MSE News: Airline price transparency to be investigated

Former_MSE_Helen

This is the discussion thread for the following MSE News Story:

"Rules on how airlines display prices are being investigated by the European Commission ..."

Read the full story:
Airline price transparency to be investigated

richardw

"However, some airlines stretch the rules to the max by charging consumers to pay by plastic unless they have an extremely rare type of card."

But they aren't 'extremely rare', they are just 'not as common as" other cards. They should just pass on the 'actual cost' of card charges, so the headline price should include the 'actual cost' of the most expensive card they accept.

callum9999

I know it's not really in the spirit of consumer good - but I'm personally glad they do this. Because many people are either too thick or too lazy to do a simple google search and avoid the card fees, the huge revenue airlines get from it means it's cheaper for me to fly.

The two major budget airlines (Ryanair/Easyjet) require a Prepaid Mastercard/Visa Electron. Although not exactly common, these cards are incredibly simple to get so anyone paying these exorbitant fees only have themselves to blame.

malkie76

The thing is, you get to see the bottomline price BEFORE you click purchase, so I fail to see the issue.

dobby99

Ryanair say that card charges are "avoidable" & so dont have to include them in the costs advertised as they dont charge for PrePaid MasterCards. However, I tried to pay with a PrePaid FairFx MasterCard recently (as per advice given on this site) & Ryanairs booking system would only accept it if I said the card was a Standard MasterCard - & they duly charged me £36!

antenna

I paid with a FairFx pre-paid mastercard yesterday and last week, and payments went through straightaway........what are you doing wrong?

Consumerist

Rules on how airlines display prices are being investigated by the European Commission (EC).

Will I live long enough to see any change?

dobsoncrew

Day light robbery

Consumerist

malkie76 wrote: »

The thing is, you get to see the bottomline price BEFORE you click purchase, so I fail to see the issue.

I think the thing is that you need to complete several pages of a booking form before you get to the bottom line and this makes comparisons very time consuming so that making comparisons is positively discouraged.

callum9999

dobby99 wrote: »

Ryanair say that card charges are "avoidable" & so dont have to include them in the costs advertised as they dont charge for PrePaid MasterCards. However, I tried to pay with a PrePaid FairFx MasterCard recently (as per advice given on this site) & Ryanairs booking system would only accept it if I said the card was a Standard MasterCard - & they duly charged me £36!

I paid with a FairFX Mastercard 2 days ago and it worked fine - it's clearly a quirk and not something they are doing deliberately. If anything, I'd imagine it's a problem on FairFX's end for not properly registering the card type in whatever database is used. (That's only a guess considering mine works perfectly though - I have no idea how the backend works).

Consumerist wrote: »

I think the thing is that you need to complete several pages of a booking form before you get to the bottom line and this makes comparisons very time consuming so that making comparisons is positively discouraged.

No you don't. You can pay the price you see on the very first page - only extras like paying with the wrong card, baggage, priority boarding etc. are added later on. On Ryanair these are all added on the 2nd (maybe 3rd) page - hardly torturous.

Consumerist

callum9999 wrote: »

I paid with a FairFX Mastercard 2 days ago and it worked fine - it's clearly a quirk and not something they are doing deliberately.

:rotfl:

Forgive me for suspecting that you work for the airline industry.