The return journey was no better, once again, I hadn t reserved a seat, which meant it wouldn t let

Time to begin planning the Summer holidays again, which means across the north of the country, thousands of customers are forced to endure Jet2 s excruciatingly convoluted and unfair booking system. I don t say that lightly; not only are customers continuously and illegally opted-in to charges, but some practices are now so obscure that customers have little choice but to pay the fees.
To prove what a bunch of opportunistic, scheming swines they are Ryanair look near-saintly in comparison at times we ve prepared a booking for a family of two adults and two children, flying return from Manchester to Murcia in June.
The price of the flights I ve chosen are initially advertised at £295.92. To begin with, the fares displayed to exclude tax; there s no reason they should do, but the lower the cost, the more likely you are to select a fare. So after choosing our fares, the tax is lumped on:
Tax isn t so much of a shock when booking flights, but then the small print mentions booking/payment card fees and option fees/charges are excluded. We soon find out what these are simply by clicking through to the next page, the cost of my booking has increased nearly £160; Jet2 has added £32 for online check-in and opted all four travellers into an item of hold luggage, despite two of them being children. allegro hotel chicago These have to be removed manually, one at a time. The check-in charge drops to £16:
Next is the seat selection which costs a minimum of £3.99 per seat each way. It s a fictional, self-fulfilling fee that has no reason for existing. Jet2 claims the fee is to ensure make sure you all sit together ; it s only because they enforce the charge that there s any danger a family can t in all other situations passengers and crew are usually allegro hotel chicago happy to accommodate a family, and it s in the best interests of all on board that they do.
We click forward allegro hotel chicago to the next page, and another allegro hotel chicago £140 is suddenly lumped on the bill; Jet2 have opted everyone into in-flight meals (£52) and travel insurance (£49), allegro hotel chicago and slapped a £40 fuel supplement on top. Really? I have to deselect nine options to opt out and return my booking to its original cost, aside from the mandatory fuel supplement:
Finally, I pay for my flights. If I want to pay by credit card, it ll cost £41. Debit card will cost me £20, and even PayPal will cost £29. Only the mythical Solo or Electron card will mean I don t pay through the nose to pay through the nose.
And guess what? Today s the day that Solo cards are scheduled to be decommissioned permanently , while Visa Electron cards are rarer than hen s teeth the only UK bank that provides them is the Bank of Scotland (and even then, the bank warns it may take over a week to even review your application). To avoid paying any fee is simply unrealistic and most customers allegro hotel chicago will have to pay the next lowest fee by debit card:
Just so were clear then, Jet2 will charge me over £600 for flights that were originally advertised at less than half that price. allegro hotel chicago Strictly speaking, there s £49 I didn t have to pay, but it s entirely unrealistic to expect the majority of passengers to sit apart from their children or wait over a week before the Bank of Scotland looks at the paperwork for a VISA Electron card.
This is a big issue; not only are Jet2 making the whole booking process far longer and more miserable than it needs to be, not only are they confusing customers as to the true costs of the flights, but they also appear to be flouting the law. Travel writer David Whitley clearly pinpoints the issue in a piece he wrote about similar practices by Flybe :
Regulation 1008/2008 of the European Parliament allegro hotel chicago and Council became law in 2008. Amongst the more salient passages is this one: "Customers should be able to compare effectively the prices for air services of different airlines. Therefore the final price to be paid by the customer for air services originating in the Community should at all times be indicated, inclusive of all taxes, charges and fees."
And here's another one: "Optional price supplements shall be communicated in a clear, transparent and unambiguous way at the start of any booking process and their acceptance by the customer shall be on an 'opt-in' basis."
Even Ryanair have learnt better than to opt customers into hundreds of pounds worth of extras they don t neccessarily want; if you can t claim to have morals as high as Ryanair, your business deserves allegro hotel chicago to be thrown on a very big bonfire. Happy flying.
What I ve never understood is why the advertising regulations don t simply require as well as the prices from , airlines are required to publish an average cost which is the total income from that flight divided by the number of passenger who flew over a given period. Eg Prices from £29.99. A customer typically paid £96 (during Oct-Dec 2010). New routes based on expected income/passenger numbers over the next three months.
