Originally Posted by spotwelder
The insurance surcharge is a joke. Do they split out the cost of the insurance on the ticket. No, so why put a difference in there. It is actually just another cost item for the airline.
Quite agree, I'm sure there would be uproar about 'Rip-Off Britain' if the supermarkets started taking out national adverts for cheap food, only to add surcharges at the tills to cover the rising cost of diesel and insurance
Originally Posted by spotwelder
Is the credit card charge actually reasonable for the cost that the retailer is incurring.
If, for example, the fare and taxes and and and were £100, then the credit card charge of 4.85 would represent 4.85% addition. what do airlines end up getting charged by the credit card companies? Any idea anybody. This could be interesting as a cross subsidy issue. If the airline is charged an average of £3 but passes on a £4.85 to the punters, there is a hidden airfare subsidy of £1.85 per pax. Very naughty.
I'm no expert on this but there has been some discussion of it in the 'BA and Amex' thread in the BA forum. From memory I think 1.5% for Visa/Mastercard and 2.5% for Amex has been mentioned.
and anyway, if the fares are indeed as tiny as they would like us to believe, then £4.85 is going to be a whole lot more than 4.85%
