£9.99 fare, Sir? Certainly, that will be £46.30, please
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jayteeto,
It's not really the same. When buying goods in USA, the tax is a fraction of the cost of the item. With the airlines, we are talking taxes and charges which total many time more than the actual advertised cost of the flight. The difficulty is that in order to compare fares on different airline websites, you often have to go right through the full booking process to get any idea of what the fare actually is, making fare comparisons difficult.
In addition, it is often hard to identify what all the charges are for, and in some cases (Ryanair) the credit card charges are completely unjustified (they charge a fee per sector per person, and not per booking - which is what the banks charge them).
In my local supermarket, i don't pick up cornflakes priced at 20 pence, and then get told at the checkout, they actually cost three pounds fifty pence, plus tax, plus some other made-up charges.
It is the scale of add-ons that is the problem, the fare you see bears absolutely no relation to what you pay.
It's not really the same. When buying goods in USA, the tax is a fraction of the cost of the item. With the airlines, we are talking taxes and charges which total many time more than the actual advertised cost of the flight. The difficulty is that in order to compare fares on different airline websites, you often have to go right through the full booking process to get any idea of what the fare actually is, making fare comparisons difficult.
In addition, it is often hard to identify what all the charges are for, and in some cases (Ryanair) the credit card charges are completely unjustified (they charge a fee per sector per person, and not per booking - which is what the banks charge them).
In my local supermarket, i don't pick up cornflakes priced at 20 pence, and then get told at the checkout, they actually cost three pounds fifty pence, plus tax, plus some other made-up charges.
It is the scale of add-ons that is the problem, the fare you see bears absolutely no relation to what you pay.
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something that has puzzled me - I know banks charge vendors for the use of credit cards, but in the not-so-distant past if a vendor charged you "extra" to cover the cost of using the card and you reported it to Mastercard/Visa/whoever, the vendor was sanctioned by the credit card company (mainly the threat to take the facility away) as they weren't supposed to charge the extra to the consumer. The logic being that credit card payments were a facility that was very useful to the vendor apart from the consumer (who pay their own fees), so the vendor should pay for such a service.
Nowadays, of course, clever people in Ryanair charge the fee (or in excess of it) to the consumer, who rationalises that given there is a charge for using it, it's fair enough to be asked to pay it to the vendor! And other vendors are climbing on the gravy train. So, maybe you're getting annoyed with the wrong company - worse, it strikes me that now cc companies see that consumers will pay the fee, then they could get away with charging even more, for example? So much for our "Switched on" consumers these days!
Nowadays, of course, clever people in Ryanair charge the fee (or in excess of it) to the consumer, who rationalises that given there is a charge for using it, it's fair enough to be asked to pay it to the vendor! And other vendors are climbing on the gravy train. So, maybe you're getting annoyed with the wrong company - worse, it strikes me that now cc companies see that consumers will pay the fee, then they could get away with charging even more, for example? So much for our "Switched on" consumers these days!
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bear11 you are correct about how the CC companies used to respond to the surcharging of customers. Further, the practice of hotels when you arrive to swipe your card for a pre-authorisation check? That was officially not allowed but now is, because the hotels said that, if they could not do so - then they would refuse the card. I dare say that there are other aspects of the Ts &Cs that have changed in the pat decade.
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Originally Posted by The SSK
KLM announced yesterday they are introducing a charge of €7.50 per passenger on their lowest fares for using credit cards.
I'd like to hear their justification for charging a credit card fee, not per transaction but per passenger.
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I travel quite a bit so Im always shopping around for airfares.
I find having the tax component excluded from the advertised price makes it near on impossible to compare like for like fares.
The price you see advertised should be be the price you pay!!
I find having the tax component excluded from the advertised price makes it near on impossible to compare like for like fares.
The price you see advertised should be be the price you pay!!
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The latest trend on travel websites (skyscanner, edreams, even the very airlines) is to have all taxes included on the very first screen BUT the booking / reservation / handling fee, how do they want to call it. That is usually around 10 euro.
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smala01
Ahh, I think that you now understand how the system works. 
When I am copaning, I take the booking all the way to the payment screen which does not usually include the credit card surcharge but will state what it will be, then I drop out and check the next carrier. It takes a bit longer but remember, ten years ago you could not do this. You had to rely wupon a travel agent to do the footwork and you did not know what benefits there were in it for them to offer you a particular fare. So, over all, the current system is brilliant.
... makes it near on impossible to compare like for like fares.
When I am copaning, I take the booking all the way to the payment screen which does not usually include the credit card surcharge but will state what it will be, then I drop out and check the next carrier. It takes a bit longer but remember, ten years ago you could not do this. You had to rely wupon a travel agent to do the footwork and you did not know what benefits there were in it for them to offer you a particular fare. So, over all, the current system is brilliant.
