Jetstar - Online Booking Rort

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  chloden on 18/07/2012 - 11:22

  +1

  You don't have to choose your seat, you can wait until a day or so before you travel and when you check in on line you can choose your seat for free. The only problem is that there is limited availability, but we are a family of 5 and we haven't had a problem yet. As for the CC fee it is an absolute joke! We travel on Jetstar alot so we have the Jetstar card to avoid a fee, but if you are not a frequent flyer with Jetstar then that is of no use. I guess you chose the right option with bank deposit but I heard that the government was going to make it illegal for companies to charge their customers more than what the CC fees cost the company. Ahh I guess we will just have to wait and see!

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  plmko on 18/07/2012 - 11:47

  Credit cards facility use is around 2.5% of the total and even then Jetstar pays a fixed facility lease rate.

  If you think your credit card fee is ridiculous, I bought 3 tickets under one account and had to pay the credit card fee three times even though it was under the one transaction (that's 3 X $25 = $75). Hardly material in the context of three international tickets, but it's an extra for what.

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  retiredfeline on 18/07/2012 - 11:53

  Yeah, it's a well known scam by airlines and cabcharge, charging far more than the cost of processing a CC payment. Choice is campaigning to have this rectified. I use Poli to do a direct debit to avoid this. You can also pay by direct debit if you are not worried about losing the booking. I think some insider mentioned that they hold your booking for a few days anyway if you choose DD, provided the flight is not imminent. But of course such avenues are not open to Cabcharge users.

  Don't think I've ever paid for seat choice, I don't really mind much where I sit, it's only for a while. This "premium" thingy, and also a premium for early boarding, seems to be popular on Asian and European budget airlines.

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  fertiliser on 18/07/2012 - 11:58

  +2

  you haven't flown in a while have you hb40? This is all pretty standard for most budget airlines. $250 or whatever for four adults flying ANYWHERE is a good deal, or did you not notice that?

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  mintysaurus on 18/07/2012 - 12:37

  The seat selection page….there is a small option somewhere to 'skip'.

  I always get asked at the airport if I want aisle or window, and I fly alone so I never bother with the $4

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  FromAtoZ on 18/07/2012 - 16:40

  it sounds to me, the OP flies like once every few year.

  SEAT SELECTION - gives you a choice to select a Seat you want. if you dont buy it, thats fine. You still have a seat, dont have to stand.

  CC SURCHARGE - whats so new about this?

  But alas, they wanted to charge me $49 for paying using my credit card on their website. That's 18% of the total fee was going to be for credit card processing.

  Exactly what brand of credit card did you use? Visa, Master, AMEX or else ?

  • 

    retiredfeline on 18/07/2012 - 16:51

    +1

    CC SURCHARGE - whats so new about this?

    No, it's not new. But that's not the issue.

    But alas, they wanted to charge me $49 for paying using my credit card on their website. That's 18% of the total fee was going to be for credit card processing.

    Yes, that's exactly the problem.

    Exactly what brand of credit card did you use? Visa, Master, AMEX or else ?

    Any brand of CC except theirs gets whacked with a big surcharge. Which makes it plain that it's arbitrary and they are profiteering. Also per passenger per sector. How can they justify that as a transaction charge when there's only one transaction?

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  sraymond on 18/07/2012 - 19:47

  I tred to pay by DD and my bank said something about the number being too long. After a phone call to Jetstar with no real help I just waited Needless to say it bounced back and so I decided to pay by CC. It showed the $17 when I paid, but it never appeared on my statement.

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  hb40 on 19/07/2012 - 10:30

  Hi, thanks for all the extra info and tips.

  Seating: I never knew you could skip the Seat ($4) selection page at booking. That skip button must be tucked away :) I guess with 2 kids I'll be taking a gamble checking in last minute. But thanks for the tip.

  Credit Card booking fee:
  My major issue with it is the non-disclosure of fees on their Payment details page.
  You go through your booking and they show you the Total fee throughout, but once you get to the payment page the Total fee changes and there is no line item indicating the Credit Card fee amount. This is dishonest at the least, and potentially illegal. I suspect if someone took them to law over this they would have to change it swiftly and disclose the credit card fee amount. They are clearly hiding it as it's a significant portion of their fair.

  Frequent Flyer points: has anyone used their Qantas Frequent Flyer points to book a Jetstar flight in the last 12 months? is it just me or are they now charging a significant Frequent Flyer booking fee that it makes the points pointless? Last time I tried to book using frequent flyer points it was going to be about the same price as the normal booking.

