It really annoys me as well. Last year BA changed from a flat £5 PER PERSON booking fee to a 1% fee. The maximum is £20 - but this is actually £20 per person. Now that is ridiculous. I can't see how one transaction covering 4 people on a long haul holiday could amount to £80 in fees.

It wouldn't, Fiona, and the thing is that the number of people on the booking wouldn't effect the fees charged by the banks. It would all count as a single transaction. There is no excuse for charging on a per person basis - any fee should always have been based on the total for that transaction not the number of passengers. And I still don't get why a lot of companies within the travel industry are incapable of doing what very other industry seems to be capable of - totalling up its business overheads and including them in their pricing structure.

It's one of the reasons why I like the company I use for my trips to Cuba - they charge a flat administrative fee when they put together a package for you including booking your flights etc. It doesn't matter how many of you are going or what the total cost is, so you know exactly where you stand. I'm more than happy to pay it because I know that I'm also paying for the time of the person who is also doing the legwork for me - it seems a small price to pay for me not spending hours at the keyboard comparing prices etc.

Ive read the BA booking fees to be as 1% of the booking , in that a booking of 2 people costing £1000 would be £10 , if 4 people in a booking costing £1000 the fee would be £10 , if 1 person booked a flight in say First costing £4000 , the fee would be £40 , but the maximum is £20 so only £20 would be payable . If a booking of 2 people flying Club World at 2500 each , the total booking cost would be 5000 and a 1% fee would total £50 , but a max of £20 per person would mean a £40 fee payable . In fact the newer booking fees means that cheaper flights that now cost less than £500 per person would attract a lower booking fee than the previous flat fee of £5 per person , but for people booking more expensive flights like CW or first will pay more than the previous £5 per person flat fee .

https://www.britishairways.com/travel/gsanswer/public/en_gb?faqid=1160&gsLink=searchResults

I agree that companies in the the travel industry seem to think their customers should pay fees that are part of running their business is absurd , also the other types of fees like booking fees prevalent in the ticket industry ( concerts , theatres etc )


Just checked and it is 20 per person , so if a booking of 4 people buying £2000 tickets each a total of 8000 , it would cost £80 in fees ( £20 per person )

It does seem to penalise people buying expensive tickets , but I think most people think if you can afford a £2000 ticket you can afford a £20 fee !!! Also many companies do appear to levy a 2% fee for card use .

I recently paid 2 per cent charge also for next years holiday to Ireland.

Unfortunately Travel Agents cannot afford to swallow the fees that the credit card companies charge due to small profit margins other industries also charge credit card fees usally small businesses . An 8k transaction using a business debit card cost my business in excess of £150 I cant afford to stand that. When the new regulations come into force next January i will have to make a decision not to accept credit cards only debit and bacs payments .i may loose some business but thats the risk I take

Yes it would be difficult. Many people like to use crefit card as it's safer. But that is a huge fee to swallow as a small company.

On the other hand £150 is less than 2% of the transaction - I'm still not sure why your pricing model doesn't allow for something like that to be costed in to your prices? Are you saying that the company concerned wouldn't have put the business your way of you had instead charged them £8,150 thereby including the fee in the price you quoted then instead of adding it later as a surcharge? I suspect that you will lose a lot of company customers and/or they will insist on you in effect giving them free credit by instead paying on the basis of you raising an invoice with them for settlement at a later date. It's just not the way most companies work on transactions of that size.

Must admit I find transaction / ticket fees, etc a right scunner, and something that should be controlled better (especially per ticket or per transaction fees, and booking fees .... yep, it really take £4 - £8 for you to put that through your electronic system!! )

I do usually put something on my credit card though to take advantage of the protection

Section 75

Me too Cidermonster 👍