Flybe always **** me off

BillN_33

BillN_33

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Bill
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We fly quite a lot back to Southampton from France

because we start in France we are quoted in Euros

Booking procedure - you start to navigate through the maze

Don't want to pay extra for a bag as we only have cabin bags ...... the default is you pay extra .... so un-tick and re-tick the appropriate boxes

Don't want to choose seats, that's £ extra ....... so don't agree - but the default is you do - so un-tick and re-tick the appropriate boxes .... then you are told that you may not have seats together

So you get to the end and this is what really p1sses me off

It says "pay by Debit card" and there will be no extra fees, (3% extra for credit Cards)

OK. it's Euros 355 and I put my French Debit Card details in - .......... rejected as the system will not accept foreign debit cards

I have argued with Flybe on the phone about this, and the conversation goes like this

Sir it means only English debit cards ......... me - but it says on your web site Debit Cards

me - well can you quote me in £,s so I know how much I will pay in £'s and I will use me UK Debit card

we cannot do that Sir as you are staring your journey in France and we will have to quote you in Euros, but you can use your French Debit card and we will charge you 3% extra as we do with all Credit Cards

me - it's not a Credit Card, it's a Debit Card, I don't have a French Credit card

Sir, we do not recognise it as a Credit Card

But here is the rub ........ when they charge your UK Bank or Credit Card Account they convert the Euro price at a very poor Euro/£ exchange rate, which you do not find out until it appears on your Statement - i.e. only the Euro price is ever shown when you book

I have tried booking one way flight separately - but they are just buggers

My Sunday morning rant!!!
 
Are they the only airline operating on your required route?
 
BillN_33 said:
Yes they are Ruth
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Best suck it up then, huh?
Or use a different route. :-)
You'll give yourself a heart attack stressing over it every time when you're well aware of the procedure.
 
I'm not impressed with Flybe either. We flew to France with them recently.

Firstly they just cancelled our return flight months after we'd booked it. The only choice was to fly back the next day, which mucked up all our other arrangements.

Secondly they don't let you print the return boarding passes till 48 hours before you fly. So you have to find a printer somewhere while you're abroad. What a stupid system.

Lastly, the seats are £6.50 a pop to book, so £26 for the two of us... they insist you have to book the seats to sit together. When we got on the plane it was half empty and you could sit where you wanted.
 
FlyBe have been a nightmare every time I had to use them.

A few years ago I was working between Southampton and the Isle of Man and some weeks it was 2 return flights a week.

I would say that pricewise it was outrageous but reliability could be patchy.

The worst was a tight schedule to get back to Southampton one afternoon for an evening meeting. Plane pulled away but the windscreen on their HS146 cracked. Flight cancelled but I knew there was a Gatwick flight soon after. FlyBe wanted nearly £150 to shift me onto it! At the time I had racked up nearly £4K of ticket purchase. The staff at Ronaldsway were good and I got the Gatwick flight but I got over £100 worth of extras in vouchers so it softened the blow. Once the contract ended I ceased using FlyBe. I think I would rather walk.....
 
Sound like one to avoid, never heard of them before reading this thread
 
boogie man said:
Secondly they don't let you print the return boarding passes till 48 hours before you fly. So you have to find a printer somewhere while you're abroad. What a stupid system.
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This is fairly normal now. We check in online when abroad, download the passes as .pdf files and then transfer them to a smartphone/tablet. The airlines are used to seeing boarding passes this way and the bar codes will scan normally too.

The only time this nearly came unstuck was this year in Turkey, flying with Turkish airlies, the online checkin website was in Turkish with no English option. Google Translate is a wonderful thing - we were able to check in ahead of the flight, and a good thing too, because it was the end of the bayram holiday and the first flight to Istanbul was very full.
 
boogie man said:
Secondly they don't let you print the return boarding passes till 48 hours before you fly. So you have to find a printer somewhere while you're abroad. What a stupid system.
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People bitch about squeezeme jet, but I've touch wood, never had an issue with them, which is handy as they operate out of my local airport.
They also let you print both boarding passes, assuming the return flight is less than a month from the out going one.
Cheap as chips, but like the others I guess, charge a fortune for bags, well £20 each way which is a bit of a b****r as flights to the continent, if you pick your dates and times carefully, don't cost a lot more.
 
Can't understand what you arewhining about.
Its a British company and a British website.
You are in France so are being charged in euros and converted with a crap conversion rate.

welcome to BREXIT.


move on
 
Mr Bump said:
Can't understand what you arewhining about.
Its a British company and a British website.
You are in France so are being charged in euros and converted with a crap conversion rate.

welcome to BREXIT.


move on
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You're such an odd little thing! :lol:
 
Ah that explains why the super-moon has yet to appear .... perhaps it won't :( ... damn those Brexit'ers :(
 
We can always hope that the scuts get booted out of the UK as well as the EU!!!
 
Makes me chuckle how one silly made up word can cause so much :runaway:
 
nickEnackEnoo said:
yes, whenever i see "viv1969" in a thread, there seems to be some commotion ;)
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Ah, you wish it were so.
There's always ignore, to lessen your pain. :-)
 
as another regular flybe user/sufferer i can only sympathise with the OP. I cant remember a flight that has been on time yet, the last being 90 minutes late taking off (and zero compensation btw). You pay to book a seat then when you get on its generally "oh sit where you like" so you have to end up kicking people out of your seat. Not as bad as Ryanair (europe's scummiest airline) but certainly down there in the depths with them.
 
Mr Bump said:
Can't understand what you arewhining about.
Its a British company and a British website.
You are in France so are being charged in euros and converted with a crap conversion rate.

welcome to BREXIT.


move on
Click to expand...
What on earth has it got to do with Brexit? Have they triggered article 50 on the quiet or something? Surely systems in place currently (and I suspect in this case historically before the vote) are based on us being members as we still currently are.....or is this just more agenda pushing?

Possibly this system may in future change to UK centric pricing precisely because of Brexit? Possible......more so than the preexisting status quo being due to it anyway IMHO.

Personally I am on the fence over the voting outcome however beginning to find this constant sniping in regard to the outcome causing things that were already like that or in the pipeline to be silly.
 
I personally don't have any issue with Flybe but I know some people do! Buy to reply to the bit on the boarding passes - they always let you print them at the airport for free so that covers the return journey.
 
Oh, my God. Your story is horror. When I read about such cases I'm grateful for flying very rare. And when I fly, I take only first class. I have a fear of flying and I need new planes at least. And good staff can make the flight easier. And probably some Wisky :)
 
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I don't understand why folk pay low fares and then complain about the airlines. You get what you pay for.
 
Alisa said:
.....I have a fear of flying and I need new planes at least.
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You do realise that many passenger aircraft have been in service for over 2 decades, yes?
 
Bobsyeruncle said:
I don't understand why folk pay low fares and then complain about the airlines. You get what you pay for.
Click to expand...

My main complaint ...... is being quoted in Euros, (because I start in France), Flybe saying that there is no charge to use a Debit Card and then they refuse to accept my French Debit Card as a Debit Card and charge me 3% extra if I use it

As I said I have discussed this with them and they refuse to change their web site or acknowledge that they are misleading

By the way it is not particularly cheap, £160 return with only hand luggage, cannot chose your seat and non refundable..... that is the cheapest fare because we chose Friday, returning Sunday ...... any other two days of the week would have been £230 Return .......... and then there are the usual Car Parking charges ........ most of the time now I just drive ......
 
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