  Low Cost Flying: I've lived and travelled in Europe. Jetstart is not cheap. Even their specials that come up from time to time are so hard to find and at such terrible times that it makes it impossible for a fulltime working professional to take advantage of them. I realise we don't have the volumes they have in Europe, but Jetstar from my understanding is the highest earning division in Qantas! I guess those credit card fees are really bumping up their margins ;)

  thanks
  DealsMinder.com

  • 

    hatts on 19/07/2012 - 12:37

    In case you missed it and all the media attention around it:
    http://www.google.com.au/search?q=rba+credit+card+surcharge

  • 

    [Deactivated] on 29/07/2012 - 10:33

    FFpoints purchase.

    Considering a large part of many tickets is the tax component, and these tickets are hard to get with limits on availability. I just use my points to get gift cards. Its far better value. I use those instead of spending cash, and keep the "cash" to pay for flights, which also generate ff points. Bonus is I get FF points when I use the gift cards and the purchase qualifies.

    Like buying "merchandise" with your points, tickets are not the most efficient way of using points

    To help you understand

    A Flight for less than 600 miles (eg Sydney Melbourne One Way) costs 8000 points. Plus, additional taxes, fees and carrier charges

    A $50 gift card = 7,250

    Jetstar Syd/Melb one way $55 (and this is one of the higher rates)

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  neil on 19/07/2012 - 15:15

  +2

  Simple way of getting around the credit card fee and saving even more money is to call them up and get them to do a price guarantee with a Tiger flight (provided Tiger flys the same route for cheaper). Not only will they beat the price of a rival airline, give you a further 10% off but you won't pay credit card fees.

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  hb40 on 20/07/2012 - 10:46

  Neil! that's a great tip. Might give it a try.

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  Geewhizz on 23/07/2012 - 06:54

  Um, I booked a couple of separate flights with Jetstar only a couple of weeks ago, and paid only $7.70 or thereabouts cc fee on each one. I must have gotten lucky I guess. I did (fortunately, it turned out) opt for the extra $22 option that gives me ff points, seat selection and the ability to change my flight. I'm wondering whether that might have negated the extra cc fees some of you have encountered during the same period.

  • 

    [Deactivated] on 23/07/2012 - 16:21

    that's $7.70/seat/flight
    So a 4 person rtn flight is 8 x $7.70 = $61.60

    I have no issues with passing on CC fees, but fixed fee per seat/sector is just gouging. The Credit card surcharge is one of Qantas' big profit centres (Choice estimates it's around $100m).

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  Almost Banned on 27/07/2012 - 12:42

  Awhile ago the wife booked for us all to go to Bali. Jetstar managed to scare her into paying the seat allocation fee to ensure that we all (ie 2 adults and 4 children - one with special needs) sat together.
  Last time I did the booking. There was no way I was going to pay to have my family sit together - if Jetstar wanted to risk having small children sitting next to strangers then we could fight it out if and when.
  Turns out we were all seated together no problems.

  • 

    [Deactivated] on 30/07/2012 - 15:02

    Not free but you can reduce the cost here by some simple planning.

    Assuming a 3X3X3 seating arrangements ABC DEF GHI

    Pay to book in the kids here

    ABC DEF GHI
    XoX XoX

    Or whatever like
    XoX
    XoX

    Then when the system allocates seats if it doesn't put you in the o seats when you get on board, those there will be happy to switch with you, or maybe even pay you to switch. Ie undesirable in both location, middle seat and 2 next to (2) kids.

    So your average booked seat cost is now only 2/3rds

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  hb40 on 30/07/2012 - 14:41

  It's amazing in this day and age we have work so hard to get the advertised price for a flight online :)

  The bigger irony is that you can get a better price by calling them (and haggling) over the phone. You would thing they'd want to reduce their cost to sell tickets by using their cheaper online channel.

  Whichever way you look at it they know what they're doing and they're just being greedy.

  It goes to show that we have a lack of competition across the board in Australia compared to the UK and US.

  • 

    [Deactivated] on 30/07/2012 - 15:06

    Nothing to do with flights, its across the board with everything.

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  ilsan0 on 30/07/2012 - 15:32

  If you do Direct Deposit, then you can get away with paying no CC fees

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  JJones on 09/09/2012 - 20:11

  +1

  If you are flying Virgin or Jetstar, then you can pay by POLi & avoid paying CC fees completely.

  If you've never used POLi, it is really easy. I Want That Flight just did a whole walkthrough:
  http://iwantthatflight.com.au/x81-How-to-pay-ZERO-Credit-Car…

  If you are flying Qantas, then you can use BPAY and you won't have to pay fees.

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  seanbaussie on 11/09/2012 - 20:21

  Make your booking through zuji.com.au or expedia.com.au - they'll give you exactly the same price as jetstar will, but won't charge a credit card fee.