Passengers opting to fly abroad with budget airlines may be forking out up to £220 in hidden fees on top of their basic plane tickets.
Seasoned holidaymakers will vouch that it's not always the wisest financial decision to opt for a holiday solely through the alluring cheap flights - and despite an easy means of getting to A to B, you may be surprised with heavily inflated food and drink prices upon arrival, when compared to other less popular destinations.
Sometimes, it's also better to avoid flying with certain airlines completely, even if the ticket seems to be a bargain on the face of things. TradingPedia recently compared seven airlines that fly to and from the UK to Spain, Portugal and other European destinations - to calculate complete flight costs after extras were added.
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The Mirror reports that these sneaky fees per airline ranged from £66 to £220. Analysts took into consideration averages fare marketed as value, budget or standard - flying mid-week in July to popular European cities like Rome, Lisbon, Amsterdam and Nice.
And topping of the list in terms of large additional fees after the numbers were crunched was none other than Ryanair. The airline charges £3 for checked baggage, £18 for an extra carry-on, £15.50 for choice of seat, £55 for airport check-in and £100 as a rescue fee.
The latter is charged should you miss your flight but arrive at the airport within a scheduled amount of time after it was due to depart. So if anything goes wrong with Ryanair, and you fail to plan ahead, you could end up coughing up an extra £220 in total on top of your initial ticket.
Airlines with the highest hidden fees -
(Checked baggage, carry-on baggage, seat selection, online booking, airport check-in and rescue fee)
Ryanair: (£31, £18, £15.50, £0, £55, £100) total - £220
Vueling: (£41.50, £38.30, £16.10, £0, £0, £115.30) total - £211
Wizz Air: (£57.40, £0, £29.30, £9.80, £24.30, £73) total - £194
EasyJet: (£31.50, £17.50, £24, £0, £0, £110) total - £183
British Airways: (£50, £0, £20, £0, £0, £0) total - £70
Norwegian Air: (£27.90, £12, £27.90, £0, £0, £0) total - £68
Jet2: (£31, £0, £20, £0, £15, £0) total - £66
Michael Fisher from TradingPedia said: "The report includes information about fees charged by seven airlines, of British Airways, easyJet, Jet2, Norwegian, Ryanair, Vueling, and Wizz Air. To be fair, fees are not exactly hidden on the websites of the airlines – they are fully disclosed on each screen while you are making an online booking.
"However, they are not added to the final cost of the fare in advertisements and special offers, and do not become clear until the actual process of booking the flight is completed."
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