An entirely astonishing observation on cheap flights from the Daily Mail
DID you read the news in the Daily Mail? No, amazingly it’s not that cancer causing immigrants damage house prices. Nor even that immigrants raising house prices cure cancer. Rather, it’s that markets work:
Holiday money firms are setting sneaky traps as part of a £720 million racket in rip-off fees for families going abroad, Money Mail has found.
The tricks are set to catch out hundreds of thousands jetting off on a post-Olympics break and, in particular, will shock many who took out pre-paid cards in the belief they were a cheaper alternative to expensive bank cards.
Firms are also making bigger profits by charging poorer exchange rates to travellers who live outside London or travel from cheap-flight airports.
The thing about cheap flight airports is that they are small airports. They’re not the vast retail emporiums that Heathrow or Gatwick are. And the thing about not London in this here UK is that they’re all smaller towns. With fewer shops in them.
Fewer shops in both not London and small airports is going to lead to, yes, you’ve guessed it, fewer travel exchange bureaux. So what the Mail has just managed to find out is that when there are fewer suppliers then consumers get a worse deal. Or, if you prefer, that competition gets consumers and customers a better deal.
It’s a really quite astonishing finding, don’t you think? Perhaps someone should try doing some real academic research into this phenomenon. We might call it economics…if it weren’t for the fact that we already have a science ca
Posted: 15th, August 2012 | In: Money, The Consumer Comments (2) | TrackBack | Permalink
