Overview
- The Ministry of Social Rights and Consumer Affairs, through the Directorate General for Consumers, opened a sanction file on Saturday, November 7, 2026, after finding signs that a bus firm added booking fees at the end of the purchase and kept those fees on cancelled tickets.
- The practice known as 'drip pricing' hides final costs until the last step of booking and is expressly banned by the Law of Customer Service (Ley SAC), which requires the full price including fees to appear from the first commercial communication.
- Investigators are also examining clauses that justify withholding booking fees on refunds and treating those clauses as potentially abusive under articles 83 and 87 of the General Consumer Law.
- Sanctions under the rules range from administrative fines of about €100,000 or penalties equal to four to six times illicit gains for misleading pricing to fines up to €1 million or six to eight times illicit gains for abusive clauses, according to the ministry.
- This is the second price-presentation probe this year by the consumer agency and it signals stricter enforcement that could improve price transparency for buyers and increase the chance of refunds and penalties if breaches are proven.