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[MSE Dan]

What's this about?

It's possible to fly for as little as £1 each way on budget airlines, yet many of them charge a host of hideous extra fees. This is a sneaky trick to beat the nastiest of them and wipe out the shocking additional charge of up to £40 per family for paying by debit or credit card; by using a special, cheap prepaid card.

What are the charges?

Outrageously, paying by debit or credit card is often seen as an added extra, and the costs can be huge; more than doubling the price of some flights.

Sadly, these aren’t the only charges whacked on top; you’ll commonly pay extra for baggage, checking in via specific methods, and of course ever present taxes.

Airline by Airline charges

• Ryanair: Charges a ‘Payment Handling Fee’ of £5 per person, each way, when you book using a credit or debit card (so a family of four return is £40). Other charges: See a full list.

• Easyjet: A ‘Booking Fee’ of £2.95 is payable on all debit and credit card transactions, plus use a credit card and you get hit with an extra 2.5% (min £4) charge so for £200 of flights that's £7.95. Other charges: See a full list.

• BMI Baby: You’ll pay a ‘Processing Fee’ of £3.75 per person each way (so £7.50 return) when you use a credit card, or £2.75 each way (£5.50 return) on a debit card. Other charges: See a full list.

• Flybe: You’ll pay a booking fee of £1.50 per person each way on a debit card (min £2/booking), and £3.50 per person each way on credit card (min £5.50/booking). Other charges: See a full list.

• Aer Lingus: Charges a handling fee of £5 per person each way. Other charges: See a full list.

• Jet2: Here the booking fee is multi-layered. Every payment type attracts a 3.5% fee (min £4.99). Then anyone paying by debit card is hit with an extra £2.49, and credit card users pay an extra 2.25%. Other charges: See a full list.

Yet if you do jump through the hoops, dirt cheap deals are there to be had. The budget airline Flightchecker lets you find all flights under a certain price (e.g. £10) and the Cheap Flights guide lets you find the cheapest on specific days.

Beat payment fees with a Prepaid card!

There is a glimpse of light here, which can be exposed, for free. These booking charges do NOT apply to ‘Visa Electron’ cards. This is a specific type of debit card, issued less frequently than ‘Visa Debit’ or ‘Maestro’ cards, so fewer people have one. This system may exist to make it easier for airlines to call debit & credit card charges ‘add-ons’.

Yet there is a simple, free way to get an Electron card, which will then enable you to avoid the nasty booking fees. The Travelex Cash Passport* card is an Electron prepaid card where you load cash onto a card to then spend (see full Prepaid Card guide for more info) so use it and you don’t pay the booking fees.

How to get one

It’s intended for overseas spending, yet you can get a UK Pounds version of it, which can be used for purchases in this country.

You can get one a few different ways, though the cost varies depending on how you get it. You have to be over 18 and be able to provide proof of ID.

• Online. Sign up via Travelex’s website*. The direct page is currently broken, so go via this link and choose 'Prepaid Currency Card' from the toggle buttons at the top left. Then pick any card that is in UK Pounds (eg. Bahrain), enter the amount you want to put on it (min £100) and click Buy.
  
  There's no fee for opening the card, no fee for spending, and can load it with cash for free online. There is a minimum top-up required of £100, and it charges £2.50 if you make an ATM withdrawal (though obviously you can spend it use it normally in shops too).

• In Thomas Cook/Co-op Travel branches. These two travel agents also sell the card, with very slightly tweaked conditions. You can still buy one for free (make sure you get the UK Pounds version), and there’s still no fee for spending, and a lower £1.50 ATM withdrawal fee.
  
  Here the minimum top up is a lower £30, yet the negative is you can only do this in stores, and you are charged a 2% commission fee, with a minimum of £3. So if you loaded £50 onto the card, it would cost you £53 (still cheaper than airline's booking fees though).

The online route is cheaper as you don’t pay commission to top the card up. However, you’ll have to wait a few days for the card to reach you, so for an instant card (if you want to book very soon) the travel agent versions are still likely to save you cash, versus booking fees of up to £10 per person.

The money topped up onto the card can be used in any retailer that accepts Electron, which is a lot (though admittedly a few less than standard Visa/Maestro cards), so don’t panic if you don’t spend the full £100 on flights, it’s not money wasted.

Of course as this isn't a credit card, you won't get Section 75 protection on this, but as budget flights tend to be under £100 anyway, it's not a big deal. For full details read the Section 75 guide.

Don’t be inactive!

All incarnations of the Cash Passport have a potential sting in the tail, but it's easily avoided. If it goes unused for twelve months (or fifteen for the Thomas Cook/Co-op versions), and you have a positive balance, you’ll get charged a £2 monthly inactivity fee.

Combat this by either cancelling the card for free before you’re inactive this long, or by paying for something with it every few months.

Will this always work to avoid the fee?

Impossible to say! Currently, for example, Ryanair’s website says that waiving the fee for Electron users is a ‘special offer’ which implies it could be withdrawn at any time.

This would be an interesting development, as if Ryanair did begin to charge Electron customers the £5 per person charge, it would be very hard to see how it could advertise free or £1 flights as it frequently does.

Other Travel MoneySaving

Also see Cheap Flights, Cheap Travel Insurance, Package Holiday Haggling, Cheap Hotels and Travelmoneymax.com.

