Trade Practices

The defendant advertised holiday homes at Germany's Baltic coast in the internet where he indicated prices per week. However, only at the very end of the advertisment additional costs of a "final cleaning" were mentioned. The court (Schleswig-Holsteinsches OLG) held that the advertisment was contrary to German pricing law which requires the indication of the final price including all costs, fees and taxes.

The plaintiff took part in Lufthansa's frequent flyer programme "Miles & More" and had collected about 900.000 bonus miles until Lufthansa changed the terms regarding redemption of bonus miles. According to the new terms, the number of bonus miles required to receive a business class or first class upgrade had gone up 15 to 20 percent. The plaintiff regarded these changes unfair and void and therefore filed a law suit at the regional court in Colonia (LG Köln).

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) said it levied USD 3.6 million in penalties for 2012 violations of the department’s consumer-protection rules for air passengers. The total is up from USD 3.3 million in 2011. During 2012, the Department issued 49 consent orders for consumer rule violations, the most recent two against Copa Airlines and Virgin America for not strictly adhering to the DOT’s rules for lengthy tarmac delays.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has warned 22 hotel operators that their online reservation sites may violate the law by providing a deceptively low estimate of what consumers can expect to pay for their hotel rooms. According to the FTC letters, one common complaint consumers raised involved mandatory fees hotels charge for amenities such as newspapers, use of onsite exercise or pool facilities, or internet access, sometimes referred to as ‘resort fees'.