Cebu Pacific Partners confuse Customers

Cebu Pacific Partners in Europe confuse customers. This partnerships exist now for many years.

Yesterday evening we got this e-mail from an Italian reader:

You are: LAURA XXXX
Email: lauraXXXX@yahoo.it
Your IP:  XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX 
Page:  https://www.silent-gardens.com/taxes-fees.php 

Message: Dear all,
I have the following flights
A/R Milano / Abu Dhabi / Milano
Domestic flght: By Air Asia : Puerto Princesa -Manila - Kalibo (same ticket, as no direct flights)
Domestic flight: By Cebu : Caticlan - Manila.
Only Cebu sent me the link to pay and I registerd but I do not understand when I have to fill in the field "gate". How much should I pay? 
Thanks and regards.

I then answered:

Buona sera Laura,
We have never received such a link from Cebu Pacific Air.
Can you forward your mail to webmaster@silent-gardens.com
So we can check what you got and hopefully send you an answer.

Best regards.
webmaster@silent-gardens.com
waebi

Within a few minutes we got this screen-shot:

This screen-shot explained the initial question. If you have never been in the Philippines before, you cannot know that the TIEZA Travel Tax is only to be paid by Philippines nationals and some categories of long-stay aliens.

The sender of this message should have printed  our above explanation instead of this whole “Disclaimer” sermon.

Cebu Pacific Partners

These Cebu Pacific Partnerships had been created many years ago, when CEB could not yet verify European credit cards. This had been a silly era because potential customers then already could book their flights on the CEB website. When arrived on the payment page, the website refused the credit card. Many frustrated customers then contacted us. In some cases, we helped them by buying the ticket for them.

There were also commercial websites which understood the problem and turned it into a nice business. Among these websites are www.cebupacific.de and  momondo.com. Cebupacific.de even looks like an official CEB website, while momondo.com is more discrete.

Cebupacific.de isn’t a Cebu Pacific Air company but a website of AMAZING SEA-TOURS LTD.

These partner websites are now obsolete because CEB had introduced credit card verifying systems already years ago. Such credit card verifying systems are offered by Master Card and VISA. Verified by Visa is a global solution designed to make eCommerce transactions more secure. It helps ensure that payments are made by the rightful owner of the Visa account, building consumer confidence in online shopping.

The final answer

We could comfort our reader Laura. My answer:

Hello Laura,

Thanks for the picture.
You have nothing to pay.
The TIEZA Travel Tax has only to be paid by Philippines citizens and only for international flights.
Foreigners are exempt of this tax.

Cebu Pacific is a bit crazy to print this now on their electronic tickets.
And especially for a domestic flight within the Philippines, where no such tax is to pay.
This must be completely new, because on our tickets we bought and used end of December
and begin of January, no such text had been printed.

So, I repeat, you have nothing to pay. Everything is OK.

Have a nice trip to the Philippines.
Best regards.
webmaster@silent-gardens.com
waebi

And what we received:

Thanks a lot!!!
Really useful!
ciaoooooo

This is how Silent Gardens works …

By the way, Laura’s problem had been resolved within 25 minutes.

[GARD]