There's great scuba diving off the coast of Sharm al-Sheikh, the Egyptian resort city located on the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, says Carolyn Zukowski, a 37-year-old U.S. native and hostel owner in Český Krumlov, south Bohemia. Her husband, a scuba enthusiast, would love to go there.

So it was with excitement Sept. 22 that Zukowski booked an all-inclusive eight-day trip for her family of four through the budget travel Web site lastminute.cz. The site said the trip would cost 61,920 Kč ($2,740), which she paid that day.

Two weeks later, Last Minute called with news: Zukowski owed more money — 8,000 Kč per person, increasing the vacation's cost by almost a half — for one simple reason: Her family was not Czech.

Almost 14 years after the passing of the Act on Consumer Protection, tourists and foreign residents of the Czech Republic still suffer from pricing discrimination and double standards.

From venial sins like doubling the price of beer for a stag party swilling near Charles Bridge to allegations of price hikes on plane tickets, stories abound on the ways foreign residents feel they've been stiffed.

According to Miloslava Flégová, spokeswoman for the Czech Retail Inspection (ČOI), complaints of discriminatory pricing have stayed "more or less the same" in the past decade. The office received 71 complaints in 2004 and 47 in 2005; it expects to get nearly 50 complaints this year. Due to a lack of digital records, the ČOI could not provide statistics for years prior to 2004.

Not all cases make their way to the office, as Fléglová admits. Foreigners are often unfamiliar with Czech laws and do not know where to file complaints. Or they pay whatever is asked of them, not realizing a scam is on.

Last year, the highest sanction paid by a Czech business for overbilling a foreign customer was 80,000 Kč, for a restaurant bill inflated by 200 Kč.

But, while the overcharging of the unaware at select bars and clubs continues, pricing discrimination has found a new domain: the Web.

Ticket taken

Last Minute booked the Zukowski family's vacation through Fischer, a large Czech travel agency.

In a phone call Oct. 8, the agency told Zukowski that, because she was not Czech or Slovak, she would have to pay more for the trip. Later in the conversation, she says, the customer service agent told her that this was Fischer's policy only for trips to Egypt. Rather than pay the increased rate, Zukowski took a full refund, which she finally received Oct. 16.

Fischer's spokesperson, Dan Plovajko, confirms Zukowski's story. He says that the different prices for tourist packages from the Czech Republic to Egypt are a condition of the Egyptian firm Fischer works with in-country. Fischer passes the difference on to customers.

Plovajko would not elaborate on why the Egyptian firm has different rates for Czech and Slovak nationals. Visa fees into Egypt for U.S. and Czech citizens are identical.

Another American, Julie Fishman, recently received similar treatment from letenky.cz, a corporate sibling of Last Minute.

She reserved a ticket on the Web site for a flight to Chicago. Two days later, she says, she received a call from customer service telling her that she could not have the ticket — the price was for Czechs and Slovaks only.

A spokesperson for the ticketing agency GTS, which handles Letenky's airline ticketing, denied that a case like Fishman's could occur, stating that GTS offers the same rate fares for citizens of all nationalities.

Tomio Okamura, a member of the Association of Czech Travel Companies and Agencies, says he has not heard of such pricing systems, but "it is not correct if it is happening."

According to the ČOI, both cases seem like consumer discrimination and could be inspected by the office.

Stories from the city

The ČOI consistently receives complaints about double prices in restaurants and pricing discrimination at Prague's towers, like the story of Peter Daly.

Daly is not happy with the Žižkov TV Tower. Six months ago, he met a Czech friend in the tower for cocktails. He ordered his ticket in English, and the charge was 150 Kč — higher than he remembered.

He was perplexed then to find that his friend had paid 60 Kč for entrance. On his way back down that night, Daly says, he saw a sign in Czech offering the "discount rate." He called the tower the next morning, and the office was frank in stating the price was for Czechs only.

A manager, Klára Filipová, says that the 150 Kč rate includes a guidebook while the discount does not. Meanwhile, signs in English at the tower set the rate at 150 Kč, with no exceptions.

Several other stories told to the Post include foreigners' prices for paddleboat rentals and concert tickets bought at the box office.

Not all customer discrimination in the country is against foreigners: The ČOI has a case pending against a local travel agency that banned Czech nationals from its tours.

What makes foreigners' complaints difficult to investigate, according to the ČOI, is that the reports are often late or inaccurate. And inspectors are forced to pose as foreigners in their investigations. This may go part of the way to explaining why, of the 47 pricing claims filed in 2005, only eight were proven.

Of course, tourists in the country don't always know enough to file complaints, says Karin Šeligová of the government's tourism office.

"When you're having a good time on your trip," she says, and you have had a good meal and some drinks, "you don't check the prices, and you can end up paying more."