Getting around the annoying convenience fee on Indian airlines

I know I know, all of you are very very annoyed by the new transaction/convenience fees that have been out there from various airlines for a while now. Even though the Supreme Court of India recently ruled that airlines could not charge a separate transaction fee over and above the displayed fares, they have renamed it CONvenience fee and continue to charge this fee, even those who announce proudly, like Indigo and SpiceJet.

a screenshot of a flight ticket

Declaration

a screenshot of a computer screen

Actual

Travel Agents and online travel agents have been, on similar lines, popping up a booking fee right before payment is made, which makes you believe through the booking process that you are booking tickets with a x value, but it turns up to have a Rs. 150 – Rs. 200 booking fee at the last stage.

Now, I’ve been booking tickets for family & friends and myself over the past few days with the various fare sales, and I discovered a handy way, or maybe a conscious choice by Cleartrip, to avoid these fees. Cleartrip.com’s mobile app has a Rs. 10 processing fee for all sorts of airline reservations made with the site, which is loose change compared to the other websites. Now, I want you all to know that Cleartrip is doing a fab job on this, and along with their PriceWatch feature launched recently, they are clearly becoming one of my favourite online travel agent!

Like I said yesterday, if you are making round-trip reservations, use coupon code CTVALENTINE and you get Rs. 500 off when using the mobile app. This is valid till March 15, 2013.

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About Ajay

Ajay Awtaney is the Founder and Editor of Live From A Lounge (LFAL), a pioneering digital platform renowned for publishing news and views about aviation, hotels, passenger experience, loyalty programs, travel trends and frequent travel tips for the Global Indian. He is considered the Indian authority on business travel, luxury travel, frequent flyer miles, loyalty credit cards and travel for Indians around the globe. Ajay is a frequent contributor and commentator on the media as well, including ET Now, BBC, CNBC TV18, NDTV, Conde Nast Traveller and many other outlets.

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Comments

  1. Better revise or decomission this post (as it still coming top in google search results). Cleartrip.com mobile app is now charging absolutely Rs.225 as the convenience fee.

  2. Great work IRCTC. Thanks to this forum, I booked my flight tickets through irctc.co.in without any convenience fee( NIETHER AT START PAGE NOR AT THE FINAL PAGE). Jai Ho IRCTC

  3. In case you missed it, saw a 5% discount code on the Indigo website today for the registered members. And also it seems, Indigo website not adding Convenience charges, though it is mentioned on their web payment page.

  4. book your flights through irctc.co.in (No, I’m serious) and they have probably the lowest add-on fees of all these travel agents. 🙂

  5. The low processing fee by cleartrip is only on their mobile site which I believe is probably a promotion to get people to use the mobile site.
    The web based online site still has the 225 per passenger fee which comes up just before the payment processes.
    So I am not sure when you say cleartrip is doing a fab job on this. They are probably just promoting their mobile app for now and as with all good things, this would soon come to an end.

    • @Ravi it is clearly mentioned here that this low processing fee is only on the Mobile version. What Cleartrip intends to do with it 6 months or 1 year down should not stop anyone from benefiting from this benefit today

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