Opaque rates let hotels release cheaper prices without undercutting their public prices. Bed bank documentation typically says a packaging rate may only be used in combination with other services, such as a flight, transfers or car hire, so that the hotel’s own price cannot be worked out, and bed banks check this when they certify a connection. Their terms often also stop agents showing a price breakdown of the services in a package.

Example: an agent’s website prices a Majorca beach holiday using a bed bank’s packaging rate plus a scheduled flight and shows one price per person. Showing the hotel at its packaging rate as a room-only price would break the rate conditions.

Worth knowing

• Opaque is not the same as net. A net rate can be sold on its own with a mark-up. A packaging rate cannot be sold on its own at all.

• A supplier’s packaging condition and a legal package are different tests. A hotel combined with a flight or car hire, for example at one total price, is a package under the Package Travel Regulations, so the business that combines them is the organiser and needs ATOL cover if a flight is included. A hotel sold with only a standard airport transfer is normally not a package, because a minor transfer counts as part of another service.

• No law requires the prices of the parts of a package to be shown separately. The law requires the total price of a package, including taxes and all additional fees. Flight-only fares are different, as the fare, taxes and charges must be listed.

• A second meaning. Opaque selling can also mean not telling customers which hotel or airline they have bought until after they have paid. It is best known in the US, and some UK sites sell secret hotels this way, but it is different from a packaging rate.