Flights - cheaper now or closer to travel date generally?

Obviously_the_best

Do you have dates, where are you flying from?

These are question I seem to ask a lot, yet they're very useful details on a thread like this and most people don't add them

antenna

From just a quick check....Ryanair Stanstead 17th/24th to Dublin
out £37.99 back £37.99.This is the "all in" price.
Aer Lingus southend....out £42.99 back £33.99
Ryanair are a pound cheaper!

tamiami

All flights for the school holidays will start creeping up daily now, until either sold out or very expensive.

ClassicMad

antenna wrote: »

From just a quick check....Ryanair Stanstead 17th/24th to Dublin
out £37.99 back £37.99.This is the "all in" price.
Aer Lingus southend....out £42.99 back £33.99
Ryanair are a pound cheaper!

Thanks, will be going for the "check in baggage" option with Aer Lingus with a £60 seat as 7kg hand luggage won't be enough... and I think if you then compare it with Ryanair equivalent, AerLingus comes out on top.

jpsartre

Who cares who comes out on top. If you don't want to fly Ryanair for whatever reason you don't have to justify yourself. Saying that you've defeated the purpose of this site by doing so is ridiculous.

ClassicMad

OK, now I'm annoyed.... when looking previously at prices etc, I looked at the lower price quoted because I've got a debit card and I assumed I could pay £495 instead of the £555 quoted for credit cards (£60 admin fee?).... went to pay last night, and guess what? Aer Lingus doesn't take Visa Debit cards? How can that be..... a quick survey of my office this morning and everybodys debit cards seem to be visa debit. Deliberate attempt to make you pay with a credit card and cream off extra money on top? I am new to this and I know I'll get shot down in flames with "this has been discussed before see this post you lazy cow" but had to get it off my chest... complained to Aer Lingus via Facebook and "my comments will be passed on to the relevant department", yeah right!

Hobsons_Choice

I'm certainly not going to shoot you down in flames because I would have assumed the same. Visa Debit is the most popular debit card on the market I would think and I'm amazed they don't accept it!

SaveTheEuro

ClassicMad wrote: »

Aer Lingus doesn't take Visa Debit cards? How can that be..... a quick survey of my office this morning and everybodys debit cards seem to be visa debit. Deliberate attempt to make you pay with a credit card and cream off extra money on top?

You've hit on something interesting. Aer Lingus gave an undertaking to the Office of Fair Trading not to charge a fee for passengers using a debit card, but is now refusing to accept payment by Visa, the overwhelmingly popular form of debit card. By contrast, the Maestro debit card is very difficult to get hold of in the UK. Does anyone know of a bank still issuing them?

In reality, most of their customers will end up paying the credit card surcharge.

SaveTheEuro

Just did a dummy booking on Aer Lingus and it removed the £12 fee when I selected Visa Electron. Eh?

And this is what they list as payment methods on their website:

Payment Methods
A Credit or Debit card is required to make a booking through the Aer Lingus website. Your card will be charged when you click the "Purchase" button on the "Purchase Your Flight" page. At that time, your billing address is verified and your tickets are issued. You also have a delivery address option whereby tickets may be sent to an addresss other than the card holder's address.
The following forms of payment are accepted by Aer Lingus:
Credit Cards: Visa/Mastercard/American Express/Diners Club.
Debit Cards: Ireland - Laser, UK - Switch (Maestro/Delta/Solo), Germany - ELV.
Cheques: Company or personal, cheque card must be provided.
Aer Lingus Vouchers: Payment can be made online with a credit/debit card and the value of the purchase can be redeemed by sending the voucher in to Aer Lingus Ticketing Administration (Ground Floor, HOB, Aer Lingus, Dublin Airport).
aerlingus.com: Credit Card, Debit Cards.
Reservations Ireland/UK: Credit Card/Debit Card/Aerlingus Vouchers.
Groups Ireland/UK: Credit Card/Debit Cards.
Reservations & Groups USA: American Express, Visa and Mastercard.
Reservations & Groups Europe: Contact local reservations office.
Corporate Portal: Credit Card/Debit Cards.
Ticket Desks: Credit Card/Cheque/Cash/Aer Lingus vouchers/Debit cards - (Ireland only).

ClassicMad

SaveTheEuro wrote: »

Just did a dummy booking on Aer Lingus and it removed the £12 fee when I selected Visa Electron. Eh?

And this is what they list as payment methods on their website:

Payment Methods
A Credit or Debit card is required to make a booking through the Aer Lingus website. Your card will be charged when you click the "Purchase" button on the "Purchase Your Flight" page. At that time, your billing address is verified and your tickets are issued. You also have a delivery address option whereby tickets may be sent to an addresss other than the card holder's address.
The following forms of payment are accepted by Aer Lingus:
Credit Cards: Visa/Mastercard/American Express/Diners Club.
Debit Cards: Ireland - Laser, UK - Switch (Maestro/Delta/Solo), Germany - ELV.
Cheques: Company or personal, cheque card must be provided.
Aer Lingus Vouchers: Payment can be made online with a credit/debit card and the value of the purchase can be redeemed by sending the voucher in to Aer Lingus Ticketing Administration (Ground Floor, HOB, Aer Lingus, Dublin Airport).
aerlingus.com: Credit Card, Debit Cards.
Reservations Ireland/UK: Credit Card/Debit Card/Aerlingus Vouchers.
Groups Ireland/UK: Credit Card/Debit Cards.
Reservations & Groups USA: American Express, Visa and Mastercard.
Reservations & Groups Europe: Contact local reservations office.
Corporate Portal: Credit Card/Debit Cards.
Ticket Desks: Credit Card/Cheque/Cash/Aer Lingus vouchers/Debit cards - (Ireland only).

Am I missing the point to your post? My card isn't a Visa Electron, it's a visa debit and the payment definitely didn't go through when I selected it... believe me, I selected all of the Visa variables, and tried my luck with maestro/solo/switch option too.... I called my bank and they confirmed that they hadn't received any payment transactions through, so it wasn't that my card had been "stopped" for fraud reasons...