The Spanish online travel agency Travelgenio misleadingly advertised its "flexible ticket" for 99€ as an additional option for flight bookings, the Higher Regional Court of Vienna (Oberlandesgericht) ruled in a lawsuit filed by VKI.
In this case, passengers were sold a kind of carefree package, which allows flight changes for that extra charge. During the booking process, customers could only inform themselves about significant limitations on the applicability of the offer by using a small button marked with the letter "i".
The main sticking points are a 48 hour limit before the flight, up to which flight changes are considered and covered by this service. The other reason for exclusion is inapplicability for already partially consumed tickets, e.g. if there are changes after the outbound flight on the return flight. Furthermore, customers with cancellation insurance were excluded, which made it impossible to cancel a trip for reasons of illness, for example.
The kind of advertising with the wording "all kinds of changes" for the service was judged misleading by the court. Average consumers would not expect such restrictions when buying the expensive additional package and were not sufficiently informed about these restrictions when booking.
