travel:checking luggage and paying by card can add 30pc to advertised fare

Researchers from Which? Holiday magazine compared luggage and payment-method costs for flying with low-fare carriers bmibaby, easyJet, Ryanair and Jet2 to four destinations – Paris, Rome, Malaga in Spain and Faro in Portugal.

A flight to Paris with bmibaby increased by around 25 per cent when one piece of hold luggage was checked in and the ticket was booked using a credit card, and the price of a flight to Malaga increased by 23 per cent.

The study found that Ryanair charged £50 extra across all of its routes for checking a hold bag in and paying with a credit card – an increase of between 8 per cent and 29 per cent on the advertised cost of the fare.

Although Jet2 was found to add the most to the cost of a flight for the charges – £92.16 – this was an increase of just 10 per cent on the advertised ticket price.

easyJet consistently had the lowest luggage and card charges of the four airlines looked at, ranging from £26-£38 extra. However, in one case (East Midlands to Faro) this still amounted to a 17 per cent increase on the advertised price

Prices were for a three-night break between February 11 and 16 2010.

Rochelle Turner, head of research for Which? Holiday, said: “It's hard to believe that any airline could justify increasing the ticket price by almost a third just for checking a bag into the hold and paying on a credit card – two services that not too long ago were included in the headline price.

“Airlines argue that they are being fairer to customers who don't use these services. But, in reality, how many people don't use a credit or debit card to pay for their flights, or travel without luggage? These aren't extra services. They are part and parcel of taking a flight.”

Andrew McConnell, an easyJet spokesman, said: “At easyJet, you only pay for the service you use. This enables us to offer low fares to everyone and only those who chose the voluntary extras are charged for those extras.

”Handling hold baggage does increase costs to the airline which is why we pass this on to the passengers.

“However, we have one of the most generous hand baggage policies in the industry, but if passengers still wish to put baggage in the hold, our rates are the lowest.”

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