Flybe “rewards” 4 all – oh yeah?!

Sound like they need the reward saver like on BAEC / Avios

The only time I ever redeem these points is when travelling with luggage – redeem extra points for a “plus” fare to save paying luggage charges.

After you have booked the flights (but before payment is made) if you click on “Taxes and Charges” (which appears under Booking for 1 passenger) you will see the breakdown.

Flybe clearly having a laugh with this however can we stop calling charges that are kept by airlines, taxes.

HMRC get £12 for a flight from BHX to AMS in the lowest class on the aircraft. BHX airport will take a service charge as will AMS but as there are no APD ex AMS then the vast majority of the money being paid goes to fly be.

Sadly I could not find a break down of fly be charges which should be mandatory and easily available.

There is a more interesting issue here, and one which perhaps BT can take on on our behalf.

Firstly, transparency around airline pricing, what is a tax, what is an airline fee, what is a fee to pay etc. I find BA’s confirmation page very transparent detailing exactly what is going to them and to the various govt’s. Whether I like it is another matter, but I find it transparent.

The second issue is around the value of points. I dont doubt that in this particular case, the value of the points was indeed 62p, however there must be other occasions when it must be worth more, for example on busier flights in non sale periods. A relative of mine recently came unstuck blowing all his VS miles on a family W class trip to the US, yet I pointed out to him that he had to pay tax anyway, and as they had a sale on, he actually had a really poor return rate. There must be someone more clever than I, and more time on their hands, who can publish a guide to what return rate represents good value on both earn and burn for all the key carriers?

Superchris

I echo your call for more transparency on what airlines charge. But it is not only airlines – these days a wide variety of industries add “extras” to a bill to lift the final amount you have to pay well beyond the headline sticker price.

In the theatre world you have booking fees, in the restaurant world you have cover charges, many industries try to levy “credit card processing fees”, and so on.

The worst case of this I have met was a mail order company which I once ordered something from via their website, and right at the end of the checkout procedure there was a £1 charge for “use of website”. When I rang them to ask what this was, they said they had recently upgraded their website and the charge was to “reflect the improved customer experience”. I am afraid this answer (which really means “to pay for the development and upgrade”) changed my attitude from “mild surprise” to “extreme annoyance” and I told them so – but I doubt they cared, as they had my pound.

All of these extra charges used to be considered a cost of doing business, and people charged enough in the up-front price to cover their costs. But the average member of the public is so fixated by headline sticker prices and “getting a bargain” that they have completely lost the ability to see that however well they think they are doing at the start of the deal, they are being ripped off at the back of it.

Agree entirely with Chris, Cedric and LP. I get really angry when I’m told the price is X plus Y or something. Why can’t these people just say the price £Z and that includes all your options.

What I found annoying when I checked out of the Intercontinental in Sydney to be told there was a 2% charge for using credit cards. However a UK debit card is processed as a credit card so you still have to pay the 2%.

Back in the early 80’s there used to be a charge for using credit cards of about 5p or 10p when buying petrol at some filling stations and this was outlawed. Silly “booking fee” when there is no other way of booking should be outlawed and companies fined under some trading standard