Jet2 charging card without permission

[androobe]

Can they do this?! I have a booking with Jet2 booked back in November, for travel in March. Taxes are being increased by the government which, fair enough, is beyond their control. I have now received the email below which basically states Jet2 will be helping themselves to the extra fiver from the same card I paid with in 5 days time. Can they do this? Fair enough, if I still want to travel I will have to pay the £5 - but surely I should be ASKED to pay it and they can't just take it? What if I don't have the £5 in my account, or I need it for something else? Or if I had several bookings/passengers it could end up a considerable sum. Or if I have decided I don't want to travel - no problem I lose what I originally agreed to pay but not the extra £5! Does anyone know what the legalities on this one might be?

 

 

Dear Passenger,

 

Re: Booking reference XXXXXX

 

On 6 December 2006 the UK Government announced that Air Passenger Duty (APD) was to increase from £5 to £10 per departing passenger on each flight flying from a UK airport from 1 February 2007 onwards.

 

As you may know, this is a mandatory increase in tax, imposed with virtually no notice by the Government, or consultation with the airline industry. We now have the task of collecting the additional tax from all our passengers flying from a UK airport from 1 February. For ease of reference please find below relevant extracts of Article 4.2 of our General Conditions of Carriage.

 

As you have a flight on or after this date, in order to avoid congestion and delays at the airport on your day of travel, we are contacting you to advise that in approximately 5 working days time, we will debit the payment card used at the time of your original booking with the amount of £5 per fare paying passenger in respect of the above booking reference. Please be assured no payment fee will be charged.

 

We may contact you again with a similar notification regarding any later flight bookings you may have during 2007.

 

Yours sincerely,

 

Customer Relations

Jet2.com

 

 

Extract of Article 4.2 Taxes, fees and charges

 

Any taxes, fees and charges imposed by government or other authority, or by the operator of an airport and in effect on the date of travel, whether imposed directly on the passenger or payable by us on the passenger’s behalf or in respect of the passenger’s carriage, shall be payable by the passenger and are in addition to the published fares. The taxes, fees and charges imposed on air travel are constantly changing and can be imposed after the date of issue of your itinerary/receipt. If there is any subsequent increase in a tax, fee or charge, you will be obliged to pay it.

[Thailand]

bump

[Guest NATTIE]

I'm sure there is already a thread on this one unless I have a crystal ball and saw this a few days ago.

[androobe]

Well, they've now charged my card with the £5 I never agreed to! No-one got any thoughts on this? I've certainly not seen another thread on it...

[lw12]

I too have received such an email from Jet2

 

check out this discussion on the matter

Damnit, Easyjet and the increased Airport Passenger Duty :: global ski club, ski discussion forum, snowboard snow board.

 

and BBC story

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Moneybox | Millions face air tax uncertainty

 

which suggests there may be doubt over the legality of airlines forcing passengers to play the extra charge let alone charging a card without permission.

 

What to do about this though?

[StudentInDebt]

Why not call your bank and ask them to reverse it as it was unauthorised?

[Bookworm]

Quote from the article above:

 

 

Toby Nichol of Easyjet says the airline faces an extra £4.5m tax bill if passengers are not prepared to pay up but making them do so could be difficult.

He hopes passengers will be prepared to pay an extra £5 to cover the tax as a goodwill gesture. "We will be going back to our customers and saying - the chancellor has doubled air passenger duty - how do you feel about giving us an extra fiver?" he said.

 

That's a bloody lie for starters, I have received an e-mail from Easyjet, saying I HAVE to pay the extra and it's in the T&Cs I have agreed to when I booked the tickets.

[androobe]

That would be an option, but then I'd look like a right p*ick when I turn up at the airport and have to pay it again (they would probably cancel the booking anyway!)... I pretty much only ever book the lowest airfares anywhere, and probably cancel (or to be more accurate, just don't turn up) for approx 20% of flights I book. This may sound ridiculous, but I would rather throw away the odd £20 fare occasionally than not book it while it's cheap and end up paying 5x as much! My main point is this £5 is a risk I did not choose to take on, so if I don't fly I will be looking at claiming that back at least - don't know what Jet2 will think of it! There could be thousands of others out there having to reclaim bank charges this week thanks to Jet2 doing this though. I have never ever come across a company giving only a weeks notice to take money that's never been agreed to - where would they have drawn the line?

[Bookworm]

Very true. Easyjet is at least telling me to make payment, not helping themselves.

 

You certainly should look at a major complaint. Whether the T&Cs allow them to levy the additional fiver is one thing, but they have no right to have kept your card details to help themselves, on what has to be one-off as opposed to a regular mandate! It is very worrying that they should still have your details on their database to do so, and if I were you, I would go at them and take no prisoners!

[StudentInDebt]

Other than a point of principle over charging your card without authorisation I can't see what you hope to get out of this. You did agree to pay any increase in the Air Passenger Duty when you booked your ticket so you have accepted that there maybe additional risks associated with booking your ticket. You acknowledge that if you do have the payment reversed then you will have to pay it prior to flying anyway, so what is the point of getting the transaction reversed? You also say that you are prepared to pay £20 for airfares and loose it by not turning up for a flight yet you are contemplating claiming back a £5 tax increase.

 

If you feel so strongly did you contact Jet2 and tell them not to charge your card when you received the email? Perhaps you should contact your bank anyway and have the transaction reversed, you can then have the satisfaction of paying Jet2 on your terms.

 

I seem to remember the debate about storing card numbers being on these forums before and I think the result was that they can store the details for as long as they like - I may be wrong though.

[androobe]

Studentindebt, I think you are missing the point. I'll explain it as another example... say you buy something on the Internet, a PC maybe. They quote you X price for the PC including VAT. It takes them a couple of weeks to build the PC and by the time they ship it to you, the chancellor has put the VAT up by 1%, which may put the price up by £5. This isn't the fault of the PC manufacturer, so they email you and say they will take another £5 from your card in a week's time. How would you like that? You have no choice in the matter, they just help themselves to an extra fiver of your money. Wouldn't you be a bit annoyed to say the least? Surely they should ASK you to pay, yes they could refuse to ship it until you pay, but they should at least ASK and not just help themselves? Maybe you would prefer it if it came from another card, or if they waited until you get paid at the end of the month?

 

The reason I haven't made a fuss with Jet2 is they currently owe me 2 return tickets anyway, so I don't want to lose them for the sake of a fiver - and the fact is, they have their fiver and I have my ticket, on this occasion it's not a problem for me, unless I don't fly in which case I will be annoyed, but I brought this up on the forum to help others not only myself.

[lw12]

I agree with Androobe.

I personally have no objection to paying the £5, as I am generally in favour of a green tax on flights (although I would prefer to see the money actually going to a positive scheme to help the environment).

 

The thing I object to is Jet2 helping myself to my money without permission. Fair enough, the T&Cs say they are entitled to claim additional tax, but I can't see anywhere that it says they can charge my card with an additional amount without my agreement, and with only 5 days notice, during which time I might not even have checked my emails.

 

Surely there is some rule against this? I'm surprised there hasn't been more fuss. I'm not sure what I can do about this, as I say I am happy to pay the tax but its more the principle of the matter and I don't think Jet2 should be allowed to get away with it.

 

anyone got any advice?

[lw12]

This exact issue featured on the BBC's Moneybox programme yesterday (13th Jan).

Seems it is legal for Jet 2 to take money in this way.

 

You can here this programme via the website BBC NEWS | Programmes | Moneybox all this week.

 

hope this helps