Fuel surcharges

bclark

I have just been contacted by my Travel Agent regarding fuel surcharges that Cathay Pacific have added to the cost of my flights to Australia this Christmas. They are asking for £150 each extra on top of £800 flights :mad: .

I had paid in full for the flights already but I am assuming that they are well within their rights to do this?

As an aside I have another holiday coming up next year for which I have paid a deposit, is this likely to happen again then?

M4RKM

if you had booked directly with cathay, then you probably wouldn't have got this charge... what i think has happened, is you've "booked" the flights with the travel agent.. who, now, upon actually "booking" the flights, has noticed a huge increase, and needs you to pay more...

hmm.. maybe.. just a theory...

Moonchild

The above won't have happened because if the TA had tried to book Cathay flights over Xmas now, they would be struggling.

But i'll hazard a guess.

You opted to pay a deposit when you booked. The TA booked the flights, and now it has come to issue the tickets (roughly 30 days prior to departure) the taxes currently applicable are the ones that have to be paid. I suspect (at £150 extra) you booked quite a long time ago?

If you had paid in full at time of booking, and requested the tickets were issued (or booked through Cathay's site and paid in full at the time) then no more additional taxes were due. But I suspected the idea of just paying a deposit was quite appealing at the time?

Just a guess though.

bclark

Moonchild wrote: »

The above won't have happened because if the TA had tried to book Cathay flights over Xmas now, they would be struggling.

But i'll hazard a guess.

You opted to pay a deposit when you booked. The TA booked the flights, and now it has come to issue the tickets (roughly 30 days prior to departure) the taxes currently applicable are the ones that have to be paid. I suspect (at £150 extra) you booked quite a long time ago?

If you had paid in full at time of booking, and requested the tickets were issued (or booked through Cathay's site and paid in full at the time) then no more additional taxes were due. But I suspected the idea of just paying a deposit was quite appealing at the time?

Just a guess though.

I paid in full at the time, back in March.

Moonchild

bclark wrote: »

I paid in full at the time, back in March.

Then what they should have done, and did do is two separate things.

They should have issued the tickets there and then, I wonder why they didn't? In fact, I can tell you why, to keep hold of your money and maintain interest and cashflow. Cathay are only paid once the tickets are issued.

I'd hold them responsible then. Care to name & shame?

Additional Fuel Surcharges would not have had to have been paid if they had been issued. Airlines should not reterospectively add them to issued tickets, and I know that Cathay didn't.

bclark

It was a company called Holidaymood. At the time I booked they just said that tickets will be sent out nearer the time and I thought no more about it. Obviously I should have insisted that they issue my tickets bit foolishly thought that having paid in full then that was that.

It appears that Cathay Pacific introduced their fuel surcharge back on October 1st. I booked my tickets at the start of March.

Jodun

I agree with Moonchild. If you paid in full before the fuel surcharge was introduced then you shouldn't have to pay any extra now as the tickets/e-tickets should have been issued at the time of payment.

Moonchild

Jodun wrote: »

I agree with Moonchild. If you paid in full before the fuel surcharge was introduced then you shouldn't have to pay any extra now as the tickets/e-tickets should have been issued at the time of payment.

However, I fear that Travelmood's Terms & Conditions will cover this. Actually, I already know they do.

Wouldn't stop me raising hell though.

bclark

Apologies to Travelmood, the company that I booked with was actually Holidaymood.

Their T&C's state "Taxes and fuel surcharges do fluctuate in line with exchange rates and will be recalculated on the day final balance payments are collected. You will be advised if additional monies are due" We paid our balance in full on 22nd Feb.

It also states "No surcharge will ever be levied for air tickets after we have received full payment in cleared funds and tickets have been issued" This second one is most annoying as we paid in full many months ago but they didn't issue our tickets. This annoys me as I probably should have insisted on it but I didn't see any issue with the tickets not coming until a bit later as we had paid in full, it was their choice not to send them.

Jodun

I used to work in travel and we were always made aware in advance (sometimes not much in advance!) if an airline was going to increase any of it's charges. Then we could check our bookings and get any potentially affected tickets issued to avoid the increased cost. I'm not sure if this was just because I worked for a large international travel company or if it's common practice. However I'd be surprised if such a large increase would be put in place by CX without any prior warning.