You might think you’ve found a great fare after finally choosing your flight, only to find that additional costs keep being added as you proceed with the booking. These so-called hidden fees can vary depending on the airline you choose.
Banks aren’t the only ones charging customers all kinds of hidden fees. In the airline industry too, travellers are often confused by the addition of extra fees once they’ve finally chosen their destination, flight time, fare category and other options such as oversized luggage. As vacationers start to think about summer plans, a British financial news platform called TradingPedia has investigated the true cost of these fees that aren’t always made clear at the beginning of the booking process. The comparison is based on flights from London to European destinations such as Nice, Madrid, Amsterdam, Rome and Lisbon.
Passengers generally come across hidden fees while booking these airlines
It’s certainly no secret that some carriers, especially the low-cost airlines, charge an additional cost for luggage after consumers select a flight. Similarly, seat selection is sometimes not free. But other costs can be less obvious. For example, the research identified online booking fees, charged at GBP 9.80 (HKD 95) per passenger by Wizz Air.
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The Hungary-based low-cost airline is the only one in the survey to apply this kind of charge. There are also check-in fees, which can be as high as GBP 55 (HKD 537) with Ryanair, GBP 24.30 (HKD 237) with Wizz Air or GBP 15 (HKD 146) with Jet2. And then there’s the rescue fee charged by airlines when a passenger misses their plane by a small amount and is given a seat on the next flight.
It’s best to make sure you’re on time to board the plane, because this extra cost can amount to as much as GBP 115.30 (HKD 1,127) with Vueling, or GBP 110 (HKD 1,075) with EasyJet or GBP 100 (HKD 977) with Ryanair.
In the end, the Irish low-cost airline takes the prize for the most expensive hidden costs, at GBP 220 (HKD 2,150). In fact, low-cost carriers are unsurprisingly the leaders in this ranking, such as Vueling (GBP 211, or about HKD 2,062), Wizz Air (GBP 194, or HKD 1,896), Easyjet (GBP 183, or HKD 1,789), Norwegian (GBP 68, or HKD 664) and Jet2 (GBP 66, or HKD 645). Meanwhile, hidden costs with the UK flag carrier British Airways amount to GBP 70 (HKD 684), according to the research.
This story was published via AFP Relaxnews
All HKD conversions were done at the time of writing
Main and Feature Image Credit: Photography Damir Khabirov / Getty Images©
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