The Cineplex chain in Canada has been fined nearly $40m over the way it presents online booking fees to its customers. More here.
It remains a puzzle that cinemas, theatres and such like are allowed to charge a booking fee for their tickets, that’s all but unavoidable. Do they want us to book them or not? Is not the purpose of a box office to sell us tickets?
Can you imagine if you went to buy some carrots, and you were charged a purchasing fee on top of the usual price? Just put the full price up front, so we know where we stand.
In Canada, this has now become the subject of a court case, with the Cineplex cinema chain in the country being handed a $38.9m fine by the Canadian competition tribunal.
It’s been handed the fine for what’s described as ‘deceptive marketing practices’, in a case that’s been going for nearly a year and half. It traces back a little further though, to the moment when Cineplex added a $1.50 booking fee for tickets for the majority of its customers. Those part of subscriptions and loyalty programmes offered by Cineplex saw the booking fee either scrubbed, or dropped to a dollar.
See also: Cinema-going is becoming a pasttime for the better off
The heart of the complaint was that the booking fee wasn’t obvious enough, something that Cineplex disputes. Its introduction has made it more expensive to prebook seats in advance over just turning up on the day and purchasing a ticket in person. The fees have to be displayed up front, the tribunal has argued.
For Cineplex, the fine has wiped out the revenue from the booking fee for the past year or so, and it’s been warned to right its wrongs. Still, it’s allowed to continue to charge a booking fee, it’s just got to be transparent about it.
In its statement to CBC in Canada, it confirms that the ruling doesn’t impact the “continuation of offering this value-added service to consumers”. As a piece of spin, that’s quite something. Don’t know about you, folks, but I love the value added service of being charged an additional fee to book a ticket.
More on the story can be found here. We shall add a surge pricing booking fee for anyone who wishes to click this link here.