One of the things that REALLY do annoy me is credit card fees when you book flights. What was a fee for processing a card is rapidly turning into a profit centre.
Today’s example of this is Lufthansa’s £50 single UK-Germany fare.
Here’s how it’s built up:
Ok – apart from the fuel surcharge rip off and the fact I want to go to Frankfurt – not somewhere in the middle of nowhere operated by Ryanair (Frankfurt Hahn is the best part of 75 miles away from Frankfurt am Main, and not served at BHX), and that FlyBe is the other “competitor” on the route, working out at the same price in the end (including luggage allowance – comes out at about £50.99 before any extras – like lounge access), it’s pretty much a no brainer to choose Lufthansa.
Unfortunately, Lufthansa – like a lot of European airlines love to tack on a booking fee. EU Regs say at least ONE payment method must be free. With Lufthansa, it’s PAYPAL.
Yes – that wonderful arm of eBay – PayPal.
If you don’t check out with PayPal (and I’ve had REAL fun with PayPal in the past), this is the costs…
Which in REAL TERMS on a super-cheap fare is 7% of THE FULL FARE (and considering I paid less than this – it actually bumped it up to 11% of the fare), it is really taking the provierbal.
In fee processing terms, according to the OFT works out to be about 30p a transaction for a company of Ryanairs size – so lets say £1/€1 for Lufthansa. That’s a lot of profit for not a lot of work there…
Alas, Lufthansa is not alone in this practice. BMI are just as bad, as are BA, as are most of the carriers. However, until airlines see credit card fees as just that – and not another profit centre, I can’t see things changing in a hurry unless regulators start exercising their muscles…
