Jetstar has many fees that can be seen as you go through the booking process. I guess these are for baggage, seat preference etc etc. The credit card charge of $17 per passenger is a ripoff. However, an even worse fee is the change fee of $80 per person per flight. This is outrageous for a cheap fare airline when some fares are cheaper or a similar price. Ie you have to just throw away the ticket. What makes it worse is that now where in the booking process does it tell you what the fee is. I had to spend 10 min on their live chat to find out and was told it is only $80, they used the word only and it is per passenger per flight!
Hi @davidlcleland I don’t have much to add to this except to echo what you say - it is outrageous.
You’re almost better off throwing your ticket away because at least then you know they’re not making money off your seat being resold at a higher price!
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They win anyway. If you no-show for your outward bound flight, airlines can automatically cancel the return of round trips. They also cancel all unused legs if you do not fly on any leg of a ticket to defeat “hidden destination” savings, eg where it is cheaper to fly A->B->C than A->B or B->C so people once could buy a ticket A->B->C and only fly A->B, or B->C and save money.
@pdtbaum you’re correct - we’d argue that this is probably an “unfair contact term” but for now the best consumers can do is be aware.
Don’t skip a leg of a trip without checking with your airline first - they may cancel the rest of your trip.
If it’s just one leg though, you’re probably in the clear (e.g. domestic weekend trip you’re not going to use because something has come up and you can’t get away).
Agree better to throw away
I agree the Jetstar change fee is outrageous especially if a request for a change in date of travel for example, is made a month or more before the actual travel date. I would accept a reasonable fee if a date change is made with only a few days notice but not the $ 80 odd gouged at present.
Perhaps the only solution is to try the competition but unfortunately they all seem to have similar policies.
Kel Luke
