Crafty hidden fees.

[gavroche]

When you book a holiday and pay your money, you might think all you need then is just spending money when you get there and budget accordingly: wrong!!
When you feel in your passport details for the flight, the airline 'gives' you the option to reserve your seats so that you travel together!! Why? You have already paid for your seats as part of the holiday. In our case, it is another £40 but for my step daughter because there are four of them, it is £160 extra. Luckily, she can afford it but I think it is disgraceful and a very poor practice on the part of the airlines as they know families will want to sit together on the plane.

 

[gbb]

It's another way they've devised of squeezing some more money out of you IMO.
It has been going on for a few years now. We never had to say 5 or so years ago and long before then suddenly it was an option. We paid...grudgingly. The next year we didn't bother paying the extra and IMO I suspect they split you up anyway, even if there were seats available...ensuring you pay up the next time.
It's a fact of life now and has been for a few years.

 

[Houthakker]

Well travelled friends of ous refuse to pay seat selection charges and say that most airlines seems to take delight is seating them as far apart as possible

 

[Wixsteman]

You don’t know my family good luck to whoever’s sitting next to them

 

[Drago]

I'd pay 40 quid to sit separate from my lot and have so e peace and quiet!

 

[Moodyman]

The budget airline/s get a lot of flack, but people are not forced to pay for the extras.

If grown ups* cannot manage without sitting together for a two or three hour flight, it says a lot about them.

* They always sit small kids with their parents.

 

[screenman]

Not a hidden fee if you know it is there which we all do, look at it this way, they depend on it to help make a profit, without it holidays would cost more.

 

[steveindenmark]

They are not hidden fees if you read through the booking conditions.

I have never paid to sit with my partner but we are always placed together. It wouldnt bother us if we were not.

I can see the problem with children though.

 

[snorri]

I had an unpleasant crafty fee experience at Vancouver airport on returning to the UK a few years ago on a return trip fully paid for, as I thought, with BA. After checking in and handing over my luggage there was another desk where I was held to ransom for 'airport improvement tax'. It was unlikely that I could have arranged to travel home any other way without incurring even more expenditure, but it certainly didn't do the Canadian image any good to have unexpected expenditure as the departing memory.
It would have been better for PR to have increased the landing charges to BA who would in turn pass them on to passengers when buying tickets.

 

[TVC]

Don't pay the fee and accept that if you pay £25 to fly to Spain you will sit where they say.

 

[pjd57]

Flight only , luggage costs are a joke .
£40+ each .
We usually book 20kg for 1 , add on an extra 5kg , saves £20 to £25 , and we still get to take a case each , as long as it's not really big.

 

[Brandane]

The flip side (but it was about 20 years ago!)....

Flew Glasgow to San Francisco, via Heathrow, return, with BA for about £500.
Turned up at San Francisco airport for the return flight to find it over-booked. They asked if I would mind traveling home via LA, for $400 (about £250 then) cash as compensation for my trouble.
It involved a 1 hour flight to LA then BA to Heathrow. I caught the same flight to Glasgow as I was supposed to get on the original itinerary!

I suspect such deals are now a thing of the past.

 

[Drago]

I guess the routine nature of modern commercial flight, and the relatively low pricing, is pretty bad for the environment.

 

[swee'pea99]

When I was a kid you didn't have to pay extra for particular seats, they gave you food onboard, and you got a decent luggage allowance. Then again, the price of my ticket to NZ and then back as far as LA (I couldn't afford further) cost £1050. In 1983. Last year my daughter's NZ return cost a bit under £800.

 

[MontyVeda]

When I was a kid you didn't have to pay extra for particular seats, they gave you food onboard, and you got a decent luggage allowance. Then again, the price of my ticket to NZ and then back as far as LA (I couldn't afford further) cost £1050. In 1983. Last year my daughter's NZ return cost a bit under £800.

I didn't have to pay extra for particular seats when i flew to the states last year... but i did put my travelling partner in the seat in front of me rather than beside me.