RYANAIR WINS ANOTHER COURT RULING (IN GERMANY) AGAINST
SPANISH OTA PIRATE EDREAMS
Ryanair, Europe's largest airline,
today (Thurs 25 Jul) confirmed that the Berlin Regional Court in
Germany had ruled in favour of Ryanair in its continuing Court
actions against Spanish OTA Pirate, eDreams, and its overcharging
website. This Berlin Court ruling comes less than a week after the
Delaware Court in the USA ruled in favour of Ryanair in a similar
action against Booking.com, which found that Booking.com was in
breach of the US Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, and had been acting
with intent to defraud Ryanair by illegally scraping Ryanair's
website.
In this latest German ruling, the
Berlin Regional Court of First Instance found that the eDreams
payment "service fee" of €3.88 was excessive and therefore
unlawful. The Court also ruled that eDreams "Flexfare", under which
eDreams claims to allow passengers to change the date and time of
their flights for free, was misleading as all eDreams did was waive
its own change fees but the airline change fees still
applied.
Separately, the Berlin Regional
Court also granted Ryanair an injunction against eDreams Prime
T&C's, under which eDreams claimed that it would only give
discounts up to the value of the eDreams Prime annual membership.
This exposes the eDreams Prime false advertising under which it
previously claimed that eDreams Prime members would receive
discounts on "100% of their flights" bookings. Ryanair continues to
expose the eDreams Prime as another overcharging scam perpetrated
by this Spanish OTA Pirate against consumers.
eDreams is the last significant OTA
Pirate in Europe which is still illegally scraping Ryanair's
website, and still overcharging unsuspecting consumers for air
fares and ancillary services. Almost all other significant EU OTA's
have now signed up to Ryanair's "Approved OTA" agreements, under
which they agree that they will display Ryanair's true prices for
seats and ancillary services, and they guarantee that Ryanair will
receive real customer contact payment details. These "Approved OTA"
agreements protect consumers from over charging rip offs such as
those perpetrated by Spanish OTA Pirate eDreams, and their eDreams
Prime membership scam.
Ryanair's Chief Marketing Officer Dara Brady
said:
"Last week's ruling in the Delaware Courts was a momentous
victory against Booking.com, but was also a significant win for
consumers. Booking.com can no longer illegally scrape Ryanair (and
other airline websites) in order to overcharge consumers for the
underlying air fares or ancillary services. Yet here in Europe,
eDreams remains the last significant OTA Pirate, which is still
illegally scraping Ryanair's website, and still trying to
overcharge unsuspecting consumers with inflated air fares and
marked up ancillary services.
We
call on eDreams to cease this anti-consumer overcharging and to
sign up to Ryanair's Approved OTA distribution agreement, like most
other European OTAs now have. This will guarantee consumers real
Ryanair prices for seats and ancillary services and deliver to
Ryanair real customer contact and payment details instead of fake
email addresses and fake card payments. The only reason why eDreams
won't sign is because they prefer to keep overcharging consumers,
especially with their worthless "Prime" membership
scam.
These last remaining OTA Pirates, led by eDreams, must stop
overcharging consumers. If they wish to charge a transparent fee
for their services then that's their decision, but they must stop
scamming and inflating Ryanair and other airline travel prices to
unsuspecting consumers."
ENDS
For further info
please
contact:
Ryanair Press
Office
Tel:
+353-1-9451799
press@ryanair.com