Travelocity Fined For Cuba Trips

Online travel company Travelocity.con has been fined $182,750 for booking trips between the U.S. and Cuba in violation of a 45-year-old ban.

Travelocity.com has become the first online travel company to be hit with a fine for booking trips from the U.S. to Cuba.   The company had paid$182,750 to settle a complaint from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. Travelocity.com is said to have violated the 45-year-oldprohibition on travel between the U.S. and Cuba nearly 1,500 times between January 1998 and April 2004.   It is possible to receive a license from OFAC for approved trips to and from Cuba, butTravelocity spokesman Joel Frey on Wednesday said the company had not applied for a license and had no plans to do so.   “The trips to Cuba were unintentionally permitted to be booked byconsumers online because of some technical failures several years ago and it’s just now being finally settled with OFAC,” Frey wrote in an e-mail. “In no way did the company intend toallow bookings for trips to Cuba and the company has fully cooperated with OFAC and implemented corrective measures.”   The Treasury did not say if the Travelocity investigation had beenclosed. Travelocity co-operated with the investigation.