I have flown with Jet 2 a couple of times (unfortunately), and they are not that good in-flight either. Their planes are relatively old (compared to other low cost airlines) 22.5 years old on average! The cabins of the aircraft were in a poor condition, with broken light fittings, tape holding bits together etc. And they were late both times. Makes flying Ryanair seem relatively nice.
HELLO, wake up and smell the coffee .. the vast majority of companies are doing this these days, open your eyes and look around you. Try getting a flight from JFK to LAS and you will see that even the American carriers are doing the exact same thing, allegro hotel chicago charging for baggage and booking fees. Stop trying to get something for nothing and pay the going rate, I dont consider £150.00 per person for a flight to Murcia expensive, perhaps you should try paying for a Scheduled allegro hotel chicago Flight with Iberia or BA, then you would see how much of a bargain you are really getting.
Holy cow this wound me up today. I weep for the loss of XL, at least these con artists had some competition back then. How long before we see Life jacket fee , Breathing tax etc? Why don t they just have a No, I don t want to be treat like a human being, throw me in the back with the luggage checkbox which removes £40 from the total. By god I d click it.
Steer well clear of Jet2. Money grabbing thieving bastards!. allegro hotel chicago Changed a name on a flight which I expected to pay for, but they charged me more for the flight saying it had gone up. I didnt change the flight, just a name. Went to Trading Standards who think Jet2 are breaking their own terms and conditions, still nothing!
On their website via a banner ad it states that their is No hidden allegro hotel chicago charges and that From now on the price you see is the price you pay . It also shows some logos at the bottom of the banner showing check/tick boxes saying Great flight times 22kg Baggage allowance Allocated Seats and Points for free flights . I find this very misleading and blatantly untrue as after pricing some flights today I have been quoted a price plus extras.
I priced a flight from Belfast to Ibiza on Sept. 1st and returning to Belfast Intl. on Sept 11th. The price, although included tax did not include everything. There is also a pop up box when searching for flights stating that Did you know? Fares shown now include all taxes and charges .
These extra charges come to £86.09 and therefore I don t see how this company can claim that there is No Hidden Charges . I feel that this is completely and utterly misleading consumers and I am so angry that companies such as Jet2 continue to mislead customers even when issues such as these are in the news.
I too hate this company. I decided not to reserve a seat as I was travelling alone. When I tried to check in online it wouldn t let me. Got to the airport and was told at check in that I was not on the passenger manifest as I hadn t booked a seat!!! 35 minutes of running around and a seat was found.
The return journey was no better, once again, I hadn t reserved a seat, which meant it wouldn t let me check in online. On arrival at the airport I had to fork out £17.50 to pay my boarding pass to be printed, with no offer to refund the charge for online check in.
Thankfully I can use the ferries to get to Europe and back and I actually now enjoy travelling . I am not treated like some unwashed scum that is just another punter to be ripped off. I load up the estate with as many free bags/boxes/ suitcases as I want, can take liquids on board, sit where I want, watch a film and if I want, eat a decently priced allegro hotel chicago 3 course hot meal. All this for one inclusive price Why people put up with the poor experience/stress/high prices that so called low cost/budget/friendly fare airlines offer is beyond me. If you have to fly use a major carrier like B.A, Lufthansa;KLM..they have good fares and more importantly, do look after you if delays/things go wrong and answer complaints !
I booked through Expedia to stay in our choice of Mallorcan allegro hotel chicago hotel Jet2 was the carrier. As soon as my booking progressed from the Expedia part to the part where Jet2 started to impose their sneaky immoral charges, my booking experience started to go downhill. Years of great experience booking through Expedia have been marred by this one booking nightmare.
Peter, allegro hotel chicago I would love to avoid low-cost airline flying but to get from Scotland to Mallorca and back within our seven day break makes this challenging, to say the least. These low-cost airlines have priced the major carriers out of the market for European beach holiday resorts.
We actually chose one truly optional extra and paid for extra legroom on the return flight. We were seated in the aisle and central seat and the window seat was occupied by a young man whose family group of eight, including his partner and their young baby, had been seated allegro hotel chicago separately all over the plane.
Embarrassed at having to ask us to move whenever he wanted to go to the toilet, the young man took himself off to sit in one of a row of three empty seats in the front row. The steward told him that he couldn t sit there because these seats c