Easyjet ends fee-free bookings as it now charges for Visa Electron

The_Groat_Counter

Anyone have any idea what the rationale is for easyJet calling it an "administration fee", as opposed to a "booking fee"?

The old £8 charge for bookings made with non-Electron cards was called a "booking fee".

2010

The_Groat_Counter wrote: »

Anyone have any idea what the rationale is for easyJet calling it an "administration fee", as opposed to a "booking fee"?

The old £8 charge for bookings made with non-Electron cards was called a "booking fee".

They can call it anything, it`s just a way of getting more dough out of you.

They could even call it a day of the week fee.
For instance because it`s Saturday you have to pay a Saturday fee.

Oooooooooops better not give them anymore ideas. :rotfl:

2010

MaccaHallam wrote: »

There are no card charges anymore apart from 2.5% on credit card transactions.
The £9 admin fee replaces the card charges.

Just did a dummy run on EJ site, return trip for one and it comes to including the £9 admin fee, either £71-98 by debit or £76-93 by credit.

So everyone pays the £9 then there is a credit card fee on top of this which isn`t 2.5%.

dzug1

2010 wrote: »

Just did a dummy run on EJ site, return trip for one and it comes to including the £9 admin fee, either £71-98 by debit or £76-93 by credit.

So everyone pays the £9 then there is a credit card fee on top of this which isn`t 2.5%.

I think it's 2.5% with a minimum of £4.95, which would agree with your dummy run

SaveTheEuro

2010 wrote: »

Just did a dummy run on EJ site, return trip for one and it comes to including the £9 admin fee, either £71-98 by debit or £76-93 by credit.

So everyone pays the £9 then there is a credit card fee on top of this which isn`t 2.5%.

The credit card fee is 2.5% but with a minimum charge of £4.95.

SaveTheEuro

Moonchild wrote: »

Should have just increased the cost of their flights by £4.50 pence and waived debit card charges.

Debit card charges have been waived.

The new admin fee is per booking regardless of the number of passengers or flights booked.

If the booking is for 9 people the extra cost is £1 each.

However, if the booking is a single £30 ticket you still pay £9. In this example it's a whopping 30% extra on the price of the flight.

NFH

This £9 per-booking fee is fairer than the per-segment fees that have been added by budget airlines so far. It's similar in some ways to a per-order delivery charge when buying multiple products from a web site; a single delivery charge reflects the trader's costs and has the effect of encouraging the consumer to group multiple purchases into one order. However, unlike a delivery charge when ordering goods, this new admin fee does not appear to reflect Easyjet's costs. Nevertheless, I believe that a per-booking admin fee and a per-order delivery charge would be looked upon in a smilar way from a legal point of view, in that it's reasonable to exclude them from headline prices, as long as they are made clear from the outset.

mad_rich

Of course it's not for me to tell easyJet what's fair - they make their commercial decisions and I'm sure they're happy with that

NFH wrote: »

This £9 per-booking fee is fairer than the per-segment fees that have been added by budget airlines so far.

If I knew what the average number of passengers (and sectors) per booking was, I could come up with a revenue-neutral change that would be fairer.

But lets assume most bookings are returns, and some are singles; occasionally people will book several trips at once. I'm going to pluck a (probably incorrect) figure out of the air and say the average number of sectors per booking is 1.8.

And I'm going to assume that the number of passengers varies. Lots of single travellers, lots of couples, slightly fewer triples, quite a few families of 4 and 5, a few big groups. Let's pluck another number out of thin air and say 2.7 passengers per booking.

So how about £1.50 per one way flight plus £2 per booking?

Your 'average' booking (based on my back-of-the-envelope calculations) would bring in £9.29 - pretty close to the current £9.

One passenger, one-way £3.50
Couple, return - £8
Family of four, return - £14
Group of 10, one-way - £17

Better still, stick that £1.50 on the chuffing ticket prices. Then you only have a £2 booking fee.

The_Groat_Counter

2010 wrote: »

They can call it anything, it`s just a way of getting more dough out of you.

They could even call it a day of the week fee.
For instance because it`s Saturday you have to pay a Saturday fee.

Oooooooooops better not give them anymore ideas. :rotfl:

I was just wondering if they were perhaps trying to sidestep a regulation or OFT/CAA recommendation or something like that by calling it an 'admin fee' as opposed to a 'booking fee'.

It'd be preferable if they didn't have one at all, and just charged a bit more for their flights - proper 'what you see is what you'll pay' pricing, full stop.

jamesbrownontheroad

Just found this thread, and have been through a similar sequence of thoughts and emotions as described by others.

While a flat "admin" fee is clearly fairer than different fees for different debit cards, what is deceptive is that despite this new universal fee, Easyjet.com still displays on the homepage fares that don't include it. In my case (personalised for flights from Glasgow) it's advertising fares to Belfast of £23.49, Bristol of £23.49 and Geneva of £23.49. These are the basic fares - they should not be advertising fares that don't include the non unavoidable admin fee!

Like some others in this thread, I've now found that FlyBe have suddenly trumped Easyjet as cheapest on my regular commute. My regular Glasgow / Belfast run starts at £18.99 one way with an Electron card. Overnight the cheapest fare has been hoiked almost 50%!