While it does little to sweeten a bitter stew of churning passenger dissatisfaction, we can take comfort in knowing that we in the UK are not the only ones protesting ridiculous airline fees. Brilliantly skewering American Airlines – one of the worst in the U.S. for tacking on fees – last December satirical news site The Onion’s headline proclaimed: “American Airlines Now Charging Fees to Non-Passengers.”

We could certainly go on at length about the indignities that are now automatically assumed to be part of air travel, but instead we want to help you avoid as many of those stupid fees as possible. Here are some tips for dealing with two of the stupidest: payment methods and baggage rules.

Here are two ways to pay less for the privilege of paying:

• Get a Visa Electron card. It will get you a pass from the “convenience fee” you’ll pay for the great luxury of paying for your ticket with a debit or credit card. Those fees range from “2.5% of transaction” on Thomson Air to a flat £10 per person on Ryanair. SkyEurope, however, is going to charge you £10 per person even with a Visa Electron card, which is available with basic bank accounts from many banks. Halifax and Abbey are two that allow you to apply for a Visa Electron card. Lloyd’s and Barclays don’t issue them to new customers anymore.
• Check in online. While some airlines, still allow you the great joy that is airport check-in (like EasyJet and Aer Lingus), Ryanair will smack you with £80 per person per return if you don’t check in online. Airport check-in is only available if you booked your flights before 20 May 2009 and are traveling no later than 1 October 2009. After that, Ryanair won’t have airport check-in. They still charge you a one-off £10 when you check in online.

If you’ve given up on travel agents and prefer to plan your own holidays online, this looks like a decent way of keeping an eye on cheap flights in other countries. Best Flights is an Australian website, but there’s nothing to stop you using it to your advantage.

A new “Low Cost Specials” page on the site keeps track of over 75 budget airlines and details of any sales they’re having. There’s also an interactive map that allows you to select different regions and see what deals are available at the moment:

All the prices displayed are in Australian Dollars – currently $1 equates to £0.49 – and there’s a bit of a usability FAIL when you click on a deal – a new page pops up with a booking form without any of the destination information. You may be better searching the airline website direct, to see what prices are available over a range of dates.

If you know exactly where you want to travel to and from, you’re probably better off using the likes of Skyscanner. For those of you happy to fly wherever the deals take you, it’s an easy way to see what bargains are out there.

It’s all very well jetting off to Magaluf for a tenner, but Ryanair and the likes still need places to land their planes – unless they make it a requirement for passengers to provide their own runway which, giving Michael O’Leary’s recent comments, doesn’t seem too far fetched. Still, short of taking off from the M1 and establishing passport control at Little Chef, planes will need airports, and that could soon be a problem.

The Airport Operators Association has warned that passenger numbers dropped by 15% last month. Those numbers sound manageable until you look at individual sites – passenger numbers dropped by 70% at Blackpool Airport and were halved at Durham Tees Valley.

According to the BBC, this has led to tit-for-tat in-fighting between airports and budget airlines. Airports have begun introducing fees to fast-track passengers through security, while Blackpool and Norwich now charges a mandatory airport development fee per passenger. Budget airlines believe the charges are driving more passengers away and are threatening to abandon airports that charge trumped-up fees. Easyjet says it withdrew services from Warsaw after excess fees were brought in, and is threatening to do the same again in the UK.

But is a nominal fee really a deal-breaker when booking flights? Or is it the constant succession of small fees throughout the booking process (many of which are levied by the airline) that eventually turn you off flying, especially when a family trip means multiple charges? Would you be happy to pay a £20 charge to fly your family from your local airport, or would you prefer to drive to the nearest regional airport instead? Would the world really miss Blackpool or Durham Tees Valley, when the alternatives (Manchester or Newcastle) would mean more choice and lower fares? Let us know what you think.

Ryanair has much in common with the unfamiliar brands of foul Russian vodka sold in your local disheveled off-license; it gets the job done, but it wouldn’t be your first choice if you had more money. It’s also likely to make you go blind which again, is not unlike Ryanair, who are often accused of taking your eyes out.

As we know, a cheap flight with the Irish airline is exactly that, and only that; if you’re some kind of freak who insists on luggage, it’ll cost you. If you don’t book your luggage in before arriving at the airport, that means more pennies. And if you want to pay by any means other than the near-obscure Electron card, prepare to cough up. Yes, in the world of Ryanair (and several other airlines, to be fair) their no-frills policy includes no luggage and no easy way of providing payment.

