Is easyJet Plus worth the £249 (up 16%) membership fee?

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• TimM says:

  30 Jul30 July 04:49

  I think the value of easyJet Plus lies not with what it offers but what easyJet has taken away over the years, e.g. the larger cabin bag (56cm x 45cm x 25cm), or charge far more than they used to, e.g. extra legroom seating.

  I feel the Plus fee is reasonable but only relative to paying easyJet’s otherwise excessive charges.

  easyJet Plus is truly a loyalty scheme – you pay up front and then feel obliged to travel easyJet to get value from it. It is a little like Sainsbury’s saying ‘give use £250 a year then you can have normal prices’.

  I generally value good flight timings over all else and usually mix and match one-way flights on different airlines each trip. I am even prepared to travel Ryanair for the right times. The Northerner in me would have to put up with worse flight timings, at least one way, to get my money’s worth from easyJet Plus.

  Use cases differ.

  • Erico1875 says:

    30 Jul30 July 05:53

    I dont understand the phrase “even Ryanair” as if its an inferior product
    With Ryanair, you are more likely to leave and arrive on time, the aircraft relativly new and the overall fare cheaper

    • Scott says:

      30 Jul30 July 07:17

      My last Ryanair flights, barring slot delays, couldn’t be faulted.
      No issues with seats.
      Actually saw crew members and they were pretty active.
      Clean.
      Boarding went smoothly.
      Comfortable ride.
      A fraction of the price of BA even if I did loose out on a few hundred Avios and 10 or so tier points.

      Definitely a lot of elitist people about who see FR as second rate and will happily drop £500 for CE rather than £50 on Ryanair.

      Every airline has its issues. BA are not exempt from screwing people over when there are delays, cancellations etc.

      Quite a few EZY destinations from MAN that are useful to me. If the price is right, and thr timings, there can be some half decent prices if you wanted to position to say JER or SOF.

      Probably wouldn’t fly Easyjet enough to justify this fee, and as I travel HBO 95% of the time, a backpack suffices.

      Seating wise, depends on the distance and fare.
      If I were flying 1h30? to GOT from MAN, on a £12.99 fare, paying £8 for a non middle seat wouldn’t be worth it.
      3hrs or so to SOF, and then £13 or so for an exit row may be a different kettle of fish.

      At the end of the day, many pay £300+ for CE over ET on a single flight just to end up with practically the same seat; lounges that may or may not come with status anyway, assuming they’re any good; a few TPs and extra Avios.

      Each to their own.

      • memesweeper says:

        30 Jul30 July 07:30

        Why not Ryanair?

        – using flimsy skysteps at airports with better alternatives
        – 737-MAX (still plagued with issues, a Ryanair flight is under investigation after a very sudden loss of altitude on approach to Stansted recently)
        – inadequate legroom
        – pushing other carriers down in quality in a race to the bottom
        – personally, I’d like to defund O’Leary

        • Sean says:

          5 Aug5 August 11:18

          Flimsy sky steps? Come on. Even BA uses stairs. It’s not uncommon to board remotely at Heathrow or elsewhere. At ARN now BA also board through the rear door using stairs.

          Have you flown Ryanair recently? From personal experience there is more legroom on Ryanair than BA. Travelling with kids, the Ryanair toilet was also big enough to allow child and adult together unlike BA where we had to leave the door open to be able to help our toddler.

          I’m a BA silver card holder but certainly can’t fault Ryanair and if they are flying the route we want often we’ll take them because it’s cheaper and lately it’s a better service.

      • Sam says:

        30 Jul30 July 07:30

        There was definitely a period of about 5 years where Ryanair went so out of its way to penalise, fine, charge and make your life as difficult as possible that so many people vowed to never fly then again.

        It sounds anecdotally that they are vastly improved, reliable and simplified rules so you don’t feel they are constantly trying to catch you out. I say anecdotally as I vowed never to fly them again about 15 years ago.

