OS-A330

I have just booked a flight from Vienna to Bangkok (via Zurich) using a travel agent, because they had very good promotion fares negotiated with Swiss. Bangkok was advertised with EUR 359,- + taxes, and Miami with 279EUR.
(valid for departures from 1st Sept. to 6th November)
I got my favourite departure date, but when it comes to the additional charges, I became a little bit angry and weird as well. While the website of Swiss displayed me a total fee of EUR 72,59 including a TSC of 8 EUR, the travel agent charged me EUR 150,-!! not containing a TSC. I experienced that SWISS charges a fuel surcharge of EUR 70,-, and there was even a difference with the airport taxes, which should be always the same regardless where you book.
Why has this happened to me? The Swiss website displays one amount, a travel agent charges a completely different amount. Is it lawful?

Maybe they wanted to bust customers by using lowered tariffs, which are always treated with a 'fuel surcharge' afterwards. I would accept it, if it would be a common policy, which means same fees for website and travel agents. So does Austrian, I think.

Any recommendations or ideas?

ziplaufwerk

Halleluja! This is a common practice among the airlines. The taxes that were charged to you seem to be a little high but I guess it is including the so-called "service fee" (travel agents don't get any other compensations from the airlines anymore). When I recently flow from GVA to PAR I payd for the ticket CHF 100 and for the fees another CHF 100

One example for the cheating airlines is WAW-ZRH. Whilst Swiss charges around 60 CHF, it is around 80 CHF with bad Luftwaffe (ah, I mean Lufthanse).

PS: Which travel office sells the fares that you mentioned? I might also be interested in buying such a ticket.

OS-A330

I totally paid additional fees of EUR 175,-

EUR 82 Airport tax
EUR 70 Fuel surcharge
EUR 15 Ticket service charge
EUR 8 Insurance

= 175 EUR

I am worried about the fuel surcharge, which was charged by the agent, but wouldn't have been charged by SWISS Website.
The airport tax is higher by 18 EUR compared to SWISS Website and expedia.de (which displayed the same amount!)

Scary! I will investigate.

Travel Agent was Restplatzbörse Wien, a best known agency chain in Austria. www.restplatzboerse.at

LXboy

I gues your example does not work:
Swiss is flying WAW-ZRH nonstop. Fliying with Lufthansa means changing aircraft in MUC or FRA, an additional transfer-tax for this airport will apply. Therefore, the 20CHF difference in your example ist not cheated!

@OS-A330
I recently booked a fligt from ZRH to MIA. I was wondering why no fuel surcharge has been added. I thouhgt maybe the fare includes the surcharge. But as your example shows, it's not like that. Maybe LX ist trying to bring customers to swiss.com for bookings. Or unbelievable: it's even a mistake

OS-A330

In my opinion, it shouldn't be allowed to not include surcharges. Fuel is an important factor. If fuel price increases, carriers have to lift up their prices, which is a basic rule in economy. If I own a restaurant and meat gets more expensive, I need to change my prices. I can't advertise with the old prices, and write on the bottom of the menu: Prices do not include meat surcharge.
Assuming that airlines have a lot of lawyers and experts, why are they entitled to act like that? I would enforce a gross price policy, which avoids this fraud.

ziplaufwerk

Sorry, I didn't mean Luftwaffe, I ment LOT (which is for me also Luftwaffe, since it is part of the ****Alliance). And there is the difference. Swiss charges for the direct fligth around 60 CHF, LOT around 80 CHF.

capetonian

You are quite right - to say the least in my opinion it is not good business practice to promote a price of X and than add anything between 30% and 130% for fuel surcharges/taxes and the likes. It's kind of thinking that the general public is stupid. The product that I sell (beds) is calculated and if certain input costs rise by much more than anticipated I will recalculate my prices - common practice except for in the airline industry. I caanot quote a room/night at my hotel excluding taxes/surcharges or whatever.

On the other hand you will find a lot of travel agents who do not have a clue about taxes/surcharges, etc. They do have to phone the issueing carrier to actually find out abot those charges.

AHO

I agree with you. The idea of all ridiculous surcharges are nonsense.
If every business follows these model, simply you cannot calculate how much money you have to carry when you go to supermarket!

In Nordic countries and (I think) UK & Germany, the ticket prices have to be shown inclding taxes in advertisement.
You can see it SWISS Web special offer. Ticket prices from these countries are shown tax included whilst prices from other countires are not.

ziplaufwerk

Woow, we have a lot of fantasie today, don't we? All the airlines use the same cheating model, don't they? There is ALWAYS the total amount in the end, otherwise one couldn't pay the ticket... And Luftwaffe is for sure not more honest than Swiss. Neither is it any other airline... That's why passangers cannot change anything...

airoli

Swiss low cost carrier Helvetic started a sale yesterday night advertising fares of €19 each way to cities such as Rome. A check on their website revealed that on top of the €19 "fare", they also charge €39 in taxes - EACH WAY! That's more than twice as much as Swiss does...

As stated elsewhere on Flyertalk, I really really think that it should be unlawful for airlines to advertise (anywhere!) prices other than round-trip including all taxes, surcharges, fees etc. As a passenger, I want to know what a trip costs me and I couldn't care less about who (airline, caterer, oil company, airport, police, ATC, you name it...) gets how much of that money.

On a side note, while I must admit that I always have a good chuckle when watching that old Fawlty Towers episode poking fun at the Germans, the wit of continuously calling LH "Luftwaffe" somewhat eludes me....

Hans Dampf

Are those Lufthansa guys completely sick now?

I have to pay 421 CHF for an "award" flight from TXL to TIP and back!

LH you s *** !

Guy Betsy

Yes. I agree.

I have miles expiring today (31.12.05) and decided to take advantage of getting the most out of the 8 permitted sectors I am allowed on a domestic European award. CDG-x/ZRH-IST-x/FRA-RIX-x/FRA-x/CPH-x/ZRH-CDG.

The taxes and fuel surcharges (and service fee as the itinerary is too complicated for the website to handle.. plus they can't process LH flights yet) came out to over US$ 381 !


I cancelled and booked just a straight CPH-x/ZRH-IST-x/ZRH-CPH which carried a US$180 tax. Still much better than what I had before.

I'm just glad to rid myself of STC.

That one F class flight on MH still has not been credited.

Michael Tantini

Pfffff... What is that? Why don't pay 1'000 CHF for an "free flight"?