And now, no duty-free. Actually, that’s not quite true; you can still buy duty-free before boarding your flight, but according to recent press stories you’ll be charged £28.50 for carrying this additional hand luggage onto the plane; if you can’t fit the booty into your carry-on bag, you’ll be asked to put your existing hand luggage in the hold and pay the appropriate fee for doing so.

Chief executive Michael O’Leary, described by Sky Money journalist Nic Cicutti as “one of the rudest people I have ever come across… indulging in some of the most disgraceful charging practices I have ever come across in my life,” defended the practise when speaking to the Telegraph:

“We are not running around like Nazis targeting people. We are doing this because, people with extra bags are slowing down the boarding of our planes. If you turn up at the gate with a bottle of Asti Spumante, all we are saying is shove it in your bag.”

Does carrying a bottle of Asti Spumante really stop a plane taking off on time? Does Duty Free even sell it? It’s more likely that we’re talking about a couple of bottles of Bolly or 200 fags, which can’t really be “shoved” anywhere. Or maybe they could.

If the charges are perceived by customers to be a deal-breaker, it’ll be bad news for the airports used by Ryanair; many of the smaller terminals pay the airline to fly from them, in order to generate revenue from passengers spending money at the airport. Ah.

It once again raises the thorny issue of budget airlines and what we’re prepared to accept to fly for less, so we’d like to know your thoughts about flying on the cheap:

• In these environmentally-conscious times, should flying be a privilege, rather than a right?

• As far as budget airlines are concerned, what basics should be covered by the cost of your ticket?

• What charges, hidden or otherwise do you object to most?

• Which airlines would you recommend, and which would you avoid like the now legendary plague?

Ultimately, do budget airlines still represent an affordable and worthwhile way to travel? Let us know what you think.

[Telegraph] [Sky Money] thanks to Bitter wallet reader bedlam

With the increase in overbooked flights, lost luggage, surcharges and useless flight attendants, traveling by air is no longer a luxury. So here’s a few tips that the fat cat airlines industry doesn’t expect all passengers to know about, that may help you on your next flight abroad. Bon Voyage!

1. Rule 240: If you’re flying transatlantic and never heard of Rule 240, you want to know it, just in case. As quoted from Aviation.com: “If an airline [can't] get you to your destination on time, it [is] required to put you on a competitor’s flight if it would get you there faster than your original airline’s next flight.” If you don’t remember anything else from us, remember rule 240, and speak up, man!

2. It’s not just about Expedia or Orbitz: You’ve probably used those, and know that you can occasionally get better deals when going via online travel sites instead of directly with airlines.  However, there are other alternatives. Microsoft’s Small Business Center suggests that you should look again at travel agents, or your local newspaper’s Sunday travel section for deals.  For example, I recently booked a flight to Vegas > Seattle > LA > London for just £30 more than the direct cost of a flight from London to Vegas.  Not bad considering it actually stops over in each destination for 2-4 days.  How is this possible? Agents can often negotiate lower rates on the behalf of a large travel company through affiliate agreements.

3. YUPP, you can fly first: Just remember to get your travel agent to help you get onto the YUPP/QUPP/Z code, which automatically award ticket holders with upgrades to first class.  It’s obviously a hit and miss, but according to FareCompare’s president Rick Seaney, “a lot of times the YUPPs are matching some sort of low-cost carrier in a particular market.” (more…)

As the nightmarish reality of the stuff of things hits us hard, and we wake up to the fact that (a) Christmas is over (b) we’ve scoffed all the sweets, and (c) it’s frigging freezing, it’s time to turn our thoughts towards fresh escapism. Getting away from it all.

Together with the bargain junkies at HotUKDeals, here’s a few tips that will help you leave behind your day-to-day drudgery and take a well-earned break – while keeping back enough dosh to use as spending money.

How do you feel about a holiday costing from as little as £9.50? You’d probably imagine that it involves sleeping in a ditch in the Shetland Islands and surviving on potato peelings that have been dumped round the back of a nearby chippy.

You’d be bloody wrong. In fact it involves cutting out tokens from a national newspaper and taking your pick from a wide and wonderful range of destinations. If you want to survive on potato peelings that have been dumped round the back of a nearby chippy, that’s entirely your choice.
(deal found by weesiecodal)
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