Aurigny, Flybe in Which? hall of shame on charges
Monday 28th February 2011, 1:00PM GMT.
AURIGNY and Flybe have appeared in Which?’s name and shame hall of fame.
The consumer watchdog placed Flybe fourth and Aurigny sixth in its list of airlines that charge the most per leg of journey and per passenger.
Which? has recently launched a campaign against these fees as it believes they are excessive.
‘Aurigny would welcome regulation that limits the level of these charges within the airline and other industries,’ said commercial director Malcolm Coupar.
‘Flybe continually reviews all its charges to ensure they are in line with market prices and does also only maintain charges that are in line with the costs it bears,’ Flybe said in a statement.
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WOW…. Only 4th and 6th….!?
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Everyone knows about Flybe’s stealth charges but hopefully this will help some of my fellow islanders take the rose tinted specs off when it comes to discussing their beloved Aurigny.
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Flybe and Aurigny are amateurs: Thomson Airways charges 2.5% for credit cards.
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I recently booked return flights to Gatwick for myself and a friend with Aurigny. As I didn’t have a Visa Electron (???) I had to therefore pay charges to use my card to pay for the flights. Total charges were £32!!!!
They charged me £8 per person each way.
I still don’t understand why the costs were that high as it was one transaction. Surely if this was an admin cost we would be seeing this sort of charge when we book with Blue Islands or Condor or any other transactions where we use our credit cards? We don’t suddenly have shop assistants telling us “oh well now that you’re going to pay by credit card that’s an extra £30 please”.
Any spokesperson from Aurigny/Flybe wish to tell us why you charge so much? This is a fee for which you are making a profit from. The profit should be made from the item that we are buying not by the means in which we pay for it.
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sallyanne – even better, Blue Islands don’t charge for credit or debit cards.
They also beat Flybe for price on a Southampton flight I recently booked, which I must confess (pleasantly) surprised me.
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Was just charged nearly 9% of the bill for using a credit card with Aurigny. Total,and utter rip off, no correlation to the cost to them of me paying by card.
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I wonder which airlines filled the top three spots.
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This whole system of charging for paying by credit card is outrageous. Companies pretty much force you to use their websites and book online so that they can save admin costs (no problem with that), but then rip you off when you try to pay for it.
I think the real irony is that none of of this type of behaviour used to happen before consumer protection laws were originally introduced. So what exactly does consumer protection legislation achieve today and in whose interests does it work? Certainly not the consumer.
The charges levied on the companies for accepting payment by credit card by their bank should be published clearly on their websites and their should be a maximum margin (say £1 per transaction) allowed to be added on to contribute towards the companies’ own labour costs of accepting credit card payments.
In the days when we always paid by cheque, I don’t recall the consumer being charged extra by companies for their costs (petrol costs etc)in sending their accounts clerks to the bank to pay in those cheques so that they could actually receive value, or to separately pay anything towards the staff overheads of employing those accounts staff. That’s exactly the manual system which we card payments have replaced. Its simply a cost of running a business, and shouldn’t be a fraudulent extra profit centre.
Time for the consumer protection bodies to start doing what they are mean to do. Well done to “Which” for exposing this.
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slep – the top 3 spots were filled by:
1. Air Asia X
2. Aer Arann
3. RyanAir
Full list is here:
http://www.which.co.uk/money/credit-cards-and-loans/guides/charges-for-paying-by-credit-and-debit-card/the-card-charges-hall-of-shame/
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I fly regularly for work and use both airlines depending on destination and flight time required. As a result i have built up a number of frequent flyer points (points for all etc.). At the weekend i booked a return flight to Gatwick for my wife and i using my Flybe points for all to get “free flights”, they would’ve ended up costing £286.00 after all charges which was only £32.00 less the the price without points for all discount!! Aurigny standard price was only £12.00 more so out of principle i booked with them.
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Thanks Paul for the information :-)
That with Ryanair doesn`t surprise me. Aren`t they the ones who wanted to put passengers on stools? :P
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I fully support Blue-Islands – they treat you like a first-class passenger with their lounge free drinks and papers for no more and often less than their competitors. Some of Blue-Island aeroplanes are a bit old but there-again so are Aurignys.
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Problem for Aurigny is that Flybe put up the basic cost on their adverts and that makes Aurigny look expensive,so Aurigny are being forced to advertise the basic cost and add on the extras as you go through the booking process.Aurigny have said they would prefer to advertise all inclusive costs,and Blue Islands along with Flybe are trying to force Aurigny out of business,so that they can then charge higher fares.
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I’ve just booked some flights on Ebookers.com and to pay by debit card is free and by credit card is just £0.07. Says it all really.
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Per the Which site:
“When using the table it’s worth remembering that the fees paid by the travel company itself are as follows:
For debit cards, a flat fee per transaction of 10p-20p
For credit cards, a percentage fee per transaction of 1%-2%”
10-20p!!! And Flybe charge you a fiver!!
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I have to be in London and Southampton on a regular basis and I always use Blue Islands via southampton.
The train service from Southampton to London is excellent and the station is 50 metres from the airport.
blue islands charges are transparent, they dont charge for using creidt cards (I have never understood why Flybe chrage for use of debit or credit cards – how else can you pay over the Internet?). Blue Islands are also so flexible and there customer service is so much better.
I dont work for Blue isalnds and have no connection with them other than i fly with them regularly and theyhave taken away all the stress Flybeusedto cause with their impersonal service.
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How is it then when you go to the Aurigny desk and ask for the same flights. Theya re cheaper and you don’t get charged at the desk for paying with your Credit/Debit card. As all airlines state “it’s cheaper on the internet”
I also had the same issue with Condor just recently, i saved £ 15.00 by going to the booking office.
I know what i will be doing in the future!
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I hear that Ryanair is planning to fit outside loos to all their planes, just hope they don’t fly over us.
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John completely agree. Where possible I will always book with Blue Islands. The amount of meetings that get cancelled/re-scheduled mean that I frequently either have to wait last minute to book flights or use Blue Islands where I can change them if I need to for free!
Genius!
I also know how much the flight will cost me before having to spend 10 minutes filling in forms to find out the price has doubled.
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Thanks for that John – I had wondered about using Blue Islands for London visits as they go direct to Waterloo.
There’s also the added advantage that Southampton is a far nicer airport to negotiate than Gatwick.
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