When I first started flying to Hong Kong I was 10 years old, and I used to fly by myself. I was dropped at the airport by my guardians, and they would hand me over to someone from British Caledonian and they put me into the Lion club, which was for young flyers. I used to feel so special, getting a pack to keep me entertained through the flight. Even as I got older the flights were enjoyable, it was still an adventure.
I realised today that all the enjoyment and adventure has gone, thanks mainly to budget airlines. I had the displeasure today of dealing with Jet2 for the first time, and hopefully the last. Not only has the enjoyment and excitement of booking your flight gone, its been replaced with frustration and anger.
I used the Skyscanner website to find a flight to Cyprus from Leeds / Bradford next year. Skyscanner found me a flight with Jet2 for £425.96. I thought that was a great price and so decided to book it.
I was forwarded to the Jet2 site, and asked to fill in some details. Now this is where I quickly figured out that the £425.96 was just bait to draw you into the site. Once in the costs would be added on.
Now the first thing you get hit with is baggage. It states that hand luggage is free, however if you want to take anything to go in the hold its going to cost you: £41.98 per 22kg bag. Lets be honest, who is going to go on a 2 week holiday without taking at least one suitcase. So there is definitely going to be that charge added on.
Next thing you're hit with is: Online Check-in or Airport Check-in. Now the Online Check-in is £10 extra (Not exactly sure why it costs anything, but there we go). However, if you want to Check-in at the airport it will cost you: £36 (Now that is just scandalous).
Once you click to move to the next page, you get a pop-up that asks you if you want to take anymore baggage as Jet2 are doing a special deal at the moment: 50% off baggage costs. Wow! Sign me up!
Its great to see a company giving something back, they're so generous. Enough of the sarcasm.
So I got to the next page, and I find a diagram of a plane and it asks me where I would like to sit. When I click on a seat it says its either £6.99 or £24.99. So basically I have pay for a seat. Not only that but I have to pay for it on the return flight also. Surely a seat would be a prerequisite of a flight. I mean I cant really fly without a seat, its not like its a bus. Pathetic!
Then we move onto the next page, the meal. Now I'm aware of meals on most flights cost extra these days, so its quite easy to skip this one. There's no way I'm going to pay £40 for 2 of us to have 2 meals outbound and 2 inbound. Also we're not going to buy Jet2's insurance at £19.54 per person, or their entertainment pack for £40 for 2 people for both flights.
So we're finally at the check-out, not bad so far. However once you select you want to pay with a Visa/Debit card, you then get hit with an £18.21 booking fee. Ouch! That however isnt the worst. You want to pay with PayPal that's: £10.21 on top of the booking fee. However on a Credit Card, you're looking at £18.87 on top of the booking fee.
Anyway, lets add all this up. Lets say I was going to pay with a Debit Card. Now the amount I was quoted on Skyscanner was: £425.96. The actual amount I was expected to pay was: £524.11
In the end I booked with Thomson and got it for £381 flying from Manchester.
Now the point of this blog was vent my anger at the so called budget airline industry. It seems like all the budget with none of the cost saving. Also to warn other people of the perils of using budget airlines.
Get rid of budget airlines they offer nothing. You're stressed when you've finally booked your flight due to the fact that its nearly £100 more than what you thought you would be paying. Or you end doing what I ended up doing, going through the whole process getting to the end and then going to look elsewhere having wasted about 45mins of your life.
So are we getting anything out of budget airlines? My personal opinion is no. Bring back all inclusive flights. I'd much rather just buy a ticket and know that its all included and I'm not going to get hit with a charge, like somewhere to bloody sit.
So for me the pleasure and adventure has gone from air travel. Please bring back all inclusive flights, I'm fed up of the poor service and hidden charges.
Please be aware when looking for flights, that the initial cost your quoted wont be the one you have to pay. Oh and just for the record, I think its quite funny how Jet2 have taken there Twitter account down. There was probably too many complaints about the hidden charges. That cant be good for their PR if everyone is complaining.
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