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You shouldn't notice any difference, the links don't impact the product at all and the editorial line (the things I write) is NEVER impacted by the revenue. If it isn't possible to get an affiliate link for the best product, it is still recommended and still included. The following Travelex is an identical unaffiliated link provided for the sake of transparency. Click the following link for more details on how this site's financed.

[lic]

I have been using a Visa Electron for a few years now on your advice.
It has saved me a fortune, together with the Nationwide no load debit card..

Thank you very much!

[OWT_FOR_NOWT]

I got my visa electron card a few weeks ago from Abbey National it saved me £40 on fees with bmibaby.

[pompeyrich]

Obviously not instant but the Abbey were happy to let me have an Electron card, in addition to my Visa debit card that I already had with their current account. It was dealt with, easily, over the phone and took about 10 days to arrive.

[Edinburghlass]

Alternatively you can sign up to Entropay http://www.entropay.com/

There is a small charge for transferring money into it, 50p per £10 and Ryan Air do change any GBP transactions into Euros so you need to make sure you load enough to cover this.
My last flights for £10 in April went through at £10.87 obviously the amount depends on the rate of exchange at the time.

You need your passport to hand when signing up and when using it with Ryan Air you enter Entropay User as the name then the card and security number you are given as normal.

[poppy10]

Great advice

[superkeen2save]

I recently got a Travel Money Card from The Post Office which was activated the following day. Just a small fee associated with loading it and certainly saved me £30 on Ryanair fees.

here

[MustStopSpending23]

Can someone help me? I want to order one of the cards from Travelex and Martin says to order it in £, but it doesn't give me an option for the UK and £'s, as it's meant to be used overseas. It gives other countries and £'s.....

What do I do!?

[LouPapy]

Same problem here. if I choose ofr instance Israel, it shows me the currency being UK pounds, but can i choose Israel and spend it in the uk?

Thanks

cheerio

[MSE Dan]

Hi folks,

Yep thats right, just choose any UK Pounds version - Israel, Egypt etc etc

Dan

[apcd2]

One way I've avoided the card fees with Ryanair is to purchase Ryanair gift vouchers. You can pay for these with any type of card and there's no fee. They can then immediately be used to pay for a flight. The only downside is that they come in £25 increments and there's no change given but if your flights are close to one of these multiples it's definitely a lot cheaper than paying the extortionate card fees.

[kevanp]

The other thing about buying from the Travelex website (apart from having to choose any country that shows the currency denominated in ££) is that you apparently have to collect it from a Travelex shop. I can find nowhere on the site about the possibility of them sending the card in the post. Has anyone discovered how to get it sent?

[apt]

It would be much easier to get a Halifax easycash account instead. You can apply online, its free, you do not need to fund it until you want to buy flights and Halifax will post the VISA electron card to you.

[jhnalford]

Interestigly Spanish banks automatically issue Electron cards to current account holders and as I have a current account in Spain ..........

[mystic_trev]

I got a Halifax Easycash account a couple of years ago. One of the advantages is, if you haven't received a confirmation from the Airline, you can check to see if the amount has been debited immediately. Easycash is a basic bank account, not a current account.

[Shellie Squirrel]

I've just applied for a Halifax Easycash account too. I was looking to go the route that Martin suggested but couldn't find a Travelex branch near to me and didn't want to load the card with £500 to have the card delivered. The Halifax card is free, it doesn't cost anything to transfer money to it and it gets delivered to me! So it's a much easier option that the Travelex one!

[Shellie Squirrel]

Forgot to say....that with the Halifax Easycash account there isn't any minimum amount you need to transfer to it. Just leave £1 or so to keep it open until you need to transfer to it to pay for a flight etc. Also you don't need to use it every 12 months or you pay a £2 fee like the Travelex card. So all told, it's a much better, easier option. I rang to request an application pack and they did say there was a few weeks wait for cards at the mo.

[geoff_soper]

Good thing about the Entropay card is that it's a virtual card, so you can apply online, stick £10 on it and buy your £10 flight all within 5 minutes without leaving your desk.

The £10 transfer costs just 49p (4.9%) & you've avoided being blatantly mugging by Ryanair & £9.51 of Ryanair charges

If you only need it occasionally & only to pay for cheap flights, I'd suggest Entropay may be the better option. The £100 minimum transfer of Travelex means it will probably cost you several pounds a year in lost interest.

[geoff_soper]

If there's a lawyer out there, can I ask. Might it be illegal for Ryanair to charge a 4 person family, 8 times for 'handling' one single card payment?

When you go to a restaurant you'd be outraged if they tried to charge you 20 handling fees on the one card payment because there were 20 items in the bill. You'd rather hope that would be illegal (regardless of smallprint)?

It's hard for competing airlines to advertise good prices when Ryanair can advertise £5 flights knowing most customers will end up paying £10, Aer Lingus has already copied them, others will no doubt have to follow.

If it's not already against the law now, it seems we'll need legislation to plug this loophole before this insanity spreads to other areas.... When you buy a day return from train & coach companies will you be forced to check if they will add two card handling charges? When I buy a set of tyres, might there be 4 card handling charges smuggled onto the bill?

[geoff_soper]

I believe you can get Entropay in either Sterling, Euros or Dollars flavours, so I suspect 'Edingburghlas' may have ticked the Euro option by mistake. There's certainly no euro recalculation when I pay with mine.

(Having a Euro card was particularly useful when exchange rates were higher & £10 flights were available for 10euros if you could pay in euro)