I have written before about no frills airlines and their marketing tactics and especially the hidden costs of flights. Here is another example.
I today booked some flights to Amsterdam with Flybe. According to their website the outbound flight was free and the return flight would cost £14.99 per person. I thought I had found a bargain and I assumed the total cost would be for four people about £60. I was wrong !Taxes needed to be added to the total. I then had to take off the cost of 4 bags which had been added on even though I didn’t want them. The new total cost for 4 People was £373.00, so the cost had gone from £60 and increased by a massive £313.00 from what I thought the cost would be.I decided to go ahead regardless as my clients still wanted to proceed.
On the final screen I had to choose a method of payment so I used the drop down box to say that I would be paying by Visa debit. As soon as I did this the cost increased by a massive £36.I know quite a bit about credit card and debit card charges. I know that travel companies are charged about 2% of the transaction amount. Flybe were adding on a huge 10% of the transaction.
What are the reasons for this you might ask….well you have decide for yourselves but is it so they can advertise a price that is lower than the actual price ?…I’m not sure. Maybe there should be rules about this? Should companies only be allowed to charge credit card charges equivalent to what they are charged by the credit card handlers? It seems like a good idea to me.
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