BA double-crossing UK customers

FOR the boss of British Airways, it was a day to savour. Rod Eddington could bask in the glow of stock market approval as he unveiled stunning profits despite higher fuel costs, the impact of Sars and fears of terrorism.

But as the Australian-born chief executive lapped up the praise of shareholders for pushing profits 70% higher to £230m, others were feeling distinctly less enchanted with the airline's quest for higher margins.

BA may like to style itself the world's favourite airline, but Financial Mail has discovered that the carrier is doing little to ensure it is the favourite of British passengers.

Eddington has swamped the market with cut-price fares in recent weeks in an attempt to lure passengers away from no-frills rivals such as easyJet and Ryanair. But some in the carrier's domestic market reckon that it is perpetrating a major rip-off.

And it is all thanks to a cunning wrinkle in BA's global internet booking system.

French nationals using French credit cards can book bargain fares on flights from their country to the UK, but British travellers cannot do the same.

'It's just another example of rip-off Britain,' fumed one frequent flyer. 'I thought BA was interested in beating the cut-price airlines at their own game, but it seems there's one price for the French and another for the British. It's simply outrageous.'

Anyone using a UK credit card - even a coveted platinum one - to take advantage of ultra-low return fares from Nice of 44 euros (£26) plus taxes, available on BA's French language website, will find the system refuses to accept their booking.

Instead, they have to buy tickets through BA's phone booking line, incurring a £15 offline 'service charge'. Worse, the cheapest fares can be up to twice as expensive.

'It was bad enough paying the service charge, but to be hit with a fare that was double what I was quoted on the French site was a real slap in the face,' added another would-be BA passenger.

Aviation experts say airlines always indulge in 'differential pricing'. That means cheaper fares are offered outside their home market - partly to compensate for being a less favoured foreign carrier abroad, but also to strike a strategic pricing blow against the country's incumbent airlines.

The internet was supposed to mean a more level playing field. But according to BA's French online booking system, a seat booked using a French credit card on flight BA8136 from Nice to Gatwick at 10.35pm on August 1, would cost only e22 plus taxes. A return seat on BA8135, leaving Gatwick the following Sunday for Nice at 7pm, would also cost e22. When you add the hefty taxes, the final bill is e94.29, or £63.

However, when passengers try to pay with a British credit card, BA's ultrasophisticated computer systems reject the booking unless the trip starts in the UK. And the carrier's phone booking service (calls charged at national rate) elicits a best price of £125.90 for the same flights - twice the price.

Staff in the BA front line blame 'security considerations' for the fact that their French system won't recognise UK credit cards, though, strangely, rival carrier British Midland does not consider these mysterious 'security considerations' such a problem.

And travel specialists say they are aghast at the difference. Verity Smith, editor of the holiday website thisistravel.co.uk, said: 'This is incredibly shoddy. It just shows that companies simply charge what they think the local market will put up with.'

At its Heathrow base, BA, which last week boasted of cutting £800m from its annual costs, initially tried to pass off the anti-British disparity as part of the fight against fraud

'There's a greater chance of fraud if people who are not resident in a country try to book flights originating from it,' said an airline spokeswoman.

Sadly, the truth is more prosaic - though mercifully somewhat less anti-British. 'Our computers are not set up to process payments in this way,' she added. 'We are talking to the credit card companies and from late summer we will allow anyone to book any way they want to travel.'

For the fortunate intending to spend a long, hot summer in the south of France, BA insists they will no longer be victims of what it describes as an inadvertent rip-off. It may not be reassuring that the airline regards the difference in fares as a 'mystery', but consolation comes from Eddington's pledge to investigate.