Are all flight fees legal?

ChristopheG

Just read Martin's article about debit card booking fees. Like all people who travel a lot on free flights I get constantly amazed at how budget airlines get away with advertising low headline rates but disguising the true price of their flights. How can Ryan Air legally justify increasing it's debit card fee to £4+ when the cost they incur from the card sceme is a per transaction fee of around 30p? Surely it's another example of hiding the true flight price as no one can reasonable avoid paying it?
This is just one example... it's clearly underhand but does anyone know if this is legal? What are the legalities from both an Advertising and from an industry regulation point of view?

lic

I do not think it is illegal. They clearly state at every stage what the cost will be, it could be luggage, priority boarding, or card fees etc.
It is up to the customer if he/she wishes to apy these fees. It always amazes me how much luggage people take with them on holiday, talk about the kitchen sink!
The only problem I see with Ryanair at the moment is apparantly theyare charging more to use a cc that the advertised price, ie £4.00 instead of the advertised £1.20 per seat.
A lot of companies charge the customer if he pays by card, ever paid for theatre tickets on your card?
We all know that dirrferent carriers have different ways of charging us. It is up to us to decide who we fly with and what we are prepared to pay.

PandaPants_2

I detest Ryanair, if they weren't over £100 cheaper than Easy i wouldn't have gone near them. They charged me £16 for paying with my debit card for a £42 flight!!! :eek:

Crabman

The term is 'unlawful' rather than 'illegal'

It's possible to beat the card charges by getting hold of a Visa Electron card (e.g. Halifax Easycash current account). Full details of Ryanair's extra charges in the special Ryanair Flights Article.

PandaPants_2

I don't think there's a law against it, i would say it's just slightly immoral....

ChristopheG

Hi Lic - buying theatre/concert etc tickets is another one I have an issue with... there is no way of avoiding paying the fee if you want to buy them - Surely therefore it should be included in the advertised price? I know for a fact that the cost on debit cards is only a matter of pence and not a % of transction as per credit cards...and is also per transaction rather than per ticket...so this is clearly a way of enabling them to promote a lower price than the reality. In this instance Ryan Air have clearly allowed themselves a loophole with Electron cards but this is not always the case - i'm sure this can't be legal!

curtlyb

PandaPants wrote: »

I detest Ryanair, if they weren't over £100 cheaper than Easy i wouldn't have gone near them. They charged me £16 for paying with my debit card for a £42 flight!!! :eek:

But you'd have been ecstatic if the flights were £58 with no fees & still £84 cheaper than easyjet :doh: unbelievable !

People really need to get over this, do you realise that when you fly Ryanair that part of your fare actually contributes to the pension scheme of a stewardess, shock horror, that's got to be wrong, they never tell us that, someone complain to the EU about withholding information

_Andy_

<sarc>How dare Ryanair want to make a profit. Shame on them. You'd think they were a business or something.</sarc>

steveandel

curtlyb wrote: »

But you'd have been ecstatic if the flights were £58 with no fees & still £84 cheaper than easyjet :doh: unbelievable !

People really need to get over this, do you realise that when you fly Ryanair that part of your fare actually contributes to the pension scheme of a stewardess, shock horror, that's got to be wrong, they never tell us that, someone complain to the EU about withholding information

Exactly. I've never understood people's problem with the Ryanair charges. If you just accept that the flights aren't actually free and that after you've added taxes charges etc view the final price as the price of the flight you realise that on the whole they are still ridiculously cheap. It's quite easy to avoid most of the fees if you want to (using Electron card, hand luggage only etc) so stop moaning about a £4 charge which means, shock horror, that yes you will actually have to pay some money to fly.

Incapuppy

steveandel wrote: »

which means, shock horror, that yes you will actually have to pay some money to fly.

That is absolutely outrageous - what a rip-off, a con, a scam - I demand that something is done about this immediately :rolleyes: :rotfl:

PandaPants_2

curtlyb wrote: »

But you'd have been ecstatic if the flights were £58 with no fees & still £84 cheaper than easyjet :doh: unbelievable !

People really need to get over this, do you realise that when you fly Ryanair that part of your fare actually contributes to the pension scheme of a stewardess, shock horror, that's got to be wrong, they never tell us that, someone complain to the EU about withholding information

Ryanair crew are mainy employed through an agency, so they don't get pensions, some are employed by Ryanair themselves. They also pay for their own training (around £1500), uniforms, acommodation during training and don't get paid for the training period. They also don't get crew food or water during their flights, like every other airline do.

I just think they could be more upfront about the true cost of the flights, i don't mind paying for the flight but it feels underhand to charge half the cost of the flight for payment charges.