£390 for a £85 ticket

[malc4d]

JEEEEEZ,

£390 for a £85 pound ticket Gatwick to Orlando..............over £300 pound in "fees and surcharges and taxes"........... anyone got a clue as to what these fees are ?????? :rolleyes:

[Hartington]

http://www.pprune.org/passengers-slf-self-loading-freight/338663-uk-airport-tax.html

[PAXboy]

Depending upon the airline, what goes into this 'bucket' is variable. I can guarantee that you will not get them to give you a fully itemised break down that allows you to cross check each and every pound in the bottom line!

So, who are they?? :E

[caaardiff]

Do you seriously expect to get to Orlando for £85?? If you do, then any airline you wish to travel on will not last long! :ugh:
If the price just simply read £390 would you still pay it?
Its just the airlines stating (not very specifically) some sort of breakdown of the charges.

[malc4d]

Its our favorite Airline..........
Now please dont get me wrong here, l know that £85 is tooooooooooooo cheap and that + £300 plus is more like it ..............
BUT, why say a ticket costs £85 then charge so many ' extras ' and piss me off, why not give the proper price for the ticket then add the tax. (And dont get me started on all of the ' stealth taxes' around now.......:eek:)

And !! whats all this £1.50 to £4.50 paying by card fees the airlines have suddenly brought in.......?????? Many years ago the petrol stations started to charge a credit card fee, after a few weeks they had to stop. Wasn't this deemed illegal ?

And..............................................:yuk:

PS now that the fuel cost has gone down, anyone seen a reduction in the ' fuel surcharge '............:)

[Load Toad]

Regarding credit cards I believe that there is in some countries a 'no surcharge' rule for credit cards? I think though that might mean that since credit card companies have to charge a fee to some one for using a card then at some point the cost has to be collected. I'm not sure & likewise I thought that in the UK there was a move to the total ticket price having to be advised clearly - not the cost prior to adding all the fee's surcharges and taxes?

[Globaliser]

BUT, why say a ticket costs £85 then charge so many ' extras ' and piss me off, why not give the proper price for the ticket then add the tax.If you're booking on a UK website you ought to be being shown the final price right from the start, and not just the base fare component of it. On some website you have to be a pretty dedicated small print reader to even see the base fare component.

Which airline was this? If the website's misleading, you could make a complaint. A certain Irish airline has been getting quite a lot of flak from the regulators about the fact that their website has not been very good at doing what it ought to do.PS now that the fuel cost has gone down, anyone seen a reduction in the ' fuel surcharge '............:)Fuel surcharges will always lag the cost of fuel on the way up, and on the way down. Passengers have selective perception about this.

And the answer to your question is yes: fuel surchages are now starting to come down. Not every airline at the same time, but one at a time. SQ is the most high-profile recent reducer, but they were not the first in this round.

[malc4d]

YES, the web site did show andl did see the total price of £195 per flight...........:ok:
l was just a bit shocked that the ' taxes and fees ' cost over 3 times the base ticket cost.........:suspect:

[PAXboy]

malc4d Good to hear that the bottom line price was clear. Most commercial companies have learnt that human beings want something for nothing and have worked assiduously to lower the headline price to attract our attention. It then becomes necessary to build the price up again.

One of the most usual forms of this is 'Post & Packaging' - with mail order companies I have to grit my teeth for how much they want to ladle on with the bland line of £3.95 P&P and when you get the package and weigh it - you can work out how much extra they got over and above the padded envelope and discounted postage rates and a low paid human to stuff it. 'Taxes & Charges' = 'Post & Packaging'. :}

Briefly, two years ago I cross checked prices for LGW~AMS on Air Miles and the self same flight on BA (direct). You will be as amused as I was to learn that the Taxes and Charges varied by more than 10% for the self same flight. Air Miles were more expensive as they wanted more cash. We flew with EZY!

[nivsy]

I also wonder about the credit card charges imposed by operators. Not that long ago all or certainly lets say most would not charge for credit card transactions. Especially now with the risks of airline failure etc it is often better to pay by credit card.

I dont understand how Ryanair charge a cost per sector/pax. I suppose it could be something to do with contractual arrangements they have with credit card companies.

