FlyBE Rip-off

IvanOpinion

It appears that FlyBE (and possibly other airlines) have very cynically found a new way to rip-off their customers. I was meant to be flying to good old London today but the meeting got cancelled by the client earlier in the week. I was on a non-refundable ticket for £152 + taxes and charges of £36.10 (not exactly budget price but hey ... I wasn't paying the bill).

Therefore when I cancelled the ticket (yesterday) I expected that the company would have to pick up the tab but we could at least claim back the taxes. However on attempting to do this we found out that there was an administration fee of £15 per sector (it is mentioned in the small print ... although it took a while to find).

I just believe that this charge is a very cycnical ploy by FlyBE to keep all monies and not have to refund the taxes as they are legally obliged to. I find it very coincidental that their administration fee exactly matches the taxes that are to be refunded. Given the fact that they will be getting £152 for a flight that is never full you would think that they would waive this additional insult to its customers. Having a friend who works in airlines, I know that it only takes their clerks a few seconds to remove someone from a flight - so where does £30 (£15 per sector) come from?

Maybe FlyBE has to be classified the same as EasyJet - pay a cheap and nasty price, get a cheap and nasty service from a cheap and nasty airline. I guess that should the situation arise again I will simply be a 'no-show' - why should I waste my time (and money) cancelling flights if we do not get any refund.

Come back BA all is forgiven .. at least you get a professional service from professional staff.

Ivan

Becles

BA have an admin fee payable on cancellation which equals the taxes too.

I tried to claim the taxes back when I was unable to travel, but didn't get any money back, due to the high admin fee

peterbaker

Becles wrote:

BA have an admin fee payable on cancellation which equals the taxes too.(

...and RYANAIR I think - they may have even started the practice. I have a pet theory that there are huge pickings for RYANAIR in particular in what they charge as taxes and airport fees. A very wiley old insurance broker (who also hold loadsamoney in trust for someone else) once upon a time more or less admitted to me that he always enjoyed his once annual tidy up of "write offs" - I have forgotten the exact word he used and I think it is outlawed more effectively now in insurance. But what he meant was premiums which resulted from additional charge mid-year adjustments or cancellations which had caused uncertain accounting resulting in unclaimed windfall amounts sitting in the middleman's account! In insurance, the codes of practice now demand that more effort is expended in returning the money to whom it belongs but in practice I don't think it has made a huge difference:-) I am racking my brain for the account head they use.

RYANAIR actually have officially used the term "Spoilage Fee". Hows that for creative accounting? :-)

jimbos_3

Ryanair website says there is a £20 charge for changing a flight - for an unwanted flight a handy way to have a 'credit' you might think. I had a euro250 flight but when switching online this was broken down and included an approx euro170 'spoilage fee'. What this means is that you have in fact very little credit. I switched to a flight that had a basic cost of euro20 but ended up with a total cost of euro270 - so I had to pay eruo20 more!

Backbiter

Ivan - expect the usual responses about reading the T & Cs, buying a refundable ticket, all your fault, don't slag off budget airlines etc etc

redux

Backbiter wrote: »

Ivan - expect the usual responses about reading the T & Cs, buying a refundable ticket, all your fault, don't slag off budget airlines etc etc

perhaps not, as he posted this 30 months ago

Noz

redux wrote: »

perhaps not, as he posted this 30 months ago

Hehe, that's very funny

andyp123

Compared to Easyjet's £3.50 rip-off transaction charge, FlyBe is a rape at £9.00!

geordieracer

andyp123 wrote: »

Compared to Easyjet's £3.50 rip-off transaction charge, FlyBe is a rape at £9.00!

Thanks for that 3years later

geordieracer

andyp123 wrote: »

Compared to Easyjet's £3.50 rip-off transaction charge, FlyBe is a rape at £9.00!

Thanks for tnat 3 years later

angry_monkey

Just tried to pay for my flight after being told that all of their fares were "plainly" "fairly" explained... and I am lumped with an 8% fee on card payments! ...unless I have a visa electron card of course. Who owns one of these nowdays??
I'd love yo know if there is a law preventing vendors from making card payments mandatory under these circumstances?!

Oh, and make sure you ignore their friendly offer of advance seat selection (or be really carful to read the small print) because they WILL quietly sneak in £6 per seat selected in advance. It is not clear at all how to avoid this, but you CAN by just saying "continue". They will then warn you that you may be split up if you are travelling with another passenger. boo-hoo!

Finally, be aware that you CAN carry handluggage of up to 10kg on board but they don't make that clear either (I needed to read the Ts&Cs for that just to be sure), so you may think that you need to tick at least the 15kg option on luggage so you can actually bring along more than the clothes you wear....

Very disappointed!