Public holiday surcharge - Air NZ customers paying for air next.

I have been told that Air NZ does not process credit cards on the holidays over the internet?! So my flatmate had to telephone them as the only alternative - at which point there is mumblings about the software not being able to do stuff on a public holiday and then the bastards whack on a $30 service fee. It is described in the receipt (that was emailed to him!) under the heading "Fee Type" as "New Issue". As in whatever new issue comes along they'll charge an extra 15%? What about "New rort" that's a bit less vague and a lot more factual.

Bad enough that some cafés put on 15% for public holidays but Air NZ has concocted some excuse to screw their customers to pay for time-and-a-half at the call centre by the sounds of it. Opportunistic price gouging. What is next? Will they then conspire to have the call centre turned into an automated machine that tells everyone to pay online with an extra internet service fee of 15% on top of the 15% that the automated phone would have charged? That is where we are heading. The Commerce Commission won against the airlines recently in an advertising case - maybe they should be looking at these other dubious practices too.