Beat the airlines that won’t budge on booking fees

Budget airlines easyJet and Ryanair have ignored recommendations by the Office of Fair Trading that they should stop charging customers for online flight bookings.

The announcement made in June, branded the charges as ‘misleading’ and called for the government to ban them. Consequently consumers might expect that they would no longer have to pay the unnecessary charges, but some airlines are even adding the surcharges to each leg of the journey, charging twice the fee when only one transaction is made.

Customers are paying a combined £265,000 a day in online booking fees, £6 per passenger for Ryanair and £8 when travelling with easyJet. Operators are charging up to 40 times the actual cost of a card transaction, which sets the company back a mere 20p.

EasyJet’s Corporate Affairs Manager Andrew McConnell, said: “UK legislation would be a step forwards but we’d encourage the Government to push for a European wide solution. The only way to ensure consumers can make easier price comparisons is if a common treatment of card charges can be agreed across the whole of the transport sector in Europe.”

With airlines unlikely to budge on the issue until they are legally required to, customers can take matters into their own hands. By using a Visa electron card, which is connected to an account without an overdraft facility, you can avoid the extra charge or you can get a prepaid Mastercard such fairFX, which also exempts you from the fee. It might be a bit of an extra effort but the overall saving and the satisfaction of beating this unfair system should be worth it.