...easyjet.com, their website and booking portal.
*General design*
The website is well laid out, with a very distinctive orange and white branding that is to be found across the 'Easy' family.
Much of the Easyjet experience seems to involve the promotion of value added extras to potential ... Read review
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Advantages: Inuitive website and booking system, plenty of information Disadvantages: A lot of add on costs, attempts to sell to you and some misleading T&Cs
Easyjet is one of Europe's leading budget airlines and the eighteen languages that it's possible to choose from on their website attests to this. They fly a multitude of routes (many to cities I've never even heard of) and the choice seems to improve every time I visit www.easyjet.com, their website and booking portal.
*General design*
The website is well laid out, with a very distinctive orange and white branding that ... ... Much of the Easyjet experience seems to involve the promotion of value added extras to potential customers and a clearly laid out series of tabs on the front page allow you to look at options such as hotel bookings, car rentals, carbon offsetting or purchasing travel insurance. As well as this, the main page features their simple to use flight booking form, the online check in facility and links to a lot of their most pertinent information. ... more
Easyjet is one of Europe's leading budget airlines and the eighteen languages that it's possible to choose from on their website attests to this. They fly a multitude of routes (many to cities I've never even heard of) and the choice seems to improve every time I visit www.easyjet.com, their website and booking portal.
*General design*
The website is well laid out, with a very distinctive orange and white branding that is to be found across the 'Easy' family.
Much of the Easyjet experience seems to involve the promotion of value added extras to potential customers and a clearly laid out series of tabs on the front page allow you to look at options such as hotel bookings, car rentals, carbon offsetting or purchasing travel insurance. As well as this, the main page features their simple to use flight booking form, the online check in facility and links to a lot of their most pertinent information. It's clean and clear and fairly intuitive to use.
In addition to this, there's a link to eOffers - their mailing list. Signing up to this might be a good idea for regular customers who like to grab the deals when they can (including my elder brother, who never misses a cheap flight).
*Booking - the process itself*
As I live in greater London, the choice of flights can often be somewhat staggering, which is a good thing. Easyjet fly from various airports in and around London and I often end up scrolling through long lists of flights when trying to make a booking. Booking for specific dates is a cinch, although the form does prompt you to see whether or not you're flexible.
If you list your dates as flexible you're presented with varying cost options across the month you're booking it. Not to worry though - if you enter flights for fixed details you can still look at flight prices across a three or fourteen day stretch (a bit like using a calender in Microsoft Outlook) and the booking system will point out the cheapest flight that matches your departure and arrival airports in said month.
*Watch those fees*
Easyjet critics are less than impressed by the fees imposed by the company for flight bookings and travel insurance (both of which are 'opt out' (I.e. you have to pay £8 each way for a hold bag and you have to uncheck a box at point of booking or you will automatically be charged for travel insurance costs (for a winter flight from London to Glasgow this added £7.75 for me)).
The associated costs for hold bags mean that the average hand luggage on Easyjet flights climbs ever larger (for example, I use a large duffel bag and nobody has ever batted an eyelid).
The travel insurance aspect is particularly irksome as the fact that Easyjet do this is a direct contravention of an EU ruling that means that airlines can only offer travel insurance as an 'opt in' extra (I.e. you need to actively select it to purchase it, avoiding the risk of people buying unwanted insurance by mistake). In fairness to them, they have said that they will fix this, but to the best of my knowledge they haven't stated an exact date by which they will comply.
These costs mean that the initially cheap headline prices aren't nearly as impressive once they're factored in. What looked like a ~£90 flight was now over £110 and I ended up booking with BA, who would never have been cheaper than Easyjet for similar flights a few years ago.
As well as these costs, each booking incurs a £2.95 booking fee (unless you use a Visa Electron card) and credit card holders will be charged an additional 2.5% of the transaction fee (or £4, whichever is higher), on top of this. So, if I booked my hypothetical flights with my Mastercard I'd now be looking at ~£120 for a supposed ~£90 flight. While Easyjet might not be as bad for surcharges as other budget carriers, these sorts of costs are still annoying for consumers lured in by the promise of cheap flights.
*Reliability, misleading terms and conditions etc.*
In my frequent experience of booking with the airline, I've never had a problem with the wrong money being debited, flight details being wrong, or anything of that nature. Their online check in facility is also very good and is free to use. The website is of a high standard and I can't fault them on presentation.
