Transaction charge

Even this is also an old fee. What's fresh about it is that the way the travel industry has found more areas to apply it to. Take Jet Airways and its low-frills subsidiary, Jetlite. They have of late added a transaction fee of 150 a ticket, per passenger, per transaction not only for ‘fresh issuance, re-issuance and refund' at the ticketing offices, but also for JetPrivilege redemption tickets. So, fundamentally, you now have to pay to earn your supposed free reward ticket.

"More such service fees are expected to be introduced in the future. These will probably be valid for some time even if they are reviewed and pulled back at a later stage," said Manmeet Ahluwalia, Marketing Head, Expedia India. Think about the proposed 774 percent tariff hike that the Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) recently made headlines over. Tempering it later, the airport regulator swapped it with a proposal for a one-time hike of 334 percent. If approved, this change will not only make Delhi the most expensive airport-and with unhappy customers since they are already loaded with a 200-1,300 user fee-but may also encourage all other airports to follow suit.

Knowing that the number of fees and surcharges being charged is only going to go up in the next few years, the only way one can control travel expenses is by planning smartly.