Holiday makers penalised for paying by credit card
In an attempt to try and take even more money from the British traveller, holiday companies are now charging up to five per cent on top of bookings for those paying for their holidays by credit cards, according to research conducted by travelsupermarket.com.
This is the latest in a long line of additional charges for holiday makers, after seeing a price increase in flights and car hire, along with the luxury of taking luggage, a pushchair for their child or even to use the toilet on some flights, these latest findings have hardly been met with enthusiasm from the British public, as the survey of just over 2400 people showed that 84% of respondents admitted they were annoyed with the additional charges for paying by credit card.
The average charge is normally 3%, however some firms have now ramped this up to 5% to increase the cost of each holiday, with 118 Travel being the worst offenders, charging those who pay by American Express an unfair 5% on top of the cost of the holiday. This could add up to an extra £100 on a £2000 family holiday, which could have gone towards your spending money rather than lining the pockets of travel companies.
Others are following suit; it’s not just 118 Travel – Thomson, Direct Holidays and First Choice are hitting customers with a charge between 2-3% of their total holiday cost.
To make matters worse, this fee is now being passed on to those who pay by debit cards, so you are effectively penalised for booking with the company rather than saving money for using them, with onthebeach.co.uk charging 1.95%.
Bob Atkinson, travel expert from www.travelsupermarket.com, said: “Whilst travel providers do get charged by card merchants when they accept payment by credit card, they are not only passing these charges on to customers, but actually increasing them in order to generate extra revenue.
“The fact that some holiday companies also charge for debit card payments is a worrying development and a cynical ploy. Whilst providers may be billed anything up to 90p per transaction by card merchants for accepting payment on debit card, charging holidaymakers percentages of anything up to 1.95 per cent for this payment method is completely unjustifiable. Credit card transactions attract fees to the holiday companies from around 1.5 per cent to 3.5 per cent, which help to explain some of the fees, being passed on.”
“Travel is one of the few industries in which we regularly make purchases and pay for the privilege of using our cards to pay. This is because the margins that companies earn in travel are far lower than many other retail and service industries where mark ups are far higher and the opportunity to swallow up card charges are greater within the overall price. Every retailer negotiates their own deal with the merchants and fees they pay may vary dramatically from smaller to larger holiday companies.
“Many holidaymakers are under the impression that paying on a credit card gives them greater protection should their travel company go bust. Whilst paying on credit card does offer protection under the Consumer Credit Act 1974 should your company go bust, specific insurance known as End Supplier Failure to cover you should your holiday company go under is available for far less than the amount being charged by holiday providers to pay on a credit card.”
Protection is also offered to some customers who use a debit card such as Visa, as you can charge back your payment if the company you book with goes bust, as long as it is within 120 days of the collapse of the company. Please be aware that debit cards do not have the same range of protection as a credit card.
Mr Atkinson concluded: “If your holiday arrangements are made under the ATOL licence, you will be completely covered, so it makes no difference if you have credit card protection or not. The best advice is therefore to go with one of the many travel providers that don’t charge for debit card payments and ensure your arrangements are covered under the ATOL licence. If they’re not, purchase the extra insurance and leave the credit card in your wallet or purse.”
| Provider | Card Fees/Admin Fees | Cost by Credit Card (£2000 holiday) |
Cost by Debit Card (£2000 holiday) |
| 118 Travel | Credit Cards – 3% handling fee, American Express 5% (Debit Cards £2.50) |
£2,060.00 | £2,002.50 |
| Cosmos | Credit Cards – 2.00% handling fee (Debit Cards are free) |
£2,040.00 | £2,000.00 |
| Direct Holidays | Credit Card – 2.5% (Debit Cards are free) |
£2,050.00 | £2,000.00 |
| Expedia | Package Holidays 2.5% credit cards – debit cards free | £2,050.00 | £2,000.00 |
| First Choice | Credit Cards – 2.50% handling fee (Debit Cards are free) |
£2,050.00 | £2,000.00 |
| Flight and Hotel | Credit Cards – 3.00% handling fee (Debit Cards £2.50) |
£2,060.00 | £2,002.50 |
| Holiday Genie | Credit Cards – 2.00% handling fee (Debit Cards are free) |
£2,040.00 | £2,000.00 |
| Kuoni | Credit Cards – 2.00% handling fee (Debit Cards are free) |
£2,040.00 | £2,000.00 |
| lowcostholidays.com | Credit Cards – 2.95% handling fee Debit Cards – 1.45% handling fee |
£2,059.00 | £2,029.00 |
| Olympic Holidays | Credit Cards – 2.25% handling fee Debit Cards – £1.00 handling fee |
£2,045.00 | £2,020.00 |
| Onthebeach.co.uk | Credit Cards – 2.95% handling fee Debit Cards – 1.95% handling fee |
£2,059.00 | £2,039.00 |
| Qwerty Travel | Credit Cards – 2.00% handling fee (Debit Cards are free) |
£2,040.00 | £2,000.00 |
| Southall Travel | Credit Cards – 2.00% handling fee (Debit Cards are free) |
£2,040.00 | £2,000.00 |
| Thomas Cook | Credit Cards – 2.50% handling fee (Debit Cards are free) |
£2,050.00 | £2,000.00 |
| Thomson | Credit Cards – 2.50% handling fee (Debit Cards are free) |
£2,050.00 | £2,000.00 |
Bristol Airport installs new mural to impress arriving passengers
An eye-catching piece of art designed to welcome visitors to the South West went on show today (Friday 26 November) when the Tourism and Heritage Minister, John Penrose, officially unveiled a 57 metre long mural in Bristol Airport’s new arrivals walkway.
