Richard Magri, general manager, Mondial Holidays, Valletta
Travel adverts not showing full charges
I wonder what action, if any, shall be taken by the Office of Fair Trading against certain tour operators who unfairly advertise their group tours quoting prices that are not factual. For example, one particular tour operator offers an Easter holiday to Andalusia (in south Spain) at the rate of €529. But when one checks further, one finds that this rate is the cost for an adult sharing a triple room plus this rate is only applicable should the client also book all the excursions and the half board supplement - an additional cost of €234!
According to EU regulations, all adverts have to show the final actual amount that the client shall pay. I advise the Maltese traveller to check for any hidden charges before booking a holiday so as to avoid unwanted surprises!
Thankfully not all local tour operators use unfair advertising and most promote their tours at the correct final price, as it should be.
On our part, Mondial Holidays believe that, although at first glance, when compared to these unfair advertising techniques used by some competitors our rates may seem more expensive, the local client would realise that in fact we still offer high quality tours at excellent rates.
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N. Gerada
Jan 31st 2009, 15:51
I totally agree with this article. It is very unfair to do so. I had a very disgusting personal experience, way back in 2005 on such tours. I went for a football tour to watch 2 Champions League matches,namely Inter vs Milan and the Juventus vs Liverpool.
To watch both matches, I had paid Lm140 (Lm70 for each match), when I've done the initial booking. During the tour meeting we were informed that the match tickets would be available when we are there. The first match was on Tuesday and the tickets were made available by the tour leader on Monday afternoon.
The big surprise was that when I saw the ticket prices, they were 50 euro (and please note again, EURO) for the Inter vs Milan match and 100 euro for the Juventus vs Liverpool match. A real RIP OFF!