[Anonymous]

[openfly]

I am having to do some business trips using FLYbe around the UK. I notice that they do an add-on on their website that you cannot remove. It automatically allocates a seat when you book online, then charges you £6 for the pleasure. It states, in small print, that if you do not wish to pay this and get a seat allocated on check-in then press ”continue”. Hey, guess what…it does not remove the £6!! The fare is £0 with £27 taxes/charges plus £6 for the luxury of having a seat.
Anyone else found this shoddy practice? FLYbe are not as loco as they state, so why stoop to dirty tricks in the style of Ryanair?

[NTarrant]

You also have to be careful with regards to a number of insurances as well, such as Ash insurance which was a latest scam I am told. Flybe are not low cost except where there is competition. Their Economy Plus is more expensive than BA Club Europe!

It is a shame really as they have a good network, which most of it was BA’s. I use Eastern if I can, otherwise I use the train or BA

[openfly]

NTarrant…I agree that they have a good network. Thanks for the advice on the insurances.
I have to say that I have also been using the train recently and havent had many problems….apart from my personal dislike of loud incessant chatting on the mobile, and noisy headsets.
As far as the FLYbe website is concerned it just a case of trying to avoid the pitfalls.

[PaulJennings]

Ignore the seat allocation and click continue. A dialogue box then tries to persuade you to pre-reserve seats again, by default. Click on ‘continue without seats’ and you avoid the charge. Takes some doing.

[openfly]

Hi MichelAngelo
Thanks for that.
But it seems to allocate the seat automatically, then charge me £6. You cannot back out of that. I agree that it says go to ‘continue’ to forget the seat allocation, which I tried, and it deletes the seat, but it leaves the £6 on the bill! They get you everyway…..

[NTarrant]

I have just had a look on their website and there are warning boxes which appears if you don’t want insurance. Pulling on the heart strings but giving you the option of continuing with or without insurance. But I think the wording is confusing.

If you click continue at the seats stage it does give to a box which asks if you want to continue with or without seats. The annoying thing is that the without button is away from the continue button and can easily confuse

[PaulJennings]

Hi openfly. At the seats stage you are given two options: ‘accept seats’ (ie whatever has been allocated) and ‘change seats’. The trick is to ignore both of these buttons and just select ‘continue’ lower down. Then you get a warning dialogue box: in that, select ‘continue without seats’. I just did this on a dummy booking and the £6 went away.

Then you proceed to the next stage in the flybe booking challenge. Honestly, I feel like we are swapping tips on playing some infernal video game that throws money grabbing monsters at you

[NTarrant]

That sound so true MichelAngelo, of course the part of the challenge is credit card or debit card and if its the latter, do you have the right one to avoid a “booking fee”??

[FrequentTraveller]

MichelAngelo’s latest reply is correct. I have actually booked many flights with FlyBe this year and have avoided the extra seat charges.

Also beware that the web pages assume you are going to take one item of hold baggage with you on each flight. If you are just travelling with hand baggage then you need to explicitly change the number of hold bags to zero and the total fare is then lowered.

Also if you want to lower your costs even further then register and start your booking from http://www.cashbackkings.com Assuming you follow the guidelines fully (clear your browser cached cookies etc.) then you should receive 1% cash back several months after booking. OK it’s not a huge saving but it’s better than nothing.

[openfly]

Thanks guys and guyesses. I think I have worked it out with your help.
It makes Ryanair look positively honest….oh alright maybe not!

[Bunnahabhain]

I also don’t like the non-inclusive taxes & charges concept used by Flybe and Ryanair, as opposed to easyJet, BA and bmi which are inclusive – you can see the breakdown afterwards if you want, but who cares / does it matter if the flight is £5 and the taxes £50 or vice versa.

You get used to the charges Flybe apply to a certain route if travelling regularly, but the exact amount isn’t revealed until you select a particular flight.

Also has anyone ever had any success booking a Rewards 4 All flight? Even making dummy bookings I can’t find any with availability. At least BA gives you a clue of redemption popularity like “only 3 rewards seats left on this flight” as it does with cash fares.

Sadly for me it’s usually a case of Fly Hastobe

[NTarrant]

Hi Jim

I have enough rewards4all points for a free flight but have never been able to use it. There is a flight out but never one back!

Nigel

[Bunnahabhain]

Flymaybe (as they used to be known with the old 146) we could pool our points and exchange them for a BA reward flight that actually exists – even one way! They still codeshare some flights with BA and you can book them via BA’s site, ok scraping the barrel now…

[NTarrant]

That is a bit Jim, mind you if you do book them, like I did for member of staff MAN-EDI through BA’s website you don’t get any On Business points and probably no BA miles or tier points.

[Author]

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