Airline Fees in Europe
October 21st, 2009 Posted in Cheap Europe Travel, General, Travel industrySmarterTravel has published a series of great tables to help passengers figure out how much they’ll get reamed by various airlines in extra fees and frequent flyer fees to redeem “free” tickets. Now they’ve got a guide to airline fees in Europe. While we gripe and moan about all the fees we get socked with on domestic flights, some of those pale in comparison to what you’ll pay if you fly to or within the Tiffany’s-priced continent known as Europe. This is on top of all the fuel surcharges most hit you with to cross the Atlantic—one of the many factors leading to a sharp decline in tourism to Europe this past year. (Down by 1/3 in many popular destinations, far worse than other regions.)
You’ll get pickpocketed by all these airlines in some way after you pay your fare, but some hit you worse than others.Most allow one bag free when you fly across the Atlantic. For the second bag, it may cost you more than you paid for the bag itself: $55 USAir, $60 Virgin Atlantic, $50 Delta, $50 Continental, $60 British Airways, $50 Aer Lingus. A lot of the European airlines still let you check two bags as part of the ticket though (TAP, Swiss, Scandinavian), so check the chart and keep that in mind when comparing prices.
If your bag is overweight, then you start hitting the platinum level of add-on fees and that weight limit can be lower than on U.S. domestic flights, so pack light. Budget airlines are anything but budget when it comes to this category. Here’s EasyJet’s: “total combined checked baggage 21-50 kilos: £9 per kilo.” So if your combined baggage is 66 pounds (30 kilos), you’ll pay 81 pounds extra one-way. Today that’s $134, on a ticket that may have cost half that. Ouch!
Unfortunately, this chart leaves out a lot of nasty extra charges that are pure profit for the carriers. RyanAir is known as the king of fees, but many travelers I’ve met who use the airline for weekend getaways only get really worked up about one of them: a charge to pay with a credit or debit card online. RyanAir charges a “booking fee” of £10 per person that’s unavoidable unless you have their own branded credit card or pay $5 to use a less secure debit card. So if you’re a family of 4, it’s over $120 round-trip just to give them your money. The scary one is forgetting to check in online, which costs you another £5, but if you don’t do it you’ll get to the airport and pay an outrageous £40 per person each way (£80 round trip). Here’s a good link to how to get around the gotcha fees in Europe.
Here’s a direct link to the chart.
2 Responses to “Airline Fees in Europe”
By Renato on Oct 21, 2009
Not really a fan of Ryanair but for credit card fees the main competitor in Europe (easyjet) has the same policy. Moreover the fee applies to their own credit card as well, there is a fee for debit card as well, the only one ‘free’ is VISA ELECTRON, not a very popular in Europe. That said, if you are a frequent flyer you simply get one and use it for all those cheap flights: less secure? Maybe. But if I pay 10€ returns inclusive why bother? (yes you can still find those tickets, if the one way is over 50€ I choose some other airlines, not value for money)
£80 round trip for printing the boarding card? True. But if you are charged £40 on the way out and you still forget on the way back, can I say you almost deserve it? Half kidding but I still value the option to print my boarding card, fly without a luggage, travel by bus to a remote airport, checkin at 5AM. But for €10.
By tim on Oct 22, 2009
Good points Renato. People really do look at the overall total cost (usually) when making plans, so if it comes out lower even with all the fees, then still worth it. But as your tactics show, you pretty much have to game the system and really work at it to get around all the gotchas. Definitely a different model than Southwest and JetBlue.