Credit Card check
 

I've noticed that Emirates will now ask for CC at check-in when departing from some countries (i.e. Italy) and that one of the travelling passengers must be the owner of the CC.

I'm looking at booking a ticket for a friend but it seems that I can lo longer do this via CC.

This is also displayed when booking online

I see that Emirates now offer PayPal as method of payment. Anyone tried this with Emirates or with any other Airline? I assume that the PayPal method does not require any CC verification at check-in time.

i routinely book mrs. dearbee's travels on my CC. because the name on the card is not hers, and i'm not traveling with her, the reservation online is merely held. i have to go to an emirates office to make the payment to complete the transaction.

and no, she has never been asked to produce the CC at the time of check-in at the origin or destination.

what country is this in?

dxb and icn.

Several countries are very strict about this. At NBO for instance, they will make you buy a whole new ticket if you can't produce the card which was used for payment. In many places, credit card fraud is a big enough problem that proving somebody is legitimately using the card is the only way to prevent large scale loss of revenue.

Not sure if you know this, but once u have done the online booking, you can call Emirates with your booking reference and request an agent come to your doorstep, instead of u going to a ticketing office, and waiting in line. Its also free!

Thats impressive!

I have done this in DBX on a number of occasions , not sure if the service available outside of the UAE

no, i was not aware of this! i will definitely try this next time. thanks for the tip.

I hope it is OK to revive an old thread rather than start a new one. This is my first post outside the CX Forum. :-)

I happened to be with a friend when she was checking-in in Hong Kong for an itinerary on EK which went HKG/DXB/BHX/DXB/HKG. Her husband was travelling on an identical itinerary but, for a variety of reasons, departed from Hong Kong a day earlier and would return from Birmingham several days later. He paid for both tickets, presumably on separate bookings, using his credit card.

My friend admitted that when the bookings were made, her husband saw the "failure to present the credit card will mean that all passengers in the booking will be denied boarding" message as quoted by Smoth 007. However, they wrongly assumed that it would be fine for my friend to present her supplementary credit card, bearing the same number as her husband's credit card, upon check-in. It turned out that the assumption was mistaken and my friend was denied her boarding passes by the check-in agent.

Since my friend's husband was by then in Dubai and could not be contacted, asking him to produce his credit card at the EK office in Dubai was not an option.

My friend offered two solutions to the agent. First, she could pay again for the ticket using one of her own credit cards and for her husband's payment to be refunded later. Second, she could "guarantee" her husband's payment (in case that turns out to be fraudulent) by paying for the ticket again using one of her own credit cards on the understanding that, once her husband's payment is verified (for instance by him producing his credit card at an EK office in the UK), her second payment would be refunded (less a handling charge, if that was what EK wanted). Both solutions were unceremoniously rejected.

The only way which the agent would allow my friend to travel would be for her to buy a new ticket costing HK$1,XXX more than the original ticket (presumably because the original sub-class was sold out) and then for her to have the original ticket refunded (less, needless to say, a hefty handing charge) once she returned from her trip. In the end, not wishing her holiday to be ruined, my friend had no choice but to comply.

Now, we have no qualms with EK seeking to protect itself against internet fraud. However, by rejecting two very sensible solutions (which the agent readily admitted would be acceptable to many other airlines, including CX) and by forcing my friend to buy a new ticket at a higher sub-class when she already held a confirmed booking at a lower sub-class (and being all too aware that she would have to pay a hefty handling charge when refunding her original ticket), EK made this whole episode smack of blatant opportunism. The fact that the agent was happy to volunteer the address of the local EK office for my friend to lodge a complaint suggested that this was not an isolated incidence and that such a complaint would probably not get her very far.

We are therefore considering lodging a complaint with the Hong Kong Consumer Council (the local quasi-governmental consumer watchdog), the IATA and/or the Hong Kong Civil Aviation Authority. Since a matter of principle is at stake, we would also not rule out legal action (my friend happens to be a lawyer) as it seems that, by imposing a term (if that is what it is) to the contract of carriage which mandated the production of a credit card without any substituted methods of payment, the term may fall foul of the Unconscionable Contracts Ordinance making it liable to being struck out.

However, before my friend takes any action, we would appreciate any comments from frequent travellers on EK.

Many thanks in advance.

I am not a lawyer, but did two or three modules on UK contract law in uni (several years ago). IMHO Emirates had the right to do this as this possibility was announced during the time of booking. The only backdoor I can spot based on the information at hand is that Emirates might not have had sufficient reason to doubt the legitimacy of the booking... messy though and difficult to prove (keep in mind that your friend has to proof this, not EK that they were right).

By all means, I would go for it and try anything possible to get one fare refund, but you friend should not get his hopes up too high. Good luck.

Thanks, littlegreenman.

I have no wish to turn this into a contract law forum :p but it seems to me that Section 6 of the Unconscionable Contracts Ordinance (modelled on the UK's Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977) is most relevant here:

(1) In determining whether a contract or part of a contract was unconscionable in the circumstances relating to the contract at the time it was made, the court may have regard to (among other things)-

...

(b) whether, as a result of conduct engaged in by the other party, the consumer was required to comply with conditions that were not reasonably necessary for the protection of the legitimate interests of the other party

What we have here is a contract whereby my friend agrees to pay the fare and EK agrees to fly her to the UK and back. EK is effectively saying, if you have chosen to pay with a credit card, you must then show me the credit card, otherwise you breach your agreement to pay and I don't have to fly you to the UK and back anymore. No, once you have chosen to pay with a credit card, you cannot not show the credit card. And no, you cannot pay by any other method, not even cash. If you lose your credit card, forget to bring it or have it swallowed by a machine the day before you travel, tough luck.

I do not think any reasonable judge is likely to rule in favour of EK. :rolleyes:

Anyhow, let's say that the legal position is at least arguable. The point is, even if EK prevails when it comes to the strict legality of the matter, with this sort of incidents happening at least from time to time, why can they not, for the sake of good customer relations, devise a set of sensible solutions rather than be seen to profit from fairly innocent mistakes by their customers? How many of us can say we have never lost our credit card or left it at home by mistake?

That is what we do not understand.

Despite the semantics above your friend did not comply with the Terms and Conditions which they agreed to before committing to the purchase. It's a ..... but with the amount of fraud around now it is understandable. If they had lost the CC they could have made alternative arrangements before leaving for the airport. EK or contracted airport staff should not be expected to recognise the pros and cons of the the alternatives offered on the day. The set of "sensible solutions" you suggest would soon become unmanageable as more and more customers came up with more and more crazy ideas.

Edit to add: the blanked out word began with "b" and ended with "itch" but the forum software must have deemed it out of order.

I often travel on tickets booked my office, and there is one credit card that is used for all the bookings. In Cairo they are also strict, but they allow a copy of the credit card (photo copied) and signed by the person whose name is on the card. I've used this many times, and had no problems. But you do need to show some documentation.

As a layman (legally speaking), and having indeed been asked on my two most recent EK check-ins to produce my CC, I am having a little trouble understanding the need for this procedure.
Surely by the time I check-in for a flight that I paid for over 3 months previously EK have received payment (or at least guarantee of payment) from my CC company... Why then the need to ascertain if it is indeed the same person that paid who is travelling? That payment can't be withdrawn after it has been made surely? So if I can't produce my CC what exactly does that show EK? That somebody else bought the ticket for me? I don't understand why this could be a problem.
Can anybody explain why this practise is becoming so widespread?