Hidden fees begone: What to know about the 'Junk Fees Rule' on Ticketmaster, Airbnb and more

Heading to see your favorite artist soon?
Now, you'll know exactly how much tickets will cost before entering the checkout process. Concertgoers will no longer incur service fees or hidden fees. The same goes for hotel pricing and short-term vacation rentals. No more hidden service, cleaning or destination fees.
The new price transparency comes as the Biden-era Federal Trade Commission "Junk Fees Rule" went into effect on May 12.
The rule requires event ticket sellers, hotels and short-term lodging providers to provide up-front price disclosures to consumers, according to the Consumer Federation of America. The Junk Fees Rule is meant to ban deceptive bait-and-switch activity that drives up prices.
It does not prohibit fees but makes those extra charges more transparent for customers.
Junk fees are also known as surprise fees or hidden fees.
Examples of junk fees in the entertainment and hospitality industries may include service or processing fees, destination fees, cleaning fees, check-in/out fees and other mandatory charges.
Now, as consumers go to buy a ticket on Ticketmaster, they're met with a pop-up message about the company's new "All In Prices."
But what does that mean?
Fans now see the full cost of their ticket, including all service fees, before adding the tickets to their virtual cart. Ticketmaster lists the face-value price, along with the cost of the service fee. However, customers still won't see taxes added to the price until checkout.
"Ticketmaster has long advocated for all-in pricing to become the nationwide standard so fans can easily compare prices across all ticketing sites, and we commend the FTC for making that a reality," Ticketmaster Chief Operating Officer Michael Wichser said in a May 12 press release.
Guests heading to the Great Smoky Mountains or beyond on summer vacation will now have price transparency on Airbnb. The vacation rental platform introduced its total price display on April 21, days ahead of the FTC rule's mandatory implementation.
Guests can now see the real price of their rental, including fees, from the search function. Customers still can't see the added taxes until the checkout process, according to an Airbnb news release.
"As a leader in pricing transparency, we know that value matters—especially today," said the press release. "With the global rollout of total price display, we're making it easier for guests to better understand the price they'll pay, and for hosts to succeed in a more transparent marketplace."
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: What are junk fees? New rule means no hidden fees at Ticketmaster, Airbnb

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Yahoo

2 hours ago

• Yahoo

I turned my two-car garage into an Airbnb to afford living in my dream town. I've made $35,000 a year and get to share the area I love.

Briee Della Rocca wanted to live in Williamstown, Massachusetts, but worried she couldn't afford it. When a home came on the market, she decided to get creative to get some income out of it. Now her garage makes her five figures a year, and she gets to show off her dream town. This as-told-to essay is based on conversations with Briee Della Rocca, an Airbnb host in Williamstown, Massachusetts, about 40 miles from Albany, New York. She converted her two-car garage into an Airbnb to help afford to live in her preferred town. The conversations have been edited for length and clarity. My husband and I are both New Yorkers, but we moved up to southern Vermont in 2002 or 2003. Having grown up as a renter my whole life, it was wild to see that you could — at the time, anyway — purchase a house in Bennington, Vermont, for less than $100,000. We weren't purchasing when we moved up there, but even the rents were so much more affordable. We were early in our twenties, just out of college, and trying to figure out where we would make a life. And a huge factor in that — and what's remained consistent throughout our choice of where we place ourselves — is whether or not it makes sense and you can afford to live there. We had a duplex property in Bennington a year into moving there because it was so cheap. That was literally how we, at 22 years old, afforded a house. One side paid the mortgage, and we lived on the other side for free. We knew it wasn't a long-term house, and that it was a necessity for the mortgage. We eventually bought this great house in Shaftsbury, Vermont, for about $250,000, situated on a hill surrounded by mountain views, and we thought we would live there forever. It was a simple ranch, but gorgeous and we loved it. However, the public schools were not ideal for our family and kids. We tried them for a couple of years, and they weren't good at all. So, we started to enroll our kids in private schools, and we realized we're big public school advocates. We wanted the kids to have a bigger school experience. So we started to look at places where public school systems were known to be good. When we were looking for our next place to enroll the kids in public school, we wanted my husband to be able to keep his job in Bennington. It's a dream job, so it needed to be commutable. We had lived in Williamstown before we had children and absolutely loved it here. People love living here, and they don't want to leave — who can blame them? So it's rare that houses come up, and when they do, it's a very competitive market. We were looking for a place where the kids could go to the schools, but we also wanted to be in the town itself, and walk and have sidewalks and be able to let our kids have unplanned meetups — kids still knock on the door and say, "Can so-and-so come out and play," here. It's amazing, and we very much wanted that. When this house came up, we were the first people to see it. I think it was eight hours after it came on to market. It's right in the center of town, and we were like, "Oh my God, we need this house." We looked at 10 or 11 houses, but every single one had to clear a few hurdles for me: One of them being it had to be able to produce some form of income. The house was outside of our budget, but it had a two-car tandem garage attached to it. I literally was up in the attic space, and my realtor came in and I said, "This is where we'll put the guest suite." In our last house, we converted our basement into an office for me as well as a guest suite for our family who visited frequently. We did host the occasional stay on Airbnb, so I had experience, but I was not really thinking of it as a business. What I really wanted in our new home was consistent income that could be counted on throughout the year. I didn't know what that was, but I just knew that it would be consistent. We bought the home for $637,000. We both knew that long-term, living here wouldn't be comfortable for us on our salaries alone. It would be very difficult if we didn't have another idea about how we could use our space to make it more comfortable. We took out a $100,000 loan to do the renovation. It was a business investment and a home investment because we knew that it would increase the value of our home. The loan covered basically everything, soup to nuts: Building, driveway, furnishing, the whole bit. Obviously, we have to pay the loan, so it's like a small mortgage. Then anything after that is income. In 2024, it earned $35,000. That was its first year. This coming year, we will beat those expectations — we're already ahead. I was thinking, "What if I designed this space as this one-unit, deeply personal hospitality experience that wasn't about scaling it or just making a space someone could stay for the night? It was about intentionally reflecting this love letter to this town and to this community and place that we were so drawn to. We built something that was small — it's just under 500 square feet — but every choice I made, from the stone counters, to the radiant floors, to the fence, to when you arrive at the Ritz-Carlton bed, is a part of a story. I want you to come in and feel like you got to live inside of this story of Williamstown in the area and retreat and feel like you've not only gotten that experience outside in the town, but when you come back into the space itself. Community, especially this community, is so important to us. I couldn't be gladder to share this with people. It makes me so glad to be here and welcome people, and I love when our neighbors send guests over and we get to host their families. It just feels like an extension of making this community more comfortable for visitors and for the people that live here year round. Read the original article on Business Insider

