Airlines increase booking fees

The cost of booking flights by credit or debit cards has risen by a whopping 614 per cent over the past 18 months, a report by Which? Holiday has found.

Paying by debit card was, for many years, a cheaper option to paying with a credit card, but this is no longer the case.

Ryanair has scrapped its 70p debit card fee (per person per each way flight) and replaced it with a £5 fee to bring it in line with its credit card fee. That too has increased; it used to be £2. Payments by Visa Electron are still free.

Aer Lingus's handling fee is £5 per each way flight. EasyJet levies a £2.95 booking fee, and bookings made by Visa Credit Card, MasterCard, Diners Club, American Express, UATP/Airplus incur an additional charge of 2.5 per cent of the total transaction value with a minimum fee of £4.

Wizz Air used to charge a booking fee of 70p per person per each way flight but has increased this to £4.

Summer-holiday favourites First Choice and Thomas Cook have introduced fees. According to The Sun, Thomas Cook now charges £2.50 per person per flight (any of these cards - Visa, MasterCard, Visa Debit, Solo, Maestro, Visa Electron and MasterCard Debit) and First Choice charges £2.50 (debit-card charge).

Lorna Cowan, editor of Which? Holiday, quoted by The Sun, said: "We understand there is a charge to airlines for taking payment with cards and that this will be passed on to consumers.

"But how can some of them justify charging over 600 per cent more?" 

Travellers with bmibaby and Virgin Atlantic will see their ticket costs fall slightly. bmibaby has done away with its 1 per cent charge for paying by debit card. Virgin Atlantic has reduced its fee from £3 per person to 1.3 per cent of the total cost of a trip. For a couple booking flights worth £300, this represents a saving of £2.

© Cheapflights Ltd

Comments

[ron jones]

Why should they charge for debit cards, it is coming straight out of the bank.

[john banvill]

Do I pay extra at Tesco if I pay for my groceries by credit card? I don't think so. Why do I have to pay a fiver extra for paying for flights with a credit card??

[mr/s p&d wright]

Rip-off Britain again. I blame this Goverment because they are the biggest rip-offs.

[Stephen Fairbairn]

At my business we pay the bank approx. 10.5p for each debit card transaction irrespective of the sum involved! This is lower than the cost of paying a cheque into our account!

Clearly the airlines are simply ripping off the customers.

[Tom Smith]

Visa Debit is an electronic transfer, why am I being charged? It's just robbery.

[simple 123]

I do not need a Visa Electron card or other currently advertised accounts and credit cards to avoid Ryanair’s extra credit card charges/fees. If I had the facility to pay for the product I buy by cash or another option without paying extra fees on the credit card. Changing accounts, waiting for approval, passing on all my personal information again, costs money, time and is just tricking me into another deal.

But Ryanair and now more other companies do not offer the cash or other facilities without extra charges anymore. It is not negative for the consumer, not to have not cash payment option, but it’s not fair, only to be able to buy the product with added extra charges!

This is why Ryanair has been taken to court by the German VZBV, where the judge ruled, that the praxis of adding these charges is illegal. The consumer should have the right of buying a product without paying extra/hidden charges. Read more on the website of the
Federation of German Consumer Organisation including public court order:

www.vzbv.de

With kindest regards

Simple123