price discrimination Archives

Analysis

Not always the cheapest train in France, and a sneaky 50 cent Belgian charge

A couple of weeks ago Seat61 had the splash that booking cross-border France-Spain TGVs would cost you more on French language websites than anywhere else (Seat61’s news page here – you have to scroll down as he has no link to individual stories). After a bit of a furore that[Read More…]

07.10.2015 0 comments

Analysis

Brits going to Spain at May bank holiday: you’re probably paying too much for car hire

As regular readers of this blog are surely now aware, I have become quite fascinated by the tricks used by car hire companies to wring more money out of their customers. I first reported on this in summer 2014, and revisited the example in early February 2015. I have since[Read More…]

18.02.2015 0 comments

Analysis

“Source market pricing” – euphemism for car hire companies screwing customers

Following my presentation yesterday at a European Commission event about services in the EU Single Market (blog entry here, slides here), I was told by a representative of Leaseurope that Hertz charging someone using hertz.be €20.06 more for 4 days of precisely the same car hire in Brussels than someone[Read More…]

10.02.2015 4 comments

Analysis

Revisiting car hire price discrimination – 1 step forward (Europcar), 2 steps back (Hertz, Avis)

Back in July 2014 I discovered some price discrimination in prices for car hire, when hiring a car for a Belgium-Germany trip. The details of that discrimination can be found here, and the largest difference was €5.47. Little did I know that the European Commission was looking at the very[Read More…]

09.02.2015 1 comment

Analysis

Price discrimination in car hire Belgium-Germany

I want to rent a car in Brussels for 4 days at the end of August, for a trip to Germany for Rhein on Skates. The round trip will be about 900km, with 2 drivers. We need a small car – Polo or Clio or something like that. I have a[Read More…]

28.07.2014 0 comments