Why can’t the price be right first time? (From This Is Local London)

Why can’t the price be right first time?

6:27pm Thursday 8th September 2011 in Colin Baker By Colin Baker

I WAS following a Megabus that was on its way to Cardiff on Sunday and, as we crawled lethargically onward out of London, my eye was drawn to the large advert on the back tempting us to use their service –‘Fares from £1’ in mammoth letters.

Lower down, in much smaller type, were the words ‘plus 50p booking fee’. Why? Why not charge £1.50 and not run the risk of the disappointment and irritation, however small, that the sudden discovery of a 50% hike in price might bring? Yes it’s only 50p, but the ‘onlyness’ works both ways. ‘Tickets from £1.50’ hardly sounds a deal breaking price-too-high, so why not start with the actual full price and then there’s no need to sneak in little additional increases?

And where did this habit of springing unheralded booking and admin fees on us come from? It is particularly prevalent in the theatre now.

They advertise tickets at say £30 and when you turn up at the box office, they slap a booking fee and sometimes even an administration fee on top.

Imagine going into a clothes shop, having seen an item in the window priced at £30, to find you are then charged an additional fee for the privilege of buying it. For that is in effect what some theatres are doing. If the ticket prices are not sufficient to pay the box office staff for the few seconds it takes them to take your money, then put the ticket prices up. There is no consistency either. Some places charge different add-on fees for phone bookings, online bookings, credit card bookings and even cash bookings.

Then there are the ticket agencies who sell you a ticket for £50 and when you collect it, it has £40 written on it.

Why anyone uses ticket agencies for simple bookings of theatre tickets, when all theatres have their own box offices defeats me.

Some airlines too lure customers looking for a bargain to book by advertising seemingly lower prices than their competitors only to gradually increase the actual price the passenger pays by a variety of add-ons for checked in luggage, hand baggage, food and drink. It becomes impossible to budget sensibly without spending hours researching options and permutations. ‘Oh you want a seat too – and air? – will you be using the walkway to the plane sir? In that case there will be a surcharge of…’