[malc4d]

Yeah my 'free' exec airmile flight was gonna be £280 + ................:}

[Globaliser]

l was just a bit shocked that the ' taxes and fees ' cost over 3 times the base ticket costIt's "taxes, fees and charges". The big item in that is the fuel surcharge - on BA to MCO, that alone is now £218 per person return in economy.

I believe that the reason it's there rather than in the base fare is because corporate discount deals are off the base fare only. So if you're travelling on (for example) a 60% corporate discount, you'll pay 100% of the fuel surcharge even though you only pay 40% of the base fare.

That's life these days.

(BTW, Rainboe: That fuel surcharge is imposed by the airline, not by Robber Brown.)

[VAFFPAX]

I've explained this in the past elsewhere on this forum. When people like Ryanair started quoting ticket prices without taxes, the legacy carriers had to follow suit. In addition, with fuel surcharges, these are extra and are listed as such (I believe systems like Galileo, Sabre etc don't have provision for any other items other than misc charges, where all that is lumped into).

On older ticket printers that still print out the old paper-style tickets, you will notice that taxes (departure, airport, arrival, whatever) are listed separately per sector, and the websites pretty much do that too.

It's all about looking competitive, especially when people like Ryanair start going off with "we're 90% cheaper than BA!" (as an example). Sometimes Ryanair is most expensive than BA would be, all because of their additional fees and charges.

S.

[Final 3 Greens]

So you're running an airline. You have cut costs to the bone, you are selling your product, probably for below cost, at your cheapest. All the fare that is coming to you is £85. But the greedy government wants to slip vast taxes, fees, surcharges, security costs, airport costs- the whole bloody spectrum, onto your ticket! Why should you just be charged '£350'

So why do other businesses give the consumer a total price and note share the tax etc?

[Globaliser]

If you are selling a plane ticket for 99 pence and other businesses and authorities are going to add another £40 or more to that, I think you have every right to make it quite clear to the customer where all his revenue is actually going, and what he is paying for the honour of being stripped and shouted at it security, and how much he is paying for the honour of being allowed into a BAA shopping centre!In theory, that would be right.

But take the example of the ticket that the OP was buying: £85 base fare + £305 TFC = £390.

If this were a BA ticket, the airline is pocketing at least the £85 base fare + £218 fuel surcharge + £5 insurance surcharge = £308 out of the £390 (79.0%).

As is well-known and well-publicised - and as predictable as the amount of VAT on a piece of furniture - Robber Brown takes £40 APD (10.3%), taking the total to £348.

The rest is (possibly) going to other businesses - £42 of £390, or 10.8%. (Please excuse the rounding errors.)

So I think that there is a limit to the amount of outrage that the customer can legitimately generate about being "used as a revenue raiser, and not by the seller of the service".

[Final 3 Greens]

If you're paying £100 for a bit of furniture and VAT goes on the top at 17.5%

But furniture stores quote all inclusive prices.

So you pay £117.50 and that is what the ticket on the goods says.

I still don't buy this argument.

[radeng]

I know airlines are busy telling us they're going broke. I've just been to OZ on BA. First, Club, WT+ and Economy jam pack full both ways, except for 4 seats in First on the BKK-SYD leg. And First couldn't have been very full of people like me spending miles. (Although people spending miles are reducing an airline's debt - of course, the airline could reduce debt by repudiating all FF miles, but that probably would be a PR disaster of the largest magnitude. So it's arguable that FF miles people are actually revenue producers, although no help to cash flow)

Qantas SYD - BNE, BNE -AUK, and CHC - SYD. All sectors full again, both Business and Economy.

Now if they aren't making a profit off flights with no spare seats, what are they doing wrong?

Even my flight to Venice tomorrow is 66% full in Business class.....

[PAXboy]

For BA, FFM redemptions are both cash flow and revenue positive. Due to the fuel surcharge, it provides both of these because we can be darn sure that the surcharge has a goodly margin of error built in. They step it up in bands to allow fuel price fluctuation within it. They also

It may also be the case that the person/family only have enough FFMs for one ticket and so they buy the other/s or they buy the base ticket and upgrade with FFMs. I have done both of the above at various times and so the cash into the carrier is certianly positive.

