The Portuguese Association of Travel and Tourism Agencies (APAVT) has criticized TAP’s new campaign that allows passengers to buy airline tickets in three interest-free installments, saying that it creates “market distortions”.
“Once again, TAP preferred to create market distortions, preventing consumer freedom of choice, reducing the end customer’s options regarding the issuing entity, when buying a plane ticket,” says the association in a statement released by APAVT.
Travel agencies say they are surprised that this option “is only accepted in direct sales,” and not available for travel agencies.
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
APAVT regrets not having been informed of this decision which, in its opinion, represents an “obvious strategic option of distancing and even conflict” with travel agencies.
Last week, TAP announced the possibility of buying tickets through a system of three interest-free installments – ‘buy now, pay later’, through the Klarna network.
Travel agencies, which cannot currently use this type of payment, recall that the adoption of the measure “comes at a time when airlines have imposed” a 10-day reduction in average payment times.
Quoted in the document, the president of APAVT, Pedro Costa Ferreira, criticized TAP for preferring to “trace a path of confrontation and exclusion, driving away its best customer, travel agencies”.
“I don’t think this attitude benefits anyone, in the end we will all be worse off,” he predicted, in the statement in which the sector association said that it will maintain the constructive attitude, as well as the demand for equal treatment.
