The encyclopedia · Advertising & PR · Marketing decision · 2025
Canada's Wonderland advertised a ticket price, then added up to $9.99 at checkout
Canada's Wonderland was sued over processing fees up to $9.99, excluded from prices advertised online — the same claim that cost Cineplex $38.9M.
Canada's Wonderland · 2025-05-05
What happened
On 5 May 2025, Canada's Competition Bureau filed an application with the Competition Tribunal alleging that Canada's Wonderland, the country's largest amusement park, advertised park admission and other items at prices consumers could not actually pay online.
The Bureau said Wonderland charged a mandatory processing fee on every online purchase involving park admission — starting at $6.99 and rising to $8.99 or $9.99 depending on how many items were bought — plus a separate $0.99 processing fee on most non-admission purchases, none of it included in the advertised headline price.
The Bureau is seeking an order to stop the practice, a financial penalty and restitution for affected consumers, arguing the fees made the advertised price unattainable — the same 'drip pricing' theory that had just cost Cineplex a record $38.9 million. Canada's Wonderland called the allegations 'unfounded' and said it does not engage in drip pricing.
Why it happened
- A processing fee that scaled with the number of items purchased meant no single advertised price was ever the real price, and the gap grew with basket size rather than staying fixed and predictable.
- Charging the fee across nearly all transaction types, admission and non-admission alike, made it a structural part of pricing rather than an occasional add-on that might be missed by accident.
- The Cineplex ruling had already established what the Tribunal considered drip pricing months earlier, so a similar fee structure continued against a live, on-point precedent.
The lesson
Once a regulator wins one drip-pricing case in an industry, an unchanged fee structure elsewhere isn't a coincidence a tribunal overlooks — it's the next test case, filed against a public precedent.
Aftermath
The suit continued the Competition Bureau's post-Cineplex enforcement wave, which by mid-2025 also included a separate drip-pricing suit against DoorDash, signalling that mandatory unadvertised fees had become a standing priority rather than a one-off case.
Sources
- Competition Bureau Canada — Competition Bureau sues Canada's Wonderland for allegedly advertising misleading prices online
- Law360 Canada — Competition Bureau sues Canada's Wonderland over alleged 'drip pricing' practices
spotted an error? The club wants to know.
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