We've Got Mail: Last week Moira Keaney from Dungarvan in Co Waterford received an e-mail from Aer Lingus announcing a fare sale and decided to price a pre-Christmas trip to New York.
For a flight departing from Dublin and travelling to JFK with a stopover in Shannon on November 8th and returning to Dublin, again with a Shannon stopover, she was quoted a return fare of €190. When taxes of €67.55, a fuel surcharge of €80 and a handling fee of €6 were factored in the full price of the flight to New York, came to €343.55.
"Living in Munster, I decided to forego the delights of travelling to Dublin airport and priced the exact same flights, but direct from Shannon," she writes. "To my horror, I was offered a return fare of €258 and taxes of €72.07, with the same fuel surcharge and handling cost as for Dublin.
"So for flying on the same flights, for a shorter distance and not passing through an extra airport, I will be charged €72 more for the fare and €4.57 more for taxes. Can you shed any light on the reasoning behind this?," she asks.
We can but try. First, off we went to the Aer Lingus site and priced the same flights and were quoted the same prices as our reader. We then contacted Aer Lingus to find out what was going on. Apparently while flights from Dublin to New York were included in the three-day sale which finished last Thursday, flights from Shannon were not. A "commercial decision" was taken by Aer Lingus to concentrate the sale on flights out of Dublin, we were told, as the airline was keen to focus its efforts on the busiest routes.
The good news for Keaney is that there was a slight change in thinking in the middle of the sale and Aer Lingus decided to include certain New York-bound flights which had Shannon stopovers.
With regard to the higher tax on the Shannon flight an Aer Lingus spokeswoman said that the airport authority there imposed a higher charge than the Dublin Airport Authority.
Shops shy about euro prices
Another reader was in touch asking PriceWatch to look at the policy some British stores here have of displaying the sterling price for an item of clothing in both a more prominent position and in a bolder type on the price tag than the euro price, with the consequence that the item always appears to be considerably cheaper until you get to the cash register.
"I had always understood that the currency of the country in which one was retailing had to be the one more prominently displayed," writes Margaret O'Gorman. She wonders if doing otherwise is within the law. "It leads to constant embarrassment at the cash register when you are suddenly told that you have to pay far more than you thought for an item," she says, giving the names of a number of stores which she says are repeat offenders. She also asks us to look into the conversion rates which, she says, are not always right "and seem to be to the stores' advantage".
Unfortunately, while it is annoying and in some instances blatantly misleading, there is no law preventing stores from printing the sterling price (or any other currency for that matter) in a larger, more prominent position than the euro price. As long as the euro price is also featured on the tag, the stores are acting within the law. With regard to conversion rates, many readers have raised this with us and when we challenge shops, the answer is almost always the same - higher, rents, wages, transportation and taxes in the Republic skew the euro-sterling conversion rate considerably.
Shelving the deal
A reader in search of shelving went into Habitat on Dublin's College Green last week and spotted something he thought might work. At nearly €1,000 they weren't cheap so he asked for the catalogue with a picture of them so he could better consult with his wife before splashing out. He was less than pleased to be charged €3 for the catalogue. So disgruntled, in fact, was our reader that he immediately decided against buying the shelves, which means the company's catalogue policy cost it close to €997 in an instant.
Shelf life of a gift card
Last week we carried an item about the fees associated with the HQ GiftFlex GiftCard on sale at Dundrum Town Centre. The company that runs the scheme charges a maintenance fee of €3 a month for the card three months after it is purchased if the recipient still has money on it.
This has prompted another reader to get in touch. He recently bought one of the cards as a gift and says he was not told there would be a charge if it wasn't used within a specified time. "If I had known I would never have bought the card as I don't think you should force someone to spend a present within a specific time," he writes. He says that while the fees attached to the cards are no doubt covered in the small print of the terms and conditions, that's not good enough. "Who bothers reading terms and conditions of a gift voucher present?"
