Opodo is an online intermediary for flights, hotels, rental cars and package travels, situated in England and Spain. We are currently receiving a lot of complaints about the company, regarding non-transparent pricing on the German website.
On opodo.de, Opodo offers a membership called "Opodo Prime" for 74.99 Euro per year. With it, consumers can book flights at a cheaper price. As we made a test booking, a flight from Vienna to Eindhoven (NL) cost only 41.72 Euro for members, instead of 70.89 Euro.
The problem: The booking process and the declaration of the different prices are not clear, in our opinion. It's hard to tell what price actually applies and how much will be deducted in the end.
Some consumers without a "Prime" membership told us that they weren't aware that only the cheaper "Opodo Prime" price was shown and that they booked their flight at that rate. It's only after the booking that Opodo checks whether you're actually a member. If not, they charge the more expensive standard price - without any further notice or warning.
From a legal point of view, this procedure is very questionable. We already talked to Opodo about it, but they haven't changed it so far.
Austria: Cheaper price without "Prime" membership
After further research, we also found that it makes a difference where you want to make a booking. The problem described above applies to opodo.de.
On Opodo.at, "Opodo Prime" is not provided. When we made a test booking on both sites at the same time, for identical flights, the standard price offered on the Austrian website was much more similar to the "Prime" price on the German website. On opodo.at, the flight Vienna-Eindhoven and back regularly cost 47.72 Euro.
Step by step: Flight booking on opodo.de
For better understanding and to show what you have to look out for when booking there, we made screenshots of our test booking on opodo.de.
