5 ways to avoid a la carte anarchy

It used to be so simple: The price you were quoted for an airline ticket, rental car or cruise used to be the price you actually paid.

Ah, the good old days.

Today, the rate you’re given is almost never the final price, which is considerably more.

Travel companies stripped away many of the items that used to come with their products and began charging extra for them. They insist these fare games are legal, which, by and large, they are.

But does that make them right? It depends on your perspective.

As a business, the answer is often “yes” — they’re following a mathematical model that assures they’re making more money while only upsetting the customers who are expendable. But as a traveler, these practices — euphemistically referred to as “unbundling” and “a la carte pricing” — are unconscionable.

But don’t take my word for it. Talk with Arizona State University’s Marianne Jennings, a renowned business ethicist. She says there are two reason companies go a la carte. “It makes them more profitable,” she says, “and it’s not as transparently comparable with competitors’ flat fares.”

In other words, unbundling confuses customers and makes travel companies more money. Maybe it makes companies more money because it’s confusing.

There is a way to avoid this a la carte anarchy. But let’s define our terms first. What do customers expect from prices?

AIRLINE TICKET. When travelers pull up a price quote, they expect their ticket to cover the basics. They want to be able to pay for it with a credit card, and it should include the cost of a carry-on bag and a checked bag. Soft drinks and snacks on a longer flight. Ideally, it would also include taxes and all fees, including any fuel surcharges.

CAR RENTAL. Rates should include all taxes and government surcharges, plus those annoying stadium fees. Also, travelers don’t care about the cost to the car rental company of renting facilities or providing transportation to and from the airport terminal. Ditto for license plates and tire disposal. It should all be included.

CRUISE. If it’s billed as an “all-inclusive” cruise, it should include everything. If not, passengers expect basic room and meals. Soft drinks shouldn’t cost more. The best food on the ship should be designated as “premium,” forcing those on a budget to eat gruel. No surprises. And no mandatory tips, please.

HOTEL. When travelers go price shopping, they expect no gotchas, such as mandatory parking fees or so-called “resort” fees. It’s not that they want these fees to be disclosed before, during or after the transaction — it’s that they don’t want them. Period. They expect their room will have a bed and a daily change of linen, and that having the room serviced won’t cost extra. Ideally, it would also include taxes, particularly any state- or county-imposed bed taxes.

Just as important, there are items that shouldn’t be a part of the price, for example, insurance for rental cars, or restaurant meals at a hotel or spa treatments on a cruise ship. Travelers expect these items to be priced separately, and you’ll get no argument from me on that.

But that isn’t the direction the travel industry is moving in. In fact, according to Mike Simonetto, the principal and global leader of Deloitte Consulting’s pricing and profitability practice, travel companies are inching closer to a “zero” fare, in which the base price is free and everything is added on to it. “Free is not necessarily bad,” he told me. “If you think of the comp model in Vegas, you’re getting the room for free, but (the resort is) making money from gambling.”

Given that travel companies want to unbundle more, not less, and given the fact that they don’t care what we think, what are we to do?