Airline Charges Rip Off Discussion

asm1

I'm no fan of "major airlines" but pay peanuts and you will get monkeys.
If you happen to live near an airport that is served by a low cost carrier then you have good reason to use them, otherwise is it really worth a £10 saving to have to get up the "cheap" [ridiculous] time

I think MSE have fallen into the trap too, the newsletter details "cheap" flights. I'll fly easyjet if it is the most convenient and cheapest but on the whole the "saving" with these airlines just isn't worth it.

Sooler

barafear799 wrote: »

thanks for the reply about cheap prague flights - altho it's an awfully long stay in Prague to take advantage of £1 each way!!!! But thanks anyway.......

Seems like there's one promotional £1 flight available each Wednesday.

MrSmartprice

jcreedy wrote: »

Exactly. There is no such thing as a £1 or 1p flight, because you can't get around paying airport taxes and charges each way. Baggage and non-online check-ins are obviously optional and will bump costs up, but you won't get the actual flights for much less than £30/£40. That is what !!!!es me off.

This shows that you simply have not done your research. I have flown for 1p. OH and I went to Dublin and back for £0.04 which was the actual amount taken from my Electron card. We have also had £1 and 1 euro flights. We flew East Midlands-Madrid, Madrid-Santander and Biarritz-Birmingham over a week for a cost of £5. A fortnight ago we flew to Prague and back for a total of £16. I have plenty of other examples too.

So how do you justify your claim that there is 'no such thing'?

phatbear

So far I have been to:

Rome, twice (1st time was 1p each)
Valencia, twice (1st time was 1p each)
Berlin
Malmo
Lubeck
Barcelona

And have Gothenburg booked for Nov to take my niece and nephew back to Sweden.

And so far I have never paid more than £1, thats £1 in total for any nay sayers, for each leg of the above flights, because

I dont need a bag
I dont check in at a desk
I pay by Electrom
I read the T&C's
Hell I even get free parking at the airport

So i cant complain about Ryanair at all, sure their staff are surly and their airports may be a bit out of the way but what the hell for the money I have spent I'm as happy as a pig in poop.

Tarebare

I have to admit to being completely shocked at the number of people jumping to Ryanair's defence in this thread. I don't think anyone is denying the fact that you can still jump through the hoops and get cheap flights through them. In fact, I just returned from a trip from Belfast to London with Ryanair flights, taking hand luggage, using entropay to avoid charges, checking online, etc and have no question that you can travel very cheaply. Surely, however, the point is that if, for whatever reason, you cannot jump through these hoops, the charges are completely excessive and have no bearing on the reality that the service costs Ryanair. Many fans of MSE have backed Martin's campaign to ensure that the charges banks pass onto us are fair and reflect the actual cost to them - why should this not be the case for the budget airlines?

I frequently fly home to Scotland with Easyjet and have no problem with their charging system - they have reasonably priced flights (admittedly not as cheap as the Ryanair promotional flights) and you can cut costs by avoiding card and baggage charges if you are able to but if you can't, the additional charges appear reasonable enough. Ryanair, on the other hand, seem to get away with charging however much they want for whatever they want and I can't believe there hasn't been more of a backlash. Michael O'Leery seems to gleefully announce another charge for their “service” almost every week!

It’s not even really the charges for check-in or bags that really stick in my throat because whilst they do seem to be excessive, at least it's your choice to pay them or not. It’s the penalty charges you get hit with if you don’t do things quite right and whilst I won’t deny that the small print explains all of this, it all feels very much likes they’re trying to trip you up. If you've checked in online but haven’t actually printed the boarding card, you can’t print it off from 4 hours before your flight and you get hit with a £40 penalty charge - I know that I've printed my Easyjet boarding card at the last minute in the past and could have easily been caught out by Ryanair on that one – I’d just expect to be able to print out my boarding card up to the point where check-in for the flight opens.

And let’s not forget that, as seen at Stansted over the weekend, even when you do pay all of the charges and choose to take a bag (because, to be honest, there are trips when hand luggage only just isn't going to work) you can't even be sure there will be enough Ryanair staff at the airport to let you check in or use the bagdrop, even if you arrive before your flight opens!!

gropinginthedark

OK miles of postings from both sides of the debate - my stance is slightly different.
The "bargain" airfares are symptomatic of a wider malaise. We used to value customer care, we will now use the cheapest we can find for any service then complain when our support call is on premium rate to an overseas call centre who can only answer from their script.

