The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission – the consumer watchdog in Australia – has finally decided to take a closer look at all those ridiculous and exorbitant extra fees you have to pay when booking airfares on Jetstar and Virgin domestic flights. The ACCC has lodged proceedings against the airlines accusing them both of “misleading or deceptive conduct” and “false or misleading representations”.
The investigation centres around the practice of “drip pricing” – in terms of airfares, it’s the way that airlines advertise a flight at a certain price, but then tack on extra costs as the booking process wears on. The Reserve Bank in March issued “guidance” that was meant to discourage services like airlines from hitting customers with outrageous fees for processing credit cards. In reality, it did very little. Qantas, for example, lowered their standard credit card fee from $7.70 all the way down to $7.
Jetstar have said they will defend the action, stating: “The way low cost carriers work is to offer customers a seat to a destination at the lowest price. There are optional extras that can be added – whether that’s baggage or a fee for a particular way of booking – and conditions that apply. But the lowest advertised fare is available to customers who book using the fee free payment channels.“
Righto, let’s have a look at that claim then, shall we?
A return Jetstar airfare between Melbourne (Tullamarine) and Launceston is set to depart on Monday July 7th and return on Thursday July 10th. The cheapest flights available on both days are, as advertised on the site, $45 each.
Clicking on the $45 fare immediately brings up a screen with three options: the Starter Fare, the Plus Bundle, and the Max Bundle. The Starter Fare, which is included, contains a “Comfortable Leather Seat” (as opposed to those other non-leather seats on flights – and, let’s be freaking honest here, I’m a 6’4″ tall human being, there’s no such thing as “comfortable” on a plane) 10kg of carry on luggage, and no checked baggage. Fair enough.
The Plus Bundle, which is thrust to the front of the screen and kind of made to look like it should be the default selection, will cost you $24. In it, you get to not be charged to change any flight details (though you will pay the fare difference if you swap flights), the privilege of earning Qantas Points for the flight, free standard seat selection, and a $5 inflight food and drink voucher. There’s still no checked bags in this one.
The Max Bundle is all of the aforementioned, plus checked baggage and maybe a seat up the front. It costs $224.
Lets just avoid any hassle and try and pay as little as possible. We’ll go with the plain Starter Fare for both legs. So far the $90 total is holding up.
Hang on. I’ve gotten to the next screen where I put my name in and suddenly that $90 has become $124. What happened? It seems the website has gone ahead and assumed I’d like to check some baggage in, and automatically added a $17 per leg charge for that. Their statement claimed that optional extras could be added. But if I don’t want to be charged for it, I have to physically remove them. So, really, they’re optional removals, not optional extras. Lets get rid of them now. Back to the original $90.
There’s now an ad telling me I can get an SMS of my itinerary for only $0.90. No thank you. Moving on.
More ads. This time asking me to join something called Club Jetstar for $39.00, with an annual fee of $39.99 from then on. Again, nope. Moving ON.
I tried to move on to the next screen and it’s now asking me if I’m sure I don’t want to buy checked in luggage; the option that I had to be acutely aware was added to my fare in order to remove it. But it’s confusingly worded. The header asks if I’m sure I don’t want it, but the question with buttons reads “Do you want to add baggage now and save?” So if I got impatient after reading the first question and hit yes, I’d be accidentally buying luggage now. Ugh. MOVING ON.
Alright, what the hell? We’ve gotten to the next screen and now we’re paying $100 for the flights. They’ve automatically added $5 per flight to pre-select a seat for me. “For my convenience” apparently. Nope. Not paying that. Deselected. I could also pay $27 for extra legroom, or $11 for a seat “near the front.” MOVING THE FUCK ON.
Hang on… I… I can’t move on? The “Continue” button has been greyed out and I can’t click it. It’s orange and usable if you pick seat selection, but if you remove it you can’t move on? OH WAIT. You can, but you have to click the “skip seat selection” link below it which is in VERY TINY FONT. This is getting ridiculous. I just want to book a regular airfare. MOVING ON, GOD DAMN IT.
OH MY GOD WHAT NOW. It’s back up to $102.95. Travel Insurance has been auto selected. TRAVEL INSURANCE. FOR A 45 MINUTE FLIGHT TO TASSIE. Holy hell, I’m about to have a coronary. Get rid of it. Burn it all. Into the bin. NEXT. NEXT. NEXT.
There’s now ads for car hire and pre-paid airport parking to scroll past. CHRIST.
Finally on to what looks like a payment page. Do I want to Carbon Offset the flight for $1.16? At this point, I don’t even care anymore. Fuck the Earth, just get me to bloody Launceston.
Wait, after wading through all of this, and being staunch in the deselection of everything, now I have to deselect a $2 donation to a charity called Starkids. So not only am I seething with boiling rage at this whole process, but now I feel like an absolute SCUMBAG for not donating to charity. Thanks a lot, jerks.
FINALLY. There’s the credit card input field. But hang on, they’re going to charge me $17 to use my Visa – which is a debit card too, I’ll add. $17. SEVENTEEN DOLLARS. What, for the love of all that is holy, is so wildly expensive about the process of you taking money from my bank account that it incurs SEVENTEEN FREAKING DOLLARS in operational costs?
So despite the fact that I’ve had to work very, very, very hard to pay the advertised price of the flight – and ONLY the advertised price of the flight – I still manage to get slugged with a mystery $17 credit card fee at the end for god only knows what.
You know what? Screw you, airlines. I hope the ACCC throws the book at you.
Photo: Hagen Hopkins via Getty Images.
