Beware of Cebu Pacific Airline Promo Fares

This is to reiterate the complaint I made in the haste of the night of January 6, 2008 when I bought one return ticket (Manila – Davao – Manila with ticket reference number ) and two one-way tickets (Manila – Davao with ticket reference numbers) within the allegedly PHP1.00 promo but was charge with an additional PHP100.00 without proper identification of what is that charge for.

I bought plane fare tickets from Cebu Pacific Davao Airport Office in the night of January 6, 2008 taking advantage of their PHP1.00 fare promo (exclusive of taxes and fuel surcharges). I bought tickets for three persons, one roundtrip and two one-ways. Indicated amount paid in the e-tickets are PhP3,264.00, PhP1,626.00 and PhP1,626.00 which add up to a total of PhP6,516.00. Yet, Cebu Pacific Davao Airport Office charged me PHP6,919.00, a stark difference of PHP400.00.

Upon arriving at my house, I checked for the tickets and lo and behold I discovered the PHP400.00 extra charge. I searched for any indication of what these PHP400.00 charges are for but could not find any. So I went back to the Cebu Pacific Davao Airport Office to complain (spending more for my fares!) just to be told that, quoting from the clerks mouth, “yung PHP400.00 na additional charge sa tatlong tickets na binili ko ay service fee daw (the PHP400.00 additional charges for the three tickets I bought was for service fees).” I am fully aware of the greedy PHP50.00 service fee charge of the cebu pacific ticketing offices here in Davao City and not PHP100.00 as the clerk claimed and so I said so. But again the response was, quoting from the clerk’s mouth, “the usual greedy PHP50.00 service fee is for the transactions of organic charges which mean regular fare charges but because the fare is just PHP1.00 the management decided to increase the service fee to PHP100.00”!!!!

What is not right was that the cebu pacific davao offices are not even giving receipts for the incredulous service charges unless prompted to by the paying passengers!!!! And the way the items were written, the service charges is lumped with total amount of the ticket which means that there is no way for BIR to determine the VAT amounts in the said receipts.

In addition to that very ANTI-Filipino practice of not issuing receipts to all their transactions, I felt that the service charge is only per transaction basis which in my case here is just for three tickets not for every travels made!!!!

I think the additional hidden PHP100.00 charges for every PHP1.00 advertised fair are unfair to the clients and even unlawful. Why will P1.00 promo be used by unscrupulous travel agencies (yes, Cebu Pacific in many airports are run and owned by travel agencies) which is perfect for them to wash their hands everytime anomalies as this arises. WHY SHOULD CEBU PACIFIC OUTSOURCE AIRPORT SERVICES?

To cite another example, in my travels to Indonesia, I had an occasion to have my tickets rebooked while I was in Indonesia and asked my travel agent in Philippines to do the rebooking which she did with addition charges of course. But upon checkin, I was told by the Cebu Pacific personnel (also a travel agent), THAT THEY DO NOT HONOR ANY REBOOKING FROM THE PHILIPPINES AND THAT IT IS A MUST THAT NEW TICKETS HAVE TO BE BOUGHT IN INDONESIA which cost USD 284 for one way (Jakarta-Manila).

Furthermore and this is my experience for four times already, It takes 2.5 hours to check in at Jakarta airport as the personnel are so slow, taking them a minimum of 10 minutes per checkin passenger!


I had been a frequent passenger of Cebu Pacific since it started (late part of the nineties) and I feel that the treatment to their passengers had become worst… gone is the good service, pro-client image of the company.

who are we

who are we to think we could command and control the universe?
who are we to plan what is for the future and what is not?
who are we to rule over all the creatures we think are below us?

why would humankind ever believed they are the highest form of life on earth?