With so much competition around everyone in business has to compete, with the greatest bargaining chip usually the price. Whether it be shops, services restaurants or airlines - they often advertise headline grabbing prices, but when it comes down to it, that is rarely the final price paid. "70% off" posters in large red letters are commonplace down the aisles of Carrefour, but it is not until you read the very tiny print at the bottom where it mentions "on the second item" - I am sure that many unsuspecting customers are caught out and don´t even notice.

Price War

Adverts promoting late getaway prices

Airlines often have price wars - especially the so called low cost carriers who are all vying for the same customers. In days gone by you would book your flight and your seat would be allocated on booking, a suitcase would be included in the price and often a meal on the flight too - Monarch and British Airways also included a free newspaper and drinks!

In a bid to slash prices, which they masqueraded as customer demand they then offered seat only prices - seat allocation, hold luggage and priority boarding were all extras. Many would not bother with any of these, which made the cost of traveling affordable. Some airlines charge more for luggage during the busy peak holiday period - when families tend to go away, so cashing in so to speak.

Ryanair

Ryanair luggage

Always deemed the villain of the low cost carriers, Ryanair underwent a metamorphosis last year to try and win back customers, who were fed up of being treated like cattle. They slashed the price of re-printed a boarding pass at the airport, allowed a free 24 hour grace period if you had made a minor error on your booking and even allowed passengers to take a second small carry on bag.

Then as of February this year they introduced allocated seating. Great many thought - no more rugby tackling for a seat, but it hasn´t quite worked out like that as passengers are now finding out!

Allocated seating

Pre-Book your seat for a charge

You have the option to pick your seat during the booking process - obviously for a fee, which for a standard seat is 5€. You can then print off your boarding passes up to 15 days before travel. However, if you decide that you do not want to hand over any more money than necessary and wait for Ryanair to allocate your seat, you cannot print off your boarding pass until 7 days before departure. For those going for 7 days or less this is fine, however, if you are away for 8 days or longer you have a problem. It means that you have to spend time looking around for somewhere to print off your boarding pass - which will most probably incur a charge from either the hotel or local internet shop!

Added stress

Most come away wanting to relax - who wants to go away on holiday then spend time looking for somewhere to print off a boarding pass? So the only alternative is to pay and pre-book your seats, which will cost 5€ per person per flight - an extra 10€ on top of your ticket price, which is for a standard seat. Extra legroom seats are 10€ per sector adding an extra 20€ onto the basic price. For a family of 4 this certainly adds to the cost - so when Ryanair announced that they were moving to allocated seating they could already hear the cash register pinging!