eDreams - www.edreams.com Review

eDreams claim to be the cheapest, but cunningly add in a massive service charge at end which makes them the most expensive.
Booked a break to Amsterdam for 4 with KLM flights and a B&B hotel. I confirmed a package at £1093. The site was sending “timeout” messages, obviously to rush you so that you don’t notice that the final cost in small print at the top of the screen is £1218, when you click to finally confirm. There is no explanation for the extra £125 they have added on.
When I finally got through on the phone, all I got was different explanations from different staff: service charge, booking fee even shipping fee! They are based in Spain. My Co-op credit card company were useless. eDreams have been highlighted by Which for their dodgy practices. Don’t touch them with a barge-pole.

Latest: Here is a verbatim article that appeared in the UK Guardian Newspaper on 7th October 2015:
STARTS

Ryanair has called on Google to protect customers from booking flights with the airline at inflated prices through websites it claims are masquerading as its own.
In a turn of events that would have appeared unlikely a few years ago, the no-frills carrier is championing consumers over what it believes is misleading advertising on Google.

Ryanair says screenscraper websites, in particular eDreams, are duping customers into booking flights through their own websites by paying Google to appear at the top of Ryanair searches and using a URL that includes the name Ryanair. The eDreams website livery, in blue two-tone, could also be said to resemble the airline’s official site, Ryanair said.

The airline alleges customers are offered lower fares than are available on Ryanair, though customer service and booking fees eventually inflate the price above that offered by the airline. Furthermore, as Ryanair does not hold the booking details, it cannot reach the passengers to inform them of disruption or prompt them to checkin online.

Ryanair’s chief marketing officer, said”Customers end up paying more and with complications down the line, it’s overall a bad experience, and we think Google can do better than that. We get a booking, so it’s not materially damaging our business, but it is causing our customers problems.

This will have to come to an end. Ryanair used to be the bad guys. But while Google are taking money for advertising, Google has a responsibility. They talk the talk on on trust and transparency but now’s the time to walk the walk.”

The airline has had several legal tussles with screenscraper websites across Europe. A German court recently ruled that eDreams should desist from using a subdomain that implied it had an official partnership with Ryanair.

The “lookalike URL, and branding” was misleading and customers would normally end up paying £10 - £15 more that the originally advertised fare once charges and fees were added.

Ryanair is not the only airline to have complained about eDreams. In 2013. EasyJet reported the site to the Office of Fair Trading, the UK Civil Aviation Authority and the consumer group Which? for allegedly breaching consumerr laws, claiming that up to a million people had paid over the odds for its fares.

A spokesman for eDreams said the company was entitled to sell Ryanair tickets and to use Google’s AdWords to promote its flight booking services.

ENDS

If you typed “Ryanair” into Google, the first site was ryanair.edreams
Since this article appeared, it’s now .ryanair.opodo. and guess what?
Opodo and eDreams are part of the same group.

If you type in “easyJet”, you still get easyjet.edreams
If you type in “British Airways”, the fourth site listed is british-airway.edreams
So well done Ryanair. So why don’t all the airline block bookings through eDreams and put them out of business?