The cost of providing a flight to anywhere is substantially more than £1 - fuel, ROI, aircrew etc. If there were 200 passengers flying to wherever all paying £1 the carrier would be losing money hand over fist so we know the aim must be to charge more, therfore the £1 headline price is misleading. Were the advertiser acting with integrity then the advertised price would bear some relation to what, on average, people will end up paying.

We know the debit/credit-card charges to the retailer are far lower than £10 commission on a £1 sale so there is no question that they are intending to make money from this.

Yes you can avoid the charge but what does that policy tell you about the retailer? That he's out to fleece you. Similar considerations apply to many of the add-on fees and that's the issue. I don't want to do business with someone who has a clear imperative and intention to find some way "all perfectly above board, it's there in the small print..." of charging me orders of magnitude more than the headline price.

If a retailer or service provider gives me bad service I tell everyone and do my best to avoid them in future. The most common reports I've had from people who have used cheap flights is "of course you end up paying more than the £1". We've all read the stories of rude and unhelpful staff. I have only used a cheap airline once, reportedly not one of the worst offenders, but the attitude of "open the gate and marvel at the undignified scamble so husband and wife can get adjacent seats" is symptomatic of a contempt for customers, not very different from restaurant staff spitting on the food of anyone who complains. I don't have such a low opinion of myself that I'm willing to save what ends up being a small price differential in order to be treated like a battery chicken. Maybe you do, best of luck but I'm voting with my credit card for companies that still regard me as a human.

Dick_here

Chester85 wrote: »

Visa Delta is a UK brand credit card, infact banks don't even issue it now. It should be Visa Debit and TUIFly do accept Visa Debit cards as I use mine

Don't know why TUIFly charged you £10, I travel regularly with them (from the days of them being HLX Express) and the add on over the past few years has only been £4 on any route.

Think you've been done there

Sorry, it is Visa Debit. I was told that they don't accept them, and was charged an extra 10 Euros to be precise for being forced to pay by credit card.

And it's German Wings not TUIFly. It was TUIFly who caused all of this though by bringing forward our flight by over 5 hours, causing us to have to also bring forward our German Wings flight, hence the charge.

Sorry for confusion caused.

ACID

agree with many of the £1 fares..there are loopholes so exploit them
dotn pay silly money..they are waitign for people to make mistakes therefore the charge is quite high..boarding passes..you are stupid to fly if you lose that lol

the other loophole that shoudl be found is the cheapest way from the airport ryainair land you in to the city centre..

h07932797995

Although I agree the extra charges are excessive it really is easy to fly for £1 each way...

we have a house in Chinon near Tours in France and Ryan air is the only airline to fly there...

I have just booked flight for myself, my wife, and six of our friends for £1 each way per person...

we will only carry a 10kg hand bag each and will print our boarding passes off the day before we fly...

I went onto the Halifax website and opened an 'easy cash' account which took 7days to open, have my card, and credit the account with £20 which then let me book using ryanair flights with no booking fee...

and that's all we will pay, getting to the airport this end and to our house the other end and back will cost us about £50 each so to say that ryanair have given us (and yes I practically mean GAVE us) flights that are fifty times cheaper than my land travel is pretty impressive.

Ali_UK

Sneaker wrote: »

Thanks, so I go to PO, as k for one and then ask them to put credit on it? Hopefully be able to use it to book tomorrow?

Indeed, but firstly ensure the post office you visit has the foreign exchange facility (and even call to make sure they have some cards). You will also need a photo driving licence or passport as proof of id. Best to read the info on the post office website. You WILL pay a small commission to load the card with GBP but I think for mine it was £3 on £100 so still saved me £17 in fees so far! EDIT to say I can't remember what the minimum amount is you can load on to it but I've used the balance on other things!

Otherwise the entropay that another poster suggested might be a good idea if you can't get to the post office but having not used that myself not quite sure how that works!