Chicago Tribune

18 hours ago

• Chicago Tribune

West Town home that was once a municipal bathhouse listed for nearly $6M

A six-bedroom, 9,740-square-foot house in West Town's East Village neighborhood that once was a municipal bathhouse for its area was listed on Friday for $5.995 million. Built in the 1910s and known as the Lincoln Bathhouse, the building is one of only four surviving former municipal bathhouse structures in the city. At the peak, the city had numerous bathhouses, which provided public bathing options for low-income immigrants whose dwellings lacked indoor plumbing. The Lincoln Bathhouse continued to operate until the start of 1973, when the Chicago Park District closed it. The initial plan was to tear it down to make way for a playlot. Ultimately, however, the building was preserved and converted to a single-family residence. Like other bathhouses around the city, the Lincoln Bathhouse was constructed in a Roman architectural style. The house sits on an oversized lot and has seven bathrooms, one fireplace, skylights, a massive, light-filled great room with designer lighting and private yard views, a stainless steel kitchen and a lower level with a lounge, a home gym and three en-suite units. Outside on the property are custom pavers, an outdoor kitchen, integrated lighting and a full bar. Listing agent Jennifer Mills Klatt of Jameson Sotheby's International Realty told Elite Street that the house is an 'architecturally significant and unique private residence…it's like a treasure.' 'This was a vital resource to the neighborhood when indoor plumbing was still a luxury. This was not a spa-like bathhouse,' she said. 'Instead, it helped people and it helped families, especially immigrants. And now, it's still an historical landmark, if you will, but it's been transformed into a very chic modern residence. My clients put in quite a bit of money with an incredible renovation and masterfully reimagined this, blending history with their modern vibe. It's a show-stopper.' The house also has an attached garage. Mills Klatt noted that although the house is a single-family residence, it has a business license intact if an owner wanted to use it to host events. What's more, a buyer also could separate the basement guest suites from the rest of the house, as they have their own heating and cooling units, she said, and the property has two active Airbnb licenses for an owner looking for an income-generating opportunity. The current owners paid $2.075 million for the former bathhouse in 2013. The property had a $39,507 property tax bill in the 2023 tax year.

Yahoo

a day ago

• Yahoo

Jackson County to reclassify short-term rentals in new ordinance

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Jackson County Executive Frank White Jr. said Wednesday that the county will be implementing a new short-term rental ordinance for tax assessments. Ordinance 5987 provides direction for how short-term rentals are assessed for property taxes. The City of Kansas City defines a short-term rental as 'a dwelling unit or portion thereof for a period of less than 30 consecutive days.' The properties are usually Airbnb or VRBO properties. However, the city excludes lodging or bed and breakfast properties. Supreme Court backs Missouri's ban on gender transitions for children Executive White said the ordinance will ensure properties classified as commercial due to their short-term use will now be classified as residential. just days before the announcement was made. White said in a news release that the ordinance comes as families are being forced out of their properties financially. While the ordinance is a step in the right direction, he said the legislature should continue to look into the issue. Former Chiefs employee sues team for racial discrimination, wrongful termination 'Families are being priced out,' he said. 'Longtime neighbors are being replaced by turnover and disruption, and local governments are left to manage the consequences without the tools they need to address them. 'For these reasons, I respectfully urge the County Legislature to revisit this issue before the 2026 tax year. Additionally, I call on the Missouri General Assembly to act immediately to fix this gap in state law by clearly distinguishing between residents who live in and occasionally rent their homes, and corporations using residential properties to run commercial operations at scale.' To read Executive White's full statement, click here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.