Friday, July 03, 2009

Jet2.con

Pam flew to Manchester this morning with Jet2.com. We flown with them quite a lot and always found them reliable and cheap. Like all airlines they apply airport surcharges and charge extra for hold luggage.

What we weren’t prepared for this morning though was a surcharge of 8€ because Pam hadn't completed her booking online.

When we first booked the flight, we couldn’t complete the booking online – it actually said so on the website. I later found that you had to click on a small box next to the traveller’s name and fill in the so called API information which basically means the passenger’s date of birth and passport number. I did this but then did not follow through by printing out the completed sheet. Pam prefers a window seat and the one that she was being allocated was an aisle seat.

Even if I had completed the process, Pam would have still have had to wait in the queue to check in her luggage and collect the actual card needed to get on the aircraft.

Because Pam hadn’t got the form printed out, the girl at check-in gave her a hand written bill for 8€ which she had to take to the Jet2.com desk to pay and get a hand written receipt in return. Pam then had to take the receipt back to the check-in desk and collect her boarding card.

What utter nonsense – it had nothing to do with providing information about her passport number or date of birth – both of which are on her passport anyway. It seemed to be just another way to extract more money for the flight hence the title Jet2.con!

PS The only good part ot the story is that the flight arrived 19 minutes early. Pam is flying back with Monarch thank goodness.

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