        • John says:

          30 Jul30 July 12:52

          How true this is doesn’t matter to me, the anecdotes have already put me off and no positive stories will entice me to look at RYR.

          I have taken EZY and Wizz with no real issues and will continue to fly these two when it costs £30 all-in

      • JDB says:

        30 Jul30 July 08:23

        @Scott – your statement “Definitely a lot of elitist people about who see FR as second rate and will happily drop £500 for CE rather than £50 on Ryanair” really doesn’t bear analysis. It’s not “elitist” to value one’s comfort and prefer, for locational reasons, to fly from Heathrow. Is it “elitist” to go to to one the the better burger restaurants rather than McDonalds?

        I think Ryanair is a brilliant airline with one of the best operational capabilities in the business and I have flown them once but it’s just not for me unless they offer an unbeatable routing (ie bring back Dinard in my case).

      • TimM says:

        30 Jul30 July 08:30

        As I said, use cases differ.

        I am usually sitting in the cabin for at least hours for my journeys from Manchester. At 6’4″ a standard RyanAir seat is intolerable, verging on inhumane, so there is an extra fee to pay for extra legroom seating. Then I am usually away for at least two weeks. An easyJet larger cabin bag or BA cabin bag (56 x 45 x 25 cm) is sufficient, the RyanAir cabin bag allowance (extra charge but is still limited to 55 x 40 x 20 cm) is not, so that is a huge extra fee and extra time and inconvenience required to deal with hold luggage at both ends.

        Then yes RyanAir don’t use airbridges even when they park at gates equipped with them. It is a pantomime to have to walk past the air bridge down three flights of steps, across the apron, and then up again to board.

        The 737-Max, putting reliability concerns to one side, is narrower and less comfortable than the Airbus equivalent.

        RyanAir drinks and food are the most expensive I have ever encountered on any airline.

        As I said, I will travel RyanAir, against my better judgement if the flight times are perfect for me. Otherwise, best avoided.

      • Bob says:

        30 Jul30 July 09:01

        Most people will drop £500 of their employers money on CE. If they are paying themselves they will be on Ryanair.

    • Froggee says:

      30 Jul30 July 09:43

      The reason I dislike Ryanair (but I frequently still fly them because of timings and point to point) is their practice of deliberately splitting up groups so as to encourage us all to book seats.

      The result of this is groups being scattered all over the plane but then seeking to reunite in the aisle and/or talking over others or shouting to their friends several seats away.

      The result is an unnecessarily noisy and chaotic flight. The contrast in noise levels between Ryanair and Jet2/Easyjet is significant.

    • BJ says:

      30 Jul30 July 11:40

      Probably because it is an inferior product.

• Sharon says:

  30 Jul30 July 06:19

  This was a godsend to me before covid when for two years I was flying Luton Edinburgh every other Monday morning and back Thursday afternoon. I would have happily paid more. Without the seat, bag, fast track etc and the flight club’s ability to change my flight home to an earlier one, it would have been a miserable couple of years. In two years I was only delayed twice.
  Funny that since Covid I worked from home for another two years when the contract finished so never went back!

• tony says:

  30 Jul30 July 07:04

  Yep, very surprised by this: These benefits can be purchased separately for one-off easyJet flights (although switching to an earlier flight home now seems to be restricted to FLEXI ticket holders) so easyJet Plus only makes sense for regular travellers.

  Example BHX-GLA. £25 for the seat, but then £25 to take a carry on, £5 for fast track and c. £10 to reserve a seat. So 3 round trips and you’ve covered it. easyJet have now cut so much from the fare that BA ex LHR is frequently cheaper. The pricing of the Plus product isn’t for frequent travellers, it’s for someone taking a few weekend breaks a year who is a bit savvy….

