subscribe