Ancillaries are an important source of revenue for airlines and of margin for agents, but they come with pricing and legal rules.

Pricing rules

• Flights from UK airports. Anyone selling or advertising the fare, including travel agents, must show the final price, including unavoidable taxes and charges, at all times. Optional extras must be shown clearly at the start of booking, and the customer must choose to add them rather than have them added automatically.

• Headline prices generally. A genuinely optional extra can be priced separately from the headline price, but a charge the customer cannot avoid is mandatory and belongs in it. See drip pricing.

Ancillaries and packages

• Car hire is a travel service in its own right, so selling it with a flight or a hotel can create a package.

• Airport transfers and the carriage of luggage count as part of another service.

• Other extras, such as excursions, only make a package if they are a significant part of its value, which government guidance puts at 25% or more as a rule of thumb, or an essential feature of it.

• Travel insurance is not a travel service.

• Under current guidance, an extra such as an airport hotel added after a package has been chosen and paid for does not normally join that package, although it can create a linked travel arrangement. From 6 April 2027, extras chosen and paid for separately in the same visit or contact may form a new package. Either way, be clear with customers about which parts are protected as a package and which are not.

Worth knowing

In GDS bookings, airline ancillaries are often issued on an IATA Electronic Miscellaneous Document (EMD), either linked to a ticket or standing alone.