Avoid Internet Booking Fee on Jetstar, AirAsia

Avoid Internet Booking Fee on Jetstar, AirAsia

For year end travellers planning a holiday, do take note! Budget Airlines like Jetstar, Airasia, Tiger Airways and Skoot will charge you a fee when you use a credit card for online payment. The amount could add up to be quite significant as it ranges from $6-$8 per person per sector, depending on carrier. They term it as the Internet Booking and Service fee or Convenience Fee. Sounds more like an inconvenience fee. As advocates for online shopping, this doesn’t bode well and we at GadgetReactor suss out the best option for the Singapore budget traveller.

For Tiger Airways and Skoot, sorry. You are out of luck. You could attempt to make payment by vouchers but that’s not common. Also, like the other budget carriers, this additional booking fee only appears at the end when you do payment selection and you might miss it or hope that you would find it too troublesome to change or seek alternative. At times, this $8 Tiger Airways convenience fee may be waived with their ‘Tiger Raw’ fares promotion. Hence, if you are not on the promotion, do add an additional $8 per person per sector to the ticket price.

Jetstar is the most friendly among the budget airlines. To avoid the booking or service fee charges for internet payment you could choose offline payment to “skip” the convenience charges. You will then have up to 48hrs to pay for your ticket through the respective offline modes below.

Payment modes available for JetStar Asia

Singapore Post offices: Cash, NETS
S.A.M: NETS
7-11 outlets: Cash, Cash Card or NETS

An even better alternative is online bill payment at VBox (VPost Bill Paying Alternative), which accepts credit cards. You may need to verify your VPOST or VBOX account via fax or simply visit a SINGPOST office with your IC for bill payments. I had registered previously and on VPOST, select Pay Bills and choose Jetstar Asia and you would then see the following screen below.

Update: Thanks to Princess for sharing. VPost had since ceased local bill payment services and migrated them over to VBox instead. JetStar is still under the partner list – you can view them by looking at ALL partners or specifically, under Retail Merchants. Attached is a screenshot of the payment page.

vBOX-jetstar payment

Updates – 2015VBox has now changed to MySAM, and while you can still pay your Jetstar booking, they no longer accept credits – only eNets.

Payment modes available for AirAsia

AirAsia likewise charges a booking / processing fee and has no offline payment options like Jetstar. They do offer an option to avoid the choice though, which is direct debit or eNets payment, through the bank account. In Singapore, banks like DBS and UOB are supported. Read more here.

9 Replies to “Avoid Internet Booking Fee on Jetstar, AirAsia”

  1. Hiya! Thanks for the tips but I think the VPost method doesn’t work anymore. :(
    They have consolidated payments into VBox since Jan’13 and I can’t see JetStar under their partner list… Plus it’s a pain to sign up for a Vbox account…

  2. Hi back, thanks for the tip! Didn’t know that vPost had since migrated payments to vBox. However, Jetstar is still available in vBox, hope you manage to find it. The good thing for me is that my vPost account works in vBox too.

  4. just to update, above method still works for avoiding booking fee on Jetstar. Just paid and no booking fee was charged as of 02 April 2014.

    Pay through VBox (using the Booking Reference Number) but it takes some time before Jetstar receives payment, esp at night so you would have to wait till the next morning.

  5. Hi,

    I could not see the SingPost option on the payment page for Jetstar Singapore.

    Any idea is it a technical glitch or some other conditions, causing the SingPost option not made visible on the payment page?

    I can only see credit card and vouchers options made available.

    Thanks for the advice!

    Regards,
    Javier

    1. Hi Javier,

      It is the third payment option (Credit Card, 7-Eleven, Singpost, Vouchers). I just checked. Could it be because your address or first flight destination is not based in Singapore?

  6. Hi,

    Is jetstar payment not available anymore on VBox. MySAM page for jetstar payment always show like this :

    This biller is currently unavailable. Please try again later.

    For assistance, please call our general hotline (1605) or email to us at [email protected]

  7. Hi, I think payment by credit card for Jetstar is no longer available on vBox. Wanted to pay for my flight but there’s only one payment mode – eNets Debit. :(

    Was wondering if Singpost branch accept credit card for payment for Jetstar flights?

    Regards,
    Siti