Online booking fees on their way

[mitchja]

Article here

Looks like BA will be the first but others are likely to follow.

Regards

This just stinks of blatant profiteering, or sheer desperation, on behalf of the airlines.

If you think back, there wasn't a fee for booking through an airline call centre.

Then they started doing online booking, and they said "Oh, there has to be a fee for tickets booked through the call centre, because of the extra staff costs", or otherwise introduced an online booking discount.

Now, you have to pay whether you phone up, or book online, so it's just extra revenue in the airline's pocket at the end of the day.

Airlines seem to be getting more and more desperate, and we're now paying what amounts to a "booking tax" for the priviledge of flying with that airline.

Mike

[Nottingham Nick]

I agree it is out of order, but it seems to be the way that 'service industries' are going.

OT, but I went to the Nottingham Ice Arena box office this week, to book two tickets for a concert next year and was charged a 10% 'booking fee', even though I was there in person. This added £7.50 to the cost of the tickets and applied to credit AND debit card payments. [:(!]

They have us over a barrel. [:(]

Nick

They do have us over a barrell and there is nothing really that can be done. Concert tickets are bad enough but are terrible through ticket master!! They used to charge an overall booking fee of approx £4-£5 no matter if you ordered 1 or 10 tickets, now they charge anything between £2.50 & £4.50 each ticket as a ''service charge'' then a one off payment of £4.95 for ''Processing Fee & Delivery Charge'' so when I bought myself and friends tickets to eminem it was as extra £28.95 banged on top of the price of 6 tickets. [:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!][:(!]

Luckily when he cancelled his concert this time they refunded the full amount, about 2 years ago when a concert I booked was cancelled they kept the ''service charge'' and ''booking fee's''. [V]

That sucks. I have always had a problem with this type of thing. To a very small extent I can kind of see it for ticket agencies selling tickets for arena events as this is their commission for handling etc, but no way direct from the airline. Air tickets are priced higher now that we have ever seen them, so why are they trying to make extra profit. According the 21st birthday stuff on the VS website the first flight in 1984 to ewr cost about £100, it now costs 3 times that plus the tax so why do they have to make even more money? The last time I looked VS and BA where doing OK for profit. This looks like BT about 5-10 yrs ago when they just couldn't make enough profit they just kept on putting up prices! Paying for it now though aren't they having to try to get back all thoses customers. If anyone from VS reads these boards PLEASE feed back this will not be accepted lightly. If there is an alternative you may find you loose business by adding online 'service charges'. Think of all the money you have saved by getting someone to book online.

Paul

Hmmm, I'd be happy to accept no online booking discount, but not an additional fee. Web sites have costs too, but generally not as high as people costs of course.

OT but on the same site news page they have a picture of Privatair's new business seats and they look just like the J2000,: here





Edit by mod to shorten link........ Nick

[mitchja]

Well spotted slinky

Agreed those seat are the closest J2000 looking seats I've seen so far. They even have what looks like those chrome/metal support at the back which is a sure sign of J2000, as is the trim on the front seat on the corners in the bottom picture. TV's look in exactly the same place too. The seat is just a different colour.

Regards

Originally posted by mitchja
Agreed those seat are the closest J2000 looking seats I've seen so far. They even have what looks like those chrome/metal support at the back which is a sure sign of J2000, as is the trim on the front seat on the corners in the bottom picture. TV's look in exactly the same place too. The seat is just a different colour.

Agreed! So, that's where some of the J2000s ended up then?

Mike

Hmmm...this ranks right up there with BMI actually charging 4 pound 50 per online booking for those who book without a
"BMI" credit card. These not-so subtle ways to boost revenue in hard times are distinctly unappealing. I prefer being charged for fuel and being told so (VS)

rr

[fozzyo]

Shocking! [:(!]

I remember when it was enough people could do to transfer services to on-line in order to save them vast sums of money through reduced expenses. Yes, websites and servers and connectivity all cost money - but they are a darn site cheaper then call centres.

Find it hard to see how VS, if they wanted to follow this path, could go from a booking discount to a charge quickly - even us infrequent flyers will notice that one and not be impressed. At least a fuel surcharge is almost understandable.

Interesting comment in the original article - "the online fee will be introduced into the UK once we have worked out the technicalities". What 'technicalities' do they have to complete? Rewrite the code for entire booking system to include this - i think not. Or are they trying to introduce the idea while they to work out the PR technicalities?

Foz xx

Originally posted by fozzyo
Or are they trying to introduce the idea while they to work out the PR technicalities?

Obviously! They don't want to further aggrevate their already disenfranchised customers. They will want to put the GateGourmet situation to bed first. One thing at once.

Once they think we've forgotten about the catering strike, they'll hit us with this booking charge.

Cheers,
Mike

Originally posted by mike-smashing
[brObviously! They don't want to further aggrevate their already disenfranchised customers. They will want to put the GateGourmet situation to bed first. One thing at once.

Nobody told them that - another charge (optional this time) - Details Here

Phil (Buffy)

Originally posted by BuffyTVS65
Nobody told them that - another charge (optional this time) - Details Here

Money which BA would have probably put (at least some of) into the Climate Care trust anyway, except now the customer gets to "volunteer" to pay it instead, while BA gets the positive PR credibility and makes more profit (assuming that it's not matching the amount that the pax put in).

Or am I just a sceptic which sees conspiracies everywhere?

Cheers,
Mike

Originally posted by mike-smashing

Originally posted by BuffyTVS65
Nobody told them that - another charge (optional this time) - Details Here

Or am I just a sceptic which sees conspiracies everywhere?

Cheers,
Mike

LOL you're just septic (sp.?) but in all events probably true!

As a further follow-up, I read in Computer World this morning that according to IATA it costs an airline on average £5 to process a paper ticket and 50 pence an eticket. So you can do the maths on what people are saving at the headline rate. According to IATA there's a target to have 100% etickets by 2007 but European airlines on average currently only process 30% so the target looks like not being met. Wonder how VS are doing and BA is clearly having a big push for it - you have to know that BA is doing it for efficiency reasons and £4.50 x 35 million passengers a year is a pretty big incentive!

Perhaps there's a good reason for the online booking discount to remain after all and everyone is right, cancelling this or even adding a fee is pure money grabbing.

[Scrooge]

Originally posted by BuffyTVS65

Originally posted by mike-smashing
[brObviously! They don't want to further aggrevate their already disenfranchised customers. They will want to put the GateGourmet situation to bed first. One thing at once.

Nobody told them that - another charge (optional this time) - Details Here

Phil (Buffy)

Having had this sibject pushed in my face for the last week and thinking to myself that it was in fact a good idea I was going to put this up in the main forum http://www.americanforests.org/
Say make a small donation once a year to make up a little for all the jetsetting we do?

The idea of online booking fees sucks! It used to be that airlines give mileage awards to fliers who book on the airline's own web site (VS still does!). Why? Because airlines are trying to gain adoption of their web sites - which have generally lower costs. To switch from incenting web sales to penalizing them seems down-right madness to me!

For what it's worth, in the US, Orbitz charges a booking fee (something like $5-10 I think). Given that many major airlines have now set up 'best fare guarantees' on their own web sites (AA and CO included), there's really no need to pay Orbitz this premium!