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663 points duxup | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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geff82 ◴[] No.45361019[source]
Book trips from European websites in the future. Prices here need to include everything upfront. Which might lead to situations where you reserve a hotel room in the USA for 1500, but then only pay 1200 at checkout because the remaining 300 are the "resort fee" that will be paid at the hotel. Or take car rental: the cheaper, more complete packages for the USA are often booked in the EU at at better price.
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octo888 ◴[] No.45361739[source]
> Prices here need to include everything upfront

How are you defining "everything" and "upfront"? Upfront as in the first page shown after searching?

Because many, many airlines/car rental sites have a complex muti-step process of different fares, extras etc until you get to the final stage

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hn8726 ◴[] No.45362595[source]
Can you give an example? I just checked a random rental website for France and I got a very clear `From $xx` price and I could — in one step — go to checkout with that exact price by simply not selecting any other options.

Sure you will have upsells but if a price for a service is presented, that should be a final price. You can't tack on "resort fees", the price presented must be inclusive of all the required charges. For example as much as I dislike Booking.com, the price they show for a room includes everything — tax, mandatory cleaning fee and city tax if applicable.

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1. octo888 ◴[] No.45367428{3}[source]
I was trying to ascertain if we're discussing just taxes etc, or from the article "fees (like baggage, seat assignments, and service charges)" and whether you /need/ to select extras to have a decent standard of a service

Also, so much is unbundled these days, you have to be really careful what that initial price really includes. For example, with Sixt, they often don't include the basic CDW + Theft coverage which for a long time was always included in the base price. I assumed it was law in most of Europe. Luckily Avis, Hertz, Europcar don't stoop that low

You're right - you can book a car, and if you don't inadvertently agree to extras either verbally or on the ipads at the rental desk, and don't incur any extra charges/fees during the rental, the price you pay should be what you initially reserved :-)

And you're right about booking.com - they seem to do a fairly good at at incorporating tourist taxes etc into the final price.