Also, there is no need to repudiate all the built up FFMs that are in circulation, as they know that the restrictions they place on using them (as we have oft discussed in here) means that many of them will never be claimed. This may be because of the limited seats available or because of the fuel surcharge. [Now just start reading the post at the beginning and you will have found one of the great beauties of BA's system.

[FarWest]

Example full breakdown below for a trip on BA LGW-MCO return in Nov:

Fare (A1):BA LONhttp://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/images/plain-arrow.gifORL OXRCUK9 £42.50
Fare (A2):BA ORLhttp://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/images/plain-arrow.gifLON MLXRCGB8 £148.50
Tax:USDA APHIS Fee $5.00
Tax:US Immigration Fee $7.00
Tax:US Customs Fee $5.50
Tax:United Kingdom Air Passengers Duty £40.00
Tax:United Kingdom Passenger Service Charge £10.80
Tax:US International Arrival Tax $15.40
Tax:BA YQ surcharge £223.00
Tax:US International Departure Tax $15.40
Tax:US September 11th Security Fee $2.50
Tax:US Passenger Facility Charge $4.50
Total for 1 adult passenger: £496.30

ITA Software gives this breakdown: ITA Software: Trip Planner (http://matrix.itasoftware.com/cvg/dispatch/prego;jsessionid=4E94E910ED8DD9D766033C9C1CE4573B)

FW

[malc4d]

JEEEEEEZZZZZ
Didnt realize l paid so much to be so badly treated at airports and abused by security and boarder control people...........:eek:

[Carnage Matey!]

radeng - think about how many airlines you can fly LHR-SYD with on any given day versus how many people actually want to fly LHR-SYD on that day. Given that it's better to make some money than no money the airlines are slashing prices just to bring in cash. Take a look at the seat sales that are going on. BA are offering half price tickets just to get people to fly, Qantas are doing similar. Does that look like the action of a company thats raking it in?

[VAFFPAX]

From some information given to me by someone recently, BA is suffering, but not as badly as other airlines. So yes, getting more bums in seats helps a little to alleviate the problems.

S.

[point8six]

The fare (internet) drops by £106 if you fly late Nov. Not much profit there!

[Globaliser]

ITA Software gives this breakdownBrilliant idea.

The OP's £390 fare (if it was on BA) would thus be broken down as:-

Fare (A1): BA LONORL OXRCUK9 fare (rules) £42.50
Fare (A2): BA ORLLON OXRCUK9 fare (rules) £42.50
Tax: USDA APHIS Fee $5.00
Tax: US Immigration Fee $7.00
Tax: US Customs Fee $5.50
Tax: United Kingdom Air Passengers Duty £40.00
Tax: United Kingdom Passenger Service Charge £10.80
Tax: US International Arrival Tax $15.40
Tax: BA YQ surcharge £223.00
Tax: US International Departure Tax $15.40
Tax: US September 11th Security Fee $2.50
Tax: US Passenger Facility Charge $4.50

Total for 1 adult passenger: £390.30

The £223 for "YQ surcharge" is fuel surcharge plus insurance surcharge, broken down as in my previous post.

Underlined items definitely going directly into BA's pocket, italicised item definitely going directly into the Government's coffers.

[radeng]

Wirh F and C full, they must have mede a profit. Likewise the LGW - VCE yesterday - economy completely full, 29 seats out of 30 in club full.

Interestingly, the FF miles tickets used for going to SYD were booked a long time ago and there wasn't an extra fuel surcharge added when fuel went up.

[Globaliser]

Interestingly, the FF miles tickets used for going to SYD were booked a long time ago and there wasn't an extra fuel surcharge added when fuel went up.That's the way it usually is. You pay whatever the surcharge is on the day of ticketing. If the fuel surcharge goes up afterwards, you don't pay the extra. If the fuel surcharge goes down afterwards, you don't get a refund. Such is life.

In a time of likely falling fuel surcharges like now, it does add a certain piquancy to timing decisions. :)