Ticket pricing woes for travellers and World Cup fans: CBC's Marketplace Cheat Sheet

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When Air Canada announced a 25 per cent discount on base fares earlier this month, Dan Pomerantz and Melanie Lyman-Abramovitch thought they were in for a deal. 

Just 15 hours prior to the announcement, the Montreal couple had booked an Air Canada return flight from Montreal to Chicago for July. Because they were still within the 24-hour free cancellation window, they decided to cancel their original tickets and rebook to take advantage of the new sale. 

"I was like, 'Oh, this is great,'" said Lyman-Abramovitch. "'We'll get 25 per cent off. Fantastic.'"

However, even with the 25 per cent discount applied, the couple’s rebooked tickets were slightly more expensive than their original booking.

"I was pretty angry. I was very unimpressed," said Lyman-Abramovitch. "It felt very deceptive, like the sale wasn't really a sale at all."

Air Canada disagrees. 

The airline said the couple got an undisclosed 20 per cent discount on their original booking — a discount that did not show up on their original receipt. 

The couple's rebooked tickets, with the steeper 25 per cent discount, still cost $5.71 more. Air Canada attributed the price difference to dynamic pricing — a widespread industry practice where base fares fluctuate in real time based on factors like projected and current demand.

The couple's experience is a cautionary tale for anyone trying to capitalize on an airfare discount promotion; when dynamic pricing is at play, the sale can spike demand, ultimately driving up the base fare that’s being discounted.

"They're selling you on the discount. That’s where people get stuck in terms of understanding what's the actual price," said John Gradek, co-ordinator of the aviation management program at McGill University in Montreal. 

"The percentage discount can stay the same, but the price of the base fare will go up."

As more businesses adopt dynamic pricing to boost profits, some industry experts are calling for greater transparency, so customers can determine if an advertised sale — based on a fluctuating base price — is a genuine deal. 

"How you base a sale has morphed into something today that is incomprehensible to the traveling public," said Gradek. "It is the Wild West."

StubHub cancels thousands of World Cup tickets with no notice, no explanation

"Suspicious. Too many things here don't add up."

That’s how Mark Gallagher of West Vancouver feels about ticket resale company StubHub.

He paid $11,380 months ago for a pair of premium seats to watch Canada play Qatar in a World Cup match in Vancouver last Thursday. They were to be a Christmas gift for family members.

But StubHub never delivered the tickets, despite repeated calls to customer service in the weeks, days and hours before game time.

Gallagher is just one of thousands of furious fans across North America caught in what ticket industry insiders are calling a major breakdown and black eye on World Cup events.

"They said, 'Everything's fine. Your tickets are 100 per cent guaranteed. We will get back to you in two to three hours.' That never happened."

StubHub cancelled his order while he was stuck outside the stadium. There was no explanation, no replacement and no refund, he said.

FIFA, which is staging the 2026 World Cup and is soccer's governing body, referred all questions back to StubHub.

"We're witnessing, on a massive scale, one of the biggest collapses in the history of ticketing," said Scott Friedman, a 20-year ticketing industry executive in Cleveland and host of the Ticket Talk Network podcast.

Friedman put out a call to his followers this week and said he has already gathered more than 400 complaints from StubHub customers who claim they, too, were sold tickets that never arrived and are stuck pleading for refunds.

"StubHub is famous for this — not just for the FIFA World Cup but for other events all over the globe. It’s that they allow speculative ticketing," he said. "So speculative ticketers are basically sellers selling tickets they don't have."

One reason why you might be paying more for groceries

The Competition Bureau of Canada announced Monday that it is moving forward with its investigation into competition in the Canadian grocery store landscape.

The bureau said it obtained orders from the Federal Court requiring the parent company of Sobeys to produce documents and testimony for its investigation into property controls.

Property controls are legal agreements that can block competitors from setting up stores in certain places, limiting where a new grocery store can open.

"Lack of competition in the grocery industry can result in higher prices, lower quality and less availability," the bureau said in a news release.

Those who study the industry have raised concerns that a lack of competition can create "food deserts," which are areas where people must travel long distances to buy groceries.

The bureau has been investigating the issue since 2024. It has not made any conclusions of wrongdoing.

A significant part of its work has focused on the Halifax area, but the bureau is also looking at the use of property controls across the country.

The court orders recently obtained by the Competition Bureau apply to Empire Company Limited, the parent company of stores such as Sobeys, Farm Boy, Safeway, IGA, Foodland, and FreshCo.

The Competition Bureau said in a statement the new court orders will give it more information about how Empire negotiates property controls and their potential impacts.

Some documents permitted the grocer wide discretion in enforcing property controls, allowing it to "unreasonably or arbitrarily" withhold consent to competition.

To learn more about how grocery giants control who can sell food in your neighbourhood, read or watch the full Marketplace investigation.

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