Travel agencies found swindling consumers
Print Edition
THE Shanghai Consumer Rights Protection Commission said yesterday that several travel agencies were offering non-existent discounts and charging high service fees.
In some cases, the commission found that some of the agencies did not offer refunds on canceled flight tickets.
Following complaints from the public, the commission got into the act itself and booked tickets randomly on popular online sites including Ctrip, Qunar and Alitrip for investigation, said Tang Jiansheng, the commission’s deputy secretary-general. Tang said they had received 7,874 complaints this year about flight tickets alone. The numbers have been rising from previous years — from 1,503 in 2013 to 4,806 in 2014.
The commission found that travelers could not get any refunds when canceling a 645-yuan (US$104.03) Ctrip tour package that combined flights from Guangzhou to Shanghai on Spring Airlines and hotel discounts.
The consumers could not get back even their insurance and airport construction fees, which are refundable if they do not make the trips, the commission said.
However, it was found that Spring Airlines website was offering passengers refunds on the same flight.
Ctrip said it always briefs the buyers about their policies before any transactions is completed. It however admitted that airport construction fees and fuel surcharge should be refunded and promised to correct them on its site.
Also, Qunar.com claimed that flights from Shanghai to Chongqing, priced at 420 yuan, was a 70 percent discounted ticket. However, the same ticket also cost 420 yuan on China Southern Airlines website as well, meaning it was not a discounted ticket at all. Besides, the class level sold by Qunar was lower than the one sold on the airlines’ website.
While the airlines was offering a refund of 260 yuan, Qunar only offered to pay back 50 yuan.
A lawyer, Jiang Xian, said that amounted to cheating consumers.
On Alitrip’s website, tickets on a China Eastern flight from Jilin Province to Shanghai cost 562 yuan, but the website was only offering a 50-yuan refund.
On the airlines website, the refund was 100 yuan.
The China Air Transport Association said 90 percent of its complaints were related to online platforms.
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