In July, a US appeals court upheld two new consumer protection regulations by the Department of Transportation.  The first one requires airlines to prominently display the total cost of a ticket, including taxes, when advertising airfares.  The other allows consumers to cancel a reservation within 24 hours after purchasing a ticket and also prohibits airlines from changing the price of a ticket after purchase by increasing baggage fees or fuel surcharges.  The government fees and taxes that were left off price quotes often added 20% or more to the final cost of an airline ticket.

 

Before these regulations were passed, travelers could spend hours comparing ticket prices on travel websites only to find out that the ticket they purchased was actually far more expensive than advertised! What's worse, even after you bought a ticket – weeks or months later the airline could decide to raise a surcharge and bill you any amount they deem necessary, essentially saying that the price you agreed to at the time of purchase no longer applies and you owe them the difference.  These new rules protect against this ridiculous practice of post-purchase price increase, and the traveling public is better off because of it.

 

The opportunity to cancel reservations within 24 hours of purchasing a ticket is also an important part of these new regulations. I can't help but compare this to my recent refinancing on my home loan.  I was required to sign several hundred pages no less than 18 times. There's no possible way anyone could read that information in a half hour meeting.  That’s why the law requires a 3 day right of recision on refinances, so you have time to read and analyze the fine print.   The same is now true for airline tickets;  you have 24 hours to read the terms and conditions and cancel with a full refund for any reason.  And that’s far more palatable to being at the mercy of an airline.

 

These regulations are far from earth shattering, but they do represent an example of the government doing what it was intended to do – protecting citizens from making decisions based on misinformation or deceptive business practices.  Too often government oversteps its bounds by regulating prices or mandating services.  But in this case it took important steps to protect the public, proving not all regulation is bad!