Thursday 1 September 2011

HOW Suvidhaa fools its Customer

This post will be useful  for frequent air travelers who book tickets through Suvidhaa POS.

Everyone is doing a business for profit, but what makes it unacceptable is the amount or the percentage of profit they gaining with it. 

Generally an agent gets 3% - 10% commission in Air ticket booking. The commission structure of Air ticket booking in suvidhaa is
DOMESTIC
1. Go Air - 10% (Basic + Fuel charge)
2. Spice Jet - 9%(Basic + Fuel charge)
3. Indigo - 9%(Basic + Fuel charge)
4. Jet airways - 3%(Basic + Fuel charge)
5. Kingfisher - 4.5%(Basic + Fuel charge)
6.Air India - 4%(Basic + Fuel charge)
7. Jetlite - Rs 80 (For a Single ticket)
8.Air India Express - 180 Rs.(For a Single ticket)
9.Paramount - 3%(Basic + Fuel charge)

INTERNATIONAL
1.Air India - Rs 100
2. Air Arabia - 275
3.Air Asia - 125
4.Spice jet  - 10% (Basic + Fuel charge)

 Apart from this commission the retailers charge Rs 50 to Rs 200 according to their location and ticket amount.

But how really is suvidhaa cheats its customers.

Let see 

Suvidhaa POS has an option to add an desired amount to the airline ticket  cost, that amount will be added and shown as the base fare of the ticket.



Consider you are booking a ticket from Chennai to Goa on 30th September 2011, The actual ticket cost from chennai to Goa was Rs 5008/-.  In this the retailer will be charged the amount after deducting his commission.

The option to set the Air ticket cost as the retailers wish was called Air Line markup, they (retailers ) can add an amount of up to  Rs 9999 ( Nine thousand and nine hundred and nine rupees). This amount will be added to all the airline and shown to the customer like this
Retailers can add any amount as shown in the first image above. The same Ticket costs Rs 4, 870 in cleartrip.com
And the same Ticket costs some Hundreds more when booking directly through the airline website with your Credit/Debit card or Net banking.  But Airlines provides more priority and good service to people books tickets with their own bank accounts. ( Every staff working in airline knows that )


A small calculation of how much you are loosing while booking Air tickets through Suvidhaa POS

Actual cost of ticket                             =         5008

Marked up amount                               =         5408
Booking charges you have given         =           200

Total amount you have given other than the ticket cost   =  600

Some people even add more than 1000 Rupees to this markup, results in a hefty profits when more tickets are booked.No one will accept these kind of fraudulent activities. I have stopped booking tickets through Suvidhaa and doing it directly from the airline websites or other Websites. All you need is a Bank account with Internet Banking facility.

Everything's ok, Then how to find whether i have given the correct amount or not . See the image below
It's a ticket  booked from chennai to goa through suvidhaa POS, Note the value marked near Service tax and fees. That whole amount was added by the retailer who booked that ticket.
He gets a profit of rupees 2183.72/- as profit (4% commission + Marked up value + Booking charges ) to book a ticket of rupees 5168.

A small request to people reading this blog : Who frequently books air tickets with agents share this page with your friends, and please think twice before booking an Air ticket