Trainline under investigation over hidden booking fees
Key Points
- The CMA has opened a consumer protection investigation into whether Trainline shows the full price of train and coach tickets upfront.
- The regulator observed Trainline train fees of £0.59 to £2.79 per transaction and a £1.50 coach booking fee.
- Virgin Atlantic is being examined over resort fees and local taxes on package holidays; RED Driving School over booking and digital fees above £7.
- If the CMA finds the law has been broken, it can order customer compensation and fine a firm up to 10% of global turnover.
- The CMA has already secured over £1.95 million in refunds and £6.2 million in fines, including against AA, BSM and StubHub UK.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened an investigation into whether Trainline shows customers the full price of train and coach tickets before they reach the checkout.
The regulator will examine whether all mandatory fees appear in the upfront prices on the Trainline app and website when people buy tickets in advance.
Its monitoring found transaction fees on train travel ranging from £0.59 to £2.79, and a £1.50 booking fee on coach bookings. Those charges add up for anyone travelling regularly.
The case forms part of a wider CMA clampdown on drip pricing, where a firm separates mandatory charges from the headline price or adds them later in the buying process. Customers then face unexpected costs at the end of a booking, or have to work out the real total themselves.
The practice also distorts competition, because a business using it can look cheaper than a rival that shows the full price from the start.
The CMA opened two further investigations on Wednesday (19 August). It will look at whether Virgin Atlantic included mandatory resort fees and local taxes in the upfront prices it showed to package holiday customers, charges that vary but can run to hundreds of pounds.
It will also examine how RED Driving School displayed a mandatory booking fee and a digital fee, together worth more than £7 per booking, to people booking lessons.
The CMA sent all three firms advisory letters during its first consumer protection drive under its new enforcement powers, putting them on notice of their obligations under consumer law. Its concerns about their pricing continued after that monitoring.
“The first price customers see should be the price they pay,” said Emma Cochrane, Executive Director for Consumer Protection at the CMA. She added that clear pricing lets people compare offers with confidence, and that unexpected mandatory charges make that far harder for households watching every pound.
What it could mean for customers
The CMA has reached no conclusions and is still at the start of all three investigations.
If it finds a firm has broken the law, it can order that business to compensate affected customers and fine it up to 10% of global turnover.
Since its strengthened consumer powers came into force, the regulator has secured more than £1.95 million in refunds for UK consumers and levied fines of close to £6.2 million across ticketing, gyms, homeware, online reviews and air travel.
Driving schools AA and BSM and the ticketing site StubHub UK have already been fined over drip pricing and will refund customers.
No legal deadline applies to consumer investigations under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act. The CMA has published case pages for each of the three firms where it will post developments.
