Just flew from Manchester to Hannover and back last weekend. The Flight cost the following;-
Flight/charges/taxes £103
Booking Fee £9
Cost of choosing seats £12 (more on this later)

Somehow the total cost (for two) was £273.98!
So not even their own figures add up!

A 18.5cl miniature bottle of wine — £3.90 — would you pay that in a pub?

As for the Choosing seats fiasco .…..
£6 per person per flight — not made aware of this when we booked. If you got on a long haul train journey and the ticket collector charged you an extra £24 as you choose a seat you would tell them where to stick it wouldn’t you?
And wait for this … both flights were only 2/3 full so we could have sat anywhere and the flight is only 90 minutes long!

What exactly do Flybe do to justify this £6 fee?
I am making the booking, it is in my time and no one but a piece of website software is involved on their side!

TOTAL RIP OFF!

We will never fly with Flybe again and I strongly advise anyone else not to bother!

Dear Flybe,

I have been using your service for a number of years to fly to and from Belfast City airport. Admittedly this is simply because there is no real competition. I live near Gatwick, and my mother’s house (it is normally her we go to visit) is near Belfast City, so its quite convenient.

I used to find the costs in using Flybe reasonable. However, of late, the additional charges you are starting to apply to customers are frankly a disgrace. Whatsmore, the thinly disguised excuses for ripping off your clientele are a joke.

Your statement on charges other than flights booked by the elusive Visa Electron card is as follows: “To defray the substantial administration and financial services costs we incur when processing credit and debit cards a handling fee applies to each passenger per one way flight”.

What I would like to know is why Flybe is subject to such financial horrors when I can’t think of another business that suffers to this extent. Even the smallest boutique website swallows the credit and debit card fees from user transactions. Flybe is hardly a cottage industry!

I am able to buy a pint of milk in Sainbury’s for 53p using a debit card with no further charges, yet you deem it appropriate to charge me £18.00 for a return flight to Belfast for myself and my daughter.

I know from my work that debit card transactions attract a flat fee of a matter of pence when using an online payment gateway, and can’t for a second imagine how you end up with a fee of £18.00.

I am more convinced than ever that the silly “free flight” terminology needs to be rethought, as it is clear you are using these fees (and the mysterious “charges” that sit alongside the nominal fares for flights) as the basis for your profits.

My fare was actually £0.00 but the total paid was in fact £161.92 — your inflated charges for flying out of Gatwick (why are they so much more than Easyjet?) plus the new sneaky additions to bag costs and the aformentioned outrageous card fees make for a pretty miserable transaction.

So what will we do? Fly Easyjet! And thus it will be from now on unless I can get an Electron card. I’ve had enough of paying through the nose for Flybe.

No need for a reply — I’m pretty sure I would get a stock answer that doesn’t explain anything and simply tries further to justify these exorbitant costs to the consumer. I will not be using your service to fly to Belfast at Christmas, as we are a family of four and I’m simply not going to pay £36 in card fees. Would you?

Yours, Steve Jones

The total charge for my “free” flight was £148.58. After overcoming that shock I decided to go ahead with the booking. I then found they charge £10 to use their own credit card (£20 extra for the 2 sectors) so opted to use to my bank direct debit card. Yet they wanted to charge me £8 (£16 for both sectors) to use that. Why, when the money goes direct from my account to theirs? The only free payment method they offer is Visa electron which I don’t have.

So, my “free” flights were now costing me £168.58. I then checked with British Airways and their fare quote (no air miles involved-just a straight quote) was around £150. So I am now going with good ole B.A. where you get a free snack and glass and wine on board, both sectors, friendly staff and a clean aircraft.

Jack Walker, ironically also a Jersey resident, bought Flybe some years ago (because Flybe staff were once so rude to him he purchased the airline so he could sack them) must be turning in his grave! I am afraid Jack that your successors have turned your airline into Easy jet or Ryan air in disguise.

My flybe spend&fly card is now going in the bin and I will look for a card that offers genuine deals. Flybe? Fly maybe — when you get your act together