Some of the terms and conditions on the site aren't so great. For example, they claim to have a policy whereby you can take an earlier flight home at no extra cost if there's a spare seat on an earlier flight and it won't delay boarding. Funny then, how the only time my girlfriend tried to use this option she was told that she'd be charged another £65 for the privilege. Confusing areas of the site such as this could do with some tidying, as I'm sure they wouldn't pass Crystal Mark standards.
Advantages: Simple to use Disadvantages: Constant attempts to get you to spend more money
*EasyJet website*
I booked a trip to Ljubljana in Slovenia using this website back in February.
Speed: Nothing to complain about here, unlike some sites that keep you waiting forever for pages to load. The payment page was the only one that took a while, but this might have just been a random glitch with my ISP.
Design: as you would expect, the website is rather...orange. Initially you will be asked to select your language - the site will remember ... ...since I prevaricated for several days before booking. (Warning - don't do this. The prices do go up almost daily as seats are sold, the others become more expensive).
The front page is somewhat cluttered and bright in feel. Everything is relevant, e.g. offers and ideas for trips, other services such as hotels and car hire, transport to Stansted, etc. but I find it confusing when there are too many links (many of which in fact link to the same thing ...
Seagreen 24.08.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of easyjet.com
Advantages: Easy site to navigate, operates in 7 languages Disadvantages: Be aware that when you select your travel requirements you will be presented with three days of flights, the day before you wish to travel, the actual date, and the day after
UPDATED 09/2003: ORIGINAL OPINION BELOW
The first time you visit EasyJet.com, you will be provided with a choice of 7 languages from English, German, French, Danish, Dutch, Spanish and Italian. You will be asked to identify your chosen language - and this will remain in place until you clear your cookies from your machine.
Once in you will be presented with the customary orange colours of Easyjet - and a number of boxes:
Where you want to fly ... ...the next box - i.e. where you want to go will be shown, based on the destinations list from your chosen airport. EasyJet have a number of UK bases, but their primary one is Luton which does tend to have more flights - they also now have a fair few destinations from Bristol since their takeover of GO, and are rapidly making major inroads into take off and landing slots at Gatwick
Once you have selected your departure and destination airports you ...
sue.51 29.07.2001 (14.10.2003)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of easyjet.com
Advantages: Cheap arriving on time both ways Disadvantages: The Heards of Sheep
Review of our latest Easyjet Experience.
Travelled to Funchal Madeira from London Stansted on Friday 15th February returning on Monday 18th February.
This was my Birthday Treat for 16th february.
Outward trip.
Our Flight was departing at 13;25 so checkin was open at 11:25 hours, this was indeed luxuary as often we have had early departures which necessitated arrivals at the airport at 04:00 ish.
So following my earlier suggesstions on times, ... ...1 hour 10mins we doubled it allowed some more so left Peterborough at 09:00.
Arrived in long stay at 10:25, jumped on a Pink Elephant and arrived at Checkin Desk at 10:50 , which was open, as you can use any desk open,ignoring the speedy booking, as we do not pay that extra.
Although quite a large queue, we were in possession of our boarding cards by 11:10, and proceeded thru security no hold ups.
Recommend Weatherspoons in departure, resonable ...
poshtroika 19.02.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of easyjet.com
Air travel is now a very competitive industry with budget airlines popping up all over the place. However, they appear to receive quite a lot of negative press from both the bigger airlines and the travel press. I am writing this to enlighten all you cynic's that flying really can be Easy!
Booking
~~~~~~~
Nothing could be simpler - the website www.easyjet.com is the simplest site I have ever found. You simply chose your departure airport, select ... ...The site then gives you several options for flights. It will give you the original dates selected by yourself and also the previous days flight options and the following days options. It also gives you the flight number, the departure and arrival times and most importantly the cost of the flight. All you have to do to obtain a full costing is to put a "click" in the required flights and select continue. At this stage you still have not booked a flight. ...
Merson 26.09.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of easyjet.com
well I booked my flights online about 4 months before I was due to travel. Booking is easy - choose you departure airport, choose your destination, choose the departure dates and the return dates and sit back and wait . . . . . the price will the be displayed - you are given the day before and after your selected date of travel, mid-week flights are cheaper then the weekends. Confirmation of the booking is emailed to you. You need to print this off ... ...-- book a one way outbound flight, then book your return journey as you may just make a little more savings. Well that the flights booked.
I had booked to fly to Prague in October 2004 from East Midlands Airport. My partner and I arrive 3 hours before the flight, and had a coffee and a tinny. BEWARE - The gates do not open early - so 2 hours before our departure time the gates open, easyjet are trailing a self booking in system where you use a machine ...
sheffsal 09.11.2004
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of easyjet.com