An air carrier is only allowed to charge a credit card fee, if he also offers a well-established payment procedure, which is free of charge.
This is what the Superior Court of Justice in Berlin (Germany) decided in a claim by the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (vzbv) against Ryanair.
Therefore, the previous terms of payment are unlawful.
The air carrier charges 4 Euro per air passenger and single flight, if consumers pay using a usual credit card. Only a payment via the Visa-Electron-Card, which is not very common and costs about 40 to 100 Euro a year, is for free. So consumers hardly have the possibility to pay their ticket without any additional costs.
Since the airline does not provide any relevant service for this charge, the judges decided that these payment conditions are unlawful.
Due to the fact that the airline does not accept any cash payment, Ryanair is obliged to provide the usual way of payment without any additional fee.
This judgement is one more step towards more transparency concerning the prices in the internet.
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