As low budget tourists try to get bargain tours, travel agencies try to make a killing with gimmicks that have been exposed by Italian authorities.

Visitors to Rome’s Colosseum, the famous ruins of a Roman amphitheater, fell victim to tour operators who offered a limited number of basic entrance tickets to the landmark prior to 2023 to force tourists to buy higher priced tickets bundled with tour guide and line skipping privileges, Fox News reports.

The Italian Competition Authority (ICA) investigated the issue in 2023 and found that the Cooperative Culture Society (CCS) and other ticket agencies hoarded colosseum passes, allocating them to the more profitable educational tour buyers, according to Fox News.

Agencies were exploiting tourists by using practices that made it harder for regular visitors to buy basic online tickets, Fox News reports, citing The Associated Press.

The ICA fined the agencies $22 million, including $8 million for CCS, to end the modus operandi.

Meanwhile, another subtle tour scam was exposed by two British women during their visit to Costa Azul, Portugal.

Kim Antrobus, 43, and her friend Louise Edlin booked a “side sea view” room in Costa Da Caparica for $500 last March.

Upon checking into the room, the expected Atlantic Ocean view from the balcony was nowhere to be seen. Instead, two apartment buildings were the vista.

Antrobus’s friend leaned over the balcony railing and found the sea view on the side. She, however, couldn’t stretch enough to see the Atlantic because of a slipped disc, New York Post (NYP) reports.

“To me that wasn’t a sea view room,” she said, according to NYP. “It just didn’t look like we were on holiday by the sea. It wasn’t the view I was expecting. It was a beautiful hotel, just a shocking side sea view.”

Antrobus sought a room change, saying she didn’t want to stay in that room. She vowed not to book again with Loveholidays which ruined her holiday. WJG @tribunephl_wjg