Study finds package holiday prices often higher than advertised; Industry disputes claim
More than 30 percent of online package holiday offers end up costing travelers several hundred euros more than the advertised price, according to an inventory by De Telegraaf, a finding that the Dutch travel industry association ANVR rejects as inaccurate, according to BNR.
The newspaper’s review of online offers from major providers—including Prijsvrij Vakanties, D-reizen, Dé VakantieDiscounter, TUI, and Sunweb—found that advertised prices frequently do not match the final booking cost. De Telegraaf reported that in nearly one-third of cases, the price rises by several hundred euros once the trip is booked. The issue was previously raised in 2023, when the Consumentenbond filed a complaint with the Reclame Code Commissie, the committee that reviews complaints about misleading or unfair advertising, but De Telegraaf said the problem has not been resolved.
Lawyer Stephan Mulders said advertising rules require that listed prices be genuinely available. “The general principle is that an offer can never be misleading. If you name a certain price, then vacations must also be available at that price. Simply using a ‘from-price’ is not sufficient.”
The ANVR strongly rejected the newspaper’s conclusion. Director Frank Radstake called the framing “harmful” and disputed that consumers are being misled. “I find it really harmful that De Telegraaf puts ‘lure deals’ on the front page, and especially that they talk about deception, because that is simply not correct,” he said in an interview with BNR. "A single phone call to me would have allowed me to tell the real story."
Radstake said price changes are a result of how booking systems pull real-time data from airlines and hotels, where fares can change rapidly. “Nowadays you can combine all flights and all hotels at online travel companies. As many people know, flight prices change not only per day but sometimes per hour or even per minute. The same applies to hotel rooms nowadays.”
He said pricing is recalculated at the moment a customer searches. “When you look on the website for, for example, six days in Curaçao starting next week, we retrieve the most recent known price at that moment,” he said, adding that prices can therefore rise compared to earlier listings. Radstake added that price drops also occur. “Even more often it goes down, but of course nobody complains about that.”
He denied that the practice amounts to deception. “According to European Commission guidelines, this is simply allowed. A court ruled last year in a case between travel companies and regulators that this is a permitted practice and also in the consumer’s interest.” He added that companies are trying to narrow price gaps and improve clarity for consumers but acknowledged that systems are complex and not always consistent.