The mural was designed by Bristol based creative agency, Halo Media, and features images of many iconic attractions from across the region while capturing the South West’s blend of enterprise and natural beauty in a dramatic piece of art.
Mr Penrose, whose Weston-super-Mare constituency is depicted in the mural, said:
“This is a stunning piece of work – big, bold and bang up-to-date. The South West has so much to offer visitors, and it’s great to see it all brought together in such an eye-catching way.”
The mural adorns a 57 metre stretch of the Airport’s new walkway, which opened earlier this year. The walkway connects the terminal building to eight pre-boarding zones, enabling passengers to walk to and from aircraft undercover instead of being driven by bus.
The mural can be viewed online at www.halomedia.co.uk/mural.
New British Airways flights to Chambery from London City
British Airways is extending its route network from London City Airport this winter with a new flight from London to Chambery, the gateway to the French Alps.
The service, by BACityFlyer, the wholly owned subsidiary of British Airways, will operate four times a week from 18th December until the end of March 2011, using the airline’s fleet of brand new Embraer 190 aircraft.
The new British Airways flights to Chambery will depart on Mondays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays with flights from the French ski destination back to London on Mondays, Tuesdays, Saturdays and Sundays.
easyJet and Lowcosttravelgroup annouce 3 year collaboration
easyJet and Lowcosttravelgroup announce a 3 year agreement to combine easyJet’s low fares and convenient flights with Lowcost’s great value and high quality accommodation to offer the consumer competitively priced, flexible and convenient holidays across easyJet’s network.
By bringing together easyJet, with its huge European network of low fares and convenient flights and Lowcost’s world class technology, award winning accommodation and transfer programmes, consumers will be able to book an impressive range of flexible holidays through a single web site, easyjet.com, supported by a state of the art call centre.
easyJet holidays will be marketed to easyJet’s 50m+ customers through a range of on and off line marketing channels to create a major holiday business across Europe. The proposition will be launched in the UK early in 2011.
As well as its extensive and great quality accommodation and transfers, Lowcost will provide specialist marketing, call centre and customer service expertise to create a major force in the rapidly growing online market for flexible holidays. Lowcost will provide attractively priced, top quality accommodation across European city and beach destinations to meet a wide range of customer needs.
easyJet CEO Carolyn McCall said “We see a significant opportunity to further grow our ancillary revenues, by offering our customers a huge range of flexible and low cost beach and city holidays. This will be based on our extensive, convenient flight schedule and Lowcosttravelgroup’s great quality, competitive accommodation and transfers. We are delighted to have signed this 3 year pan-European deal with one of the leading lights in the travel industry. Their product range is a perfect fit with easyJet’s low fares and convenient flight programme”.
Paul Evans, CEO of Lowcosttravelgroup commented “We are very proud to have been selected to work with easyJet to create a new and exciting holiday brand in the travel industry. Lowcost’s significant growth over the last 5 years has demonstrated the huge demand for good value, flexible and convenient holidays and combined with easyJet’s respected brand, we believe we can create a very significant player in this market.”
Novel way of checking out progress on Gatwick Airport’s £1 billion investment programme
Gatwick Airport (www.gatwickairport.com) has unveiled a novel way of bringing its £1 billion investment programme to life, through a barcode ‘Gatwick Discovery Tour.’ Becoming the only airport in the world to use standard barcodes as an audio-visual information tool, Gatwick is also the first UK brand to work with stickybits (www.stickybits.com), whose free mobile application is used to scan the codes.
Gatwick is kicking the tour off at the North Terminal inter-terminal shuttle departure point (http://foursquare.com/venue/11815444). A video shows how the new shuttle route between the North and South Terminals was built, and opened a month ahead of schedule.
Over the coming weeks and months, more barcodes will be introduced at check-in and just after security in the North Terminal as well as the forecourt areas and immigration in the South Terminal. Locations will be changed and the content refreshed to keep the tour interesting and up-to-date. The aim is to give passengers an audio visual peek behind the scenes of how their London airport is being transformed.
Samantha Holgate, Gatwick’s Head of Airport Communications said: “The airport is going through a major programme of improvement designed to benefit the passengers but most of this work is hidden behind standard construction hoarding. We wanted to find a fun and interactive way to communicate to passengers about how the money is being invested, what work is going on behind the hoarding and how they will eventually benefit. Many of our passengers are social media savvy so introducing stickybits is a great way to interact with them.”
The Gatwick Discovery Tour forms part of an overall strategy by the airport to use social media tools to keep passengers up-to-date with what is going on at the airport, give them a mechanism to feedback on their experiences and improve the overall information flow around the airport.
As part of this, operations and customer services staff are undergoing training in the use of Twitter with the aim of making it a 24 hour real-time customer services tool, and Gatwick is planning to unveil further ways in which passengers can interact with the airport over the next two months.
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