• Andy says:

  30 Jul30 July 08:00

  I bought it last year when I knew I had a good number of EZY flights coming up. It worked for me, but not sure I agree with the analysis that it’s all about selecting row 1 seats. The financial value was really in having the large cabin bag included, which can now be quite costly (£57 this weekend for a short GLA-LGW return). The auxiliary benefits, such as priority security and the ability to select row 1 or exit seats (wouldn’t normally at the price) appreciated.

  And when you say “Free speedy boarding – although this is less important if you have a seat selected”, you’re perhaps thinking of the EZY of pre-2012. Since then, everyone has had an allocated seat, and the value of speedy boarding is in overhead space near your seat.

  • Travel Strong says:

    30 Jul30 July 14:19

    Yes that statement “although this is less important if you have a seat selected” is long redundant. It did confuse me as it’s quite a throwback!

• Bill says:

  30 Jul30 July 08:13

  Speedy boarding is often not enforced or cannot be enforced due to space constraints at the gate. Furthermore if you’re relaxing in the lounge unless you run to the gate you’ll end up missing speedy boarding and being stuck behind the regulars

  • Bill says:

    30 Jul30 July 08:15

    Regulars… meaning the remaining normal passengers in the everyone else queue

  • Andy says:

    30 Jul30 July 08:29

    I’ve found the priority line for FR to be longer than the non priority queue. Then they pile you all into a bus or a holding room and all advantage is lost. I never book priority, it’s cheaper to book regular and pay for a 10kg bag

    • Scott says:

      30 Jul30 July 15:23

      You get the same thing with BA.
      A load of gold cards holders at say Zurich (and I’ve seen it at Berlin) counting for the majority of the cabin.
      A10 bus gates have BA F passengers being on the sane bus as potentially all and sundry, and having boarded first, get off last (mind you, not the same cabin to fight for overhead space)

      T3 at LHR has quire a few holding rooms, and there seems to be little policing of when they call group 1 etc.

  • Red says:

    30 Jul30 July 08:44

    “Furthermore if you’re relaxing in the lounge unless you run to the gate you’ll end up missing speedy boarding and being stuck behind the regulars”

    Any airport I’ve been at, you just go down the fast track lane still which is now empty. Ignore all the looks from the people queuing thinking you’re skipping the queue, and when you get to the front the gate staff normally call you up next to double check you have speedy boarding.

• Steve R says:

  30 Jul30 July 08:52

  Never quite got my head around speedy boarding.

  The only thing you are doing is sitting in a cramped seat waiting for everyone else to get on the plane

  • TimM says:

    30 Jul30 July 09:15

    Agreed. Last-on, first-off is the best strategy.

    • Red Flyer says:

      30 Jul30 July 12:08

      Not if you want a carry on bag above you it’s not.

  • David says:

    30 Jul30 July 13:19

    Because having your cabin baggage somewhere near you rather than 10 rows is behind you makes a big difference when it comes to exiting at the other end.

    And having your cabin baggage put in the hold because you were last on and the overhead is full makes an even bigger difference!

• mhughes says:

  30 Jul30 July 09:08

  speedy boarding—- at some airports, the seating area is divided off and at boarding time the speeding boarding area gets to walk to the plane first.

  • Peter K says:

    30 Jul30 July 12:40

    I had this at Copenhagen with easyJet. The speedy boarders had a decent sized area to wait in, with some seating and room to move around a bit. Everyone else had to stand in a queue in a smaller total size area.

• gavin says:

  30 Jul30 July 09:28

  These days it’s all about getting room overhead for your bags, if you are not in speedy boarding then you may struggle to get your bags anywhere near where you are sitting, especially with the upfront seats as these are bundled in with SB and a large bag

  • Ian says:

    30 Jul30 July 10:59

    Speedy Boarding now only comes with a purchased cabin bag. If you haven’t purchased a cabin bag you can only take a small under-seat item anyway, so overhead locker space shouldn’t be an issue for non-Speedy Boarders.

  • Travel Strong says:

    30 Jul30 July 14:21

    ^ This. The most recent changes, whilst adding a charge, do deal with some of the annoyances of old.

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