Importance of the web user experience

March 30, 2009

I’m heading to Singapore for a turn-around flight, just so that I can help Wedding Story pick up a couple of Panasonic HD cameras before they fly off to Bangladesh. Today is Monday the 30th of March, and I fly tomorrow, and return a mere 14 hours of arriving.

Initially, I was elated to find that flights via Tiger Airways were at zero dollars, and you merely pay SGD25 nett from Malaysia to Singapore. So a return flight is SGD50 each, which is really dirt cheap. With that perception in mind, I go about processing my booking…

First, I am presented with a summary of my flight, which is fine. SGD100 for 2 persons translates to MYR228 which is absolutely fine.

tiger-airways-convenience-fee-3.jpg

After it times out several times, I persist and finally get to the part where you’re supposed to put in your credit card details. Obediently, I comply and suddenly, I am presented with this screen.

tiger-airways-convenience-fee-2.jpg

Hold on a minute… my memory isn’t that bad, and I distinctly remember the figures MYR228 – what’s this extra MYR50 that is being snuck in? I click cancel and return to the previous screen where an inconspicuous section says “All bookings made using an electronic form of payment are subject to a CONVENIENCE FEE per passenger per sector”.

tiger-airways-convenience-fee-1.jpg

What on earth is this?

  1. You blew your budget while developing the booking system, and are forced to charge us for it
  2. You’re trying to be sly-er than the coyote
  3. Tiger hopes our eye sight isn’t so good, and they can hoodwink us by 50 bucks

Whatever it is, how can you pass on a convenience fee to us? You jolly well are inconveniencing me and driving me insane. As a web user, I feel this in an injustice and am really disappointed to experience this. I would rather they have told me upfront that there is going to be a fee for booking.

Don’t mask it and coin funky terms such as “convenience fees”, that’s just not cool. Tiger Airways, if you’re reading this, I hope you reconsider your devious strategy and position your miscellaneous fees transparently and not at the last possible moment, without even putting it in the billing summary.

by TheBackpackr |
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Musings, Personal
  • http://www.thenutgraph.com cindy

    OMG! That’s a sly trick to slip it in like that. It’s easy for ppl not to notice if the final total is still in the RM2xx range. I think I’m gonna be alert for such convenience fees in other online bookings as well … just in case

  • http://www.dannyfoo.com/blog Danny Foo

    Hmm, convenience fee. Utter rubbish and ridiculousness. Simple reason being the Internet exists for convenience and it’s wrong to even charge someone because of it. It’s like saying you own the Internet or something. ROFL!

    But I do agree strongly the note should’ve been placed clearly before you had to click the Submit / Pay now button. Or, call it handling fee of some sort.

  • http://korreect.blogspot.com adeline

    Airasia is tricky too! They conveniently slip in the travel insurance (RM18) as part of the purchase process. For the non-regulars, it look like a mandatory cost.

  • http://thebackpackr.com/hidden-fees-for-firefly-mobile-bookings/ Hidden fees for Firefly mobile bookings | TheBackpackr.com

    [...] The offering seemed simple, and being an explorer, I was convinced enough to give it a spin. Little did I know, I was going to be in for a surprise! Convenience my foot! More like conveniently hidden fees! It reminds me of the time I blogged about Tiger Airways trying to hide certain fees too – read about it here. [...]

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