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

GLASGOWCHILL · 12 January 2012 at 10:24AM

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"Easyjet passengers will no longer be able to beat booking fees with a Visa Electron card..."

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

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This morning when i went on to the Easyjet website i noticed they now have a £9 admin charge automatically added to the booking.

This is over and above all sorts of credit card charges!!

Now, i might be totally wrong, but i dont believe i've seen this before and appears to have been very quietly sneaked in!!

Is this just there way of getting around any future changes to the credit card processing fees they will be allowed to charge????

benjus · 12 January 2012 at 11:01AM

I guess we can thank all those that complained about card payment charges for this. So now everyone pays an extra £9 (per transaction, not per person), but there's no need to get a Visa Electron or whatever, as all debit card payments are free (as far as I can tell). Credit cards still incur an extra fee.

I suppose that's a win for some people, but I won't be celebrating.

richardw · 12 January 2012 at 11:08AM

Is it £9 if you pay with nectar points?

agrinnall · 12 January 2012 at 11:28AM

Can't answer about the Nectar points but this is the blurb on charges from the Easyjet website:

Admin fee and Charges:

All bookings will incur an admin fee of £9.00.
Bookings made by Visa Credit Card, MasterCard, Diners Club, American Express, UATP/Airplus will incur an additional fee of 2.5% of the total transaction value, with a minimum charge of £4.95, whichever is greater
Note this is a UK retail site. Non UK Cardholders transacting on this site may be subject to a cross border fee applied by their Card Issuer.

cromarty · 12 January 2012 at 11:44AM

From what I can tell, £9 admin fee applies to all bookings, regardless of payment method. Credit cards only have an additional 2.5% applied.

This is a pain for me because I like to book the flights as soon as they come out, to get the best prices in school holiday periods. Easyjet are also now releasing flights on a rolling basis, so I sometimes I can't do a return so have to do a separate one way booking for eg October 12, and the another for return on November 12 when those come out - so have to pay the fee twice. Previously I was using Visa Electron.

budgetflyer · 12 January 2012 at 12:06PM

What now ? The whingers will now want the "admin fee" included in the prices.
Cant they see that the airlines just aren't going to take a hit. Now we all pay.

richardw · 12 January 2012 at 12:12PM

With prices like this

London Gatwick to Nice
Dep Tue, 06 March 2012 11:00
Arr Tue, 06 March 2012 14:00
Flight 5067
1 Adult
1 x £253.99

Nice to London Gatwick
Dep Fri, 09 March 2012 10:50
Arr Fri, 09 March 2012 11:50
Flight 5066
1 Adult
1 x £321.13
Total flights and options for all passengers:£575.12
Admin Fee1 x £9.00
Final Price £598.72
Pay by Credit Card: £598.72
Pay by Debit Card: £584.12

You'd be glad the admin fee isn't a percentage.

callum9999 · 12 January 2012 at 1:50PM

That's frustrating.

Though I don't think admin fees should be legal for unavoidable, expected admin. It's not like Easyjet can possibly argue that the admin accruing on flight booking is unexpected or even optional (how else are you meant to book a flight...) so they couldn't include it in the cost of the flight. Just like the concerts etc. that charge booking fees for events where booking is compulsory!

jayok · 12 January 2012 at 1:59PM

Of course airlines are going to recoup the fee they were charging for some of the card payments. Everyone pays and all the airline prices will increase therefore the consumer wins?

Entertainer · 12 January 2012 at 2:21PM

Easyjet sprang this without any warning last night. I was booking a flight before midnight last night, had it in my basket then the website went down for about two hours until about 2 a.m. It came back and this £9 fee was showing, which you couldn't get rid of (I was paying by Electron). I was utterly confused to say the least so had no choice but to pay it.

The interesting thing is that their fees and charges page still had all the old fees displayed during the early hours of the morning when I booked my flight. They seemed to finally have amended it by lunchtime today.

If they don't refund it I'm going to complain to Trading Standards for false advertising.

Frankly, very disappointed in them.

tingtong · 12 January 2012 at 2:42PM

Not sure how they can get away with this unless they start including it in the initial advertised price. I thought the rules that were brought in by the CAA last year stated that the initial price shown must include ALL compulsory fees & charges - they simply don't any more.

http://www.caa.co.uk/application.aspx?catid=14&pagetype=65&appid=7&mode=detail&nid=1968

My guess is Easyjet have seen they way Ryanair have played the game with the old 'Admin Fee' trick and just followed suit. Very disappointed in Easyjet really as I honestly thought they were above all this crap.

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

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