Not every discount is a deal

A “50% off” banner may seem like an excellent deal, but the discount is only valuable if you pay less than the regular price for the same trip. Regulators in Europe checked this in 2025 and found that 30% of the online sellers they looked at broke the rules on price-reduction claims, and 10% used drip pricing, adding fees as you go through checkout, per the European Commission. Travel is especially prone to this, because prices change constantly and most people only book a few trips a year, so they don't know the usual price. Here are the main tactics to watch out for.

1. The inflated "was" price

A hotel advertised as “was $300, now $180” may never have actually sold for $300. The original price could simply make the discount seem more attractive. Check past prices if possible, or compare the same dates across two or three booking websites to see whether you’re getting a genuine deal.

2. Drip pricing

The headline price looks low, then resort fees, cleaning fees, booking fees or bag fees appear at checkout. Always compare prices at the final payment screen, not on the search results.

3. Fake urgency

Countdown timers, "only 1 room left" and "12 people are looking at this" messages are designed to stop you comparing. Some are real. Many aren't: an earlier EU review found fake countdown timers on 42 websites.

4. "Up to" discounts

"Up to 50% off" usually means a handful of rooms or dates get the full discount, and most get much less. Judge the offer by the price for your dates.

5. Discounts on the wrong base

Cruise lines and package companies may advertise percentages off a "brochure" price that few people ever pay. Cruise Critic notes that because cruise lines have no standard base fare, percentages alone tell you little, per Cruise Critic.

6. "Free" extras with strings attached

“Kids sail free” offers may still require you to pay taxes and port fees for each child. A "free night" may only apply to the most expensive room. A cheap deposit doesn't make a trip cheaper; it just spreads out the payments.

What the law says now

Travel pricing regulations shifted significantly in 2025 and 2026, with some changes benefiting travelers and others adding new requirements. Here’s what to know as we head into 2027.

Sources: FTC, Federal Register, Taylor Wessing on the DMCC Act, EUR-Lex, Digital Fairness Act tracker.

Enforcement is picking up

•         StubHub (US): agreed in April 2026 to refund $10 million to customers after the FTC said it hid the full ticket price on its first screens, per the FTC.

•         Travel firms (UK): in August 2026, the CMA opened drip-pricing investigations into Trainline's booking fees and into whether Virgin Atlantic's holiday According to GOV.UK, the business excluded resort fees and local taxes from its advertised upfront prices.

•         Ryanair (UK): in June 2026, the CMA opened an investigation into Ryanair's charges for seating families together, per Stephenson Harwood.

•         Earlier cases: in 2022, New York's Attorney General fined the company behind CheapOair $2.6 million over fake urgency messages and invented markdowns, per Travel Market Report.

The takeaway: regulators are cracking down, but the rules don't cover every type of travel purchase, especially airline extras in the US. Your own checks still matter most.

When the "deal" is a scam

Misleading prices cost you money. Scams can cost you the whole trip. Americans reported losing $274 million to travel, vacation and timeshare scams in 2024, with a median loss of $922, according to the FTC's 2024 data book. In the UK, Action Fraud received 6,066 holiday fraud reports in 2024, with losses of £11.18 million, and more than half of cases involved social media, per Wired-Gov.

The most common travel scams right now:

•         Fraudulent accommodation listings can appear even on popular, well-known booking platforms. In December 2025, consumer group Which? Euronews reported that the company managed to publish a fake property on Booking.com in under 15 minutes without any identity verification. 

•         Messages pretending to come from your hotel, asking you to "reconfirm" your card details, sometimes using real booking information.

•         Fake airline customer service numbers that appear in search ads, and fake "agents" who reply when you complain to an airline on social media. The FTC issued a warning about these practices in December 2025.

•         Cheap flights sold through social media, and fake giveaways using airline names.

•        “Free vacation” deals that involve aggressive sales pitches for timeshares or vacation club memberships. The FTC lists "only good today" pressure and exit companies charging upfront fees as warning signs, per its consumer guide.

The 60-second deal check

Before you pay for anything that looks like a great deal, run through these six questions.

•         ☐ Is it the final price? You're looking at the checkout total, including all fees, bags and taxes.

•         ☐ Is it lower than usual? You've checked the price history or compared the same dates on at least two other sites.

•         ☐ Do I know the seller? It's the airline, hotel or a well-known booking site, and the website address is spelled correctly.

•         ☐ Am I paying safely? You're paying by credit card inside the official website or app, never by bank transfer, gift card or crypto.

•         ☐ Can I cancel? You've read the refund and change terms.

•         ☐ Did I start the contact? You found the deal yourself, rather than responding to an unexpected message, call or social media post.

If you can't tick all six, slow down.

Where real trip deals come from

Genuine savings tend to come from a few reliable sources, and none of them need a countdown timer:

•         Flexible dates. Flying in shoulder season cut international fares by about a third in Kayak's autumn 2025 analysis, per Kayak.

•         Price alerts. Free alerts on Google Flights, Kayak or Skyscanner tell you when a fare drops, so you don't have to guess.

•         Refundable hotel bookings. Book early with free cancellation, then rebook if the rate falls closer to the date.

•         Real sales. Airlines and hotel groups run genuine sales, often in late November and January. Compare the sale price to what you saw a few weeks earlier.

•         Error fares. Occasionally, airlines publish fares by mistake. They're real bargains, but US airlines can cancel fares they can show were errors, so don't book non-refundable extras until the ticket is confirmed, per One Mile at a Time.

Frequently asked questions

How can I tell if a travel discount is real?

Compare the final price, with all fees, against the same trip on other sites and against the price history for your dates. If the "was" price never appears anywhere else, the discount probably isn't real.

What is drip pricing?

Drip pricing is when a low headline price grows as fees are added through checkout, such as resort fees, booking fees or bag fees. It's now banned for mandatory fees on US hotel and rental listings and throughout the UK.

Are booking site messages like "only 1 room left" true?

Sometimes. But regulators have found fake urgency messages and countdown timers on many sites, so don't let them rush you into booking before you've compared prices.

How do I avoid travel scams?

Book through official websites or well-known platforms, pay by credit card, never pay by bank transfer or gift card, and be suspicious of any unexpected message asking you to confirm payment details.

What should I do if I booked a fake deal?

Contact your card issuer immediately to dispute the charge, report the scam (to the FTC in the US or Action Fraud in the UK), and tell the platform where you found it.