BMIBaby fees

Just been looking to book a flight with BMIBaby to Almeria from East Midlands (never been to Almeria and fancy a change), base fare of £105.98. Just thought I would put into perspective some of the fees they charge, that people moan about on another airline.

Optional travel insurance £10.79 per person.

Airport check in £16 per person

Online check in £0 (you cannot check in online if you have hold luggage)

22kg bag £31.98

£9.99 seat selection each way

No booking fee with Visa Electron, all other cards incur a £3.50 per person, per journey fee. There is also a credit card supplement of £1.50 per person, per flight.  A minimum of £4 wll be charged for debit car and minimum £8.50 for credit cards.

Don't know if a fuel surcharge as didn't progress.

My "cheap" flight, now becomes £192ish if I choose the extras!!!

Mark

My hubby and I always check out and compare the different airlines before booking our flights to Spain. BMI may be a budget airline but its no competition to RA, which has never been beaten on price when we have wanted / needed to travel.

People have a tendency to bemoan RA, but I have to say that when we have flown with a different airline to RA, the whole process hasn't been any more comfortable or less stressful than RA.

Personally, I'd rather get the best price possible for my flights and have as many trips as possible to our little casa in the sun than pay more with one of RA's competitors and have less trips!

If BMI didnt have all the extra costs and were as cheap as RA (or more importantly, cheaper), we would possibly fly with them

BMI Baby have the highest baggage charge by the time you add on airport checkin so they rarely work out cheapest if you carry luggage.

Seats are allocated when you check in online, so no need to pay for that, and most frequest travellers to Spain will have annual multi trip insurance, so no need for that either.

We check all options and choose based on price, flight time etc - but if there was not to much in I would pay a little morefor the extra legroom you get with Aer Lingus but our next couple of trips are with BMI Baby as they were cheapest and the flight times are civilised

 Sorry, manxmonkey, but although I agree that add-on charges for 'budget' airlines are a pain you, as a consumer, have the ultimate choice to but or not to buy.  What I would take issue with is your claim that debit card payments are in the company's bank account within seconds.  As a business owner I can assure you that you are lucky if they are in your account within 3 working days.  If a weekend intervenes then it takes 5 days and if there is a Bank Holiday then it takes 7 days. Business customers paid me on 4th April by debit card and the money was in our account on 11th April, and those paying on 5th April were credited to our account on 12th April. For the intervening 7 days the money was .....where?  And it is 25p per transaction for us - not 19p, although no doubt big companies get a better deal than we do.

It is a complete fallacy that debit card payments go into the payees account instantly.  By the way, the same timescale applies to credit card payments albeit with a percentage charge added, not a fixed fee.

Hi Dougie, Just had a similar chat to a friend here in Guernsey who has three shops. I'm retired now but know my companies use (lazy I suppose) just the Streamrange service of our own bank, it's too expensive really but the money is always in our account on the same working day. So if we till up at 18:00 it shows in the account next day. It is possible to have it there immediately if you have enough clout.  I'm retired now but still act as a consultant so I may mention that the guys in accounts look at an alternative card handler. My shopowner friend uses a cheaper deal through Santander even though he doesn't bank with them and said it can take between 1 and 6 days for the credit! Either way card charges are a rip off whether they pay 11p or 49p I recently paid a single charge to cover a flight from Guernsey via Gatwick to the Isle of Man and return.  I was charged for two debit card charges - so £20.

However that aside what I am saying is that "The Price"  should be clear from the outset. That enables me and all other travellers to quickly obtain a comparison. I know I pay over the odds on my travel because I just get an approximation of comparison costs of flights as I don't have the time to go through to the final check out price on every airline.  Aurigny are winning a lot of customers by advertising "Transparent Pricing". The advertised price is now the total price including tax, card charges and even 1 hold bag and one piece of hand luggage which really I think we all now accept is an extra.  Oh and they include a hot or soft drink on board. Trivial things but people are all saying it's a value service. I've used them 3 times myself recently following the recommendations from friends so it works. And they make it easy to book one way unlike the flybe deals.  And just seeing the price, say £130 and knowing it is £130 is so comfortable. 

Don't you agree that if all prices were transparent it would be fairer?  Even if the £10 so called handling or admin charge was simply added to the flight cost so long as the headline price included tax and card / admin charges. Out of interest I know none of my companies have ever charged for credit or debit cards but when i was around I always encouraged to try to get customers to pay by debit card as even on a few thousand pound payment it was just pennies as opposed to a percentage. So fairest for consumers would be that the airlines would build in the cost of everything correctly like all businesses should do, no fuel surcharge or secretary's dress charge - cost the product and the profit correctly and charge such.  Then offer a discount for paying by debit card! 

New subject maybe - I prefer ferries - usually it's so much less stressful than airports.