Passengers warned to only buy Birmingham Airport fast track tickets from official website
Passengers planning to use a fast track pass at Birmingham Airport have been warned to avoid buying their pass from anywhere but the airport's official website.
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A spokesperson for the West Midlands airport – which offers a limited Express Lane service for fast access through security when arriving back into the country – has warned passengers to only purchase their passes from the official Birmingham Airport website.
The warning comes as some third-party companies are claiming to sell legitimate passes. The spokesperson added that any passes purchased from any website that isn't Birmingham Airport's will not be accepted.
They continued: "The Express Lane service has limited availability and this is reviewed regularly, to ensure the service offered is what customers receive. The amount of Express Lane tickets differs each day and at various times of the day depending on how many customers are flying through.
"Customers who cannot find the time slot they need are advised that this means it is fully booked for that time slot. Tickets should be booked for the time of travel, any customers with a ticket that does not coincide with the time of travel will be refused Express Lane access. Ticket slot allocations have a period of one hour either side of the booking time however if the ticket does not match this slot time, then the customer will be refused Express Lane access.
"Express Lane can only be booked through Birmingham Airport’s website here, not through third party companies. Some companies that claim to sell Birmingham Airport Express Lane are MyTripOnline and fasttrack.flights.
"Tickets purchased via these sites will not be valid at Birmingham Airport, so customers are reminded, if slots are available, to only book through the Birmingham Airport website."
The airport has recently come under criticism for hiking up the price of the fast track passes – last week it announced on its website that the Premium Fast Track service was set to increase in price from the start of July.
It added that the passes – which previously cost just £7 – could be pre-booked online for £20 from July 1.
It marks an 185.7 per cent increase in the cost of the service, which can only be pre-booked at least 24 hours before a passenger's arrival to BHX. A spokesperson for the airport said that the fast track service is a UK Border Force product and prices were not set by the airport.
Judging by its website, Fasttrack – one of the websites claiming to sell passes for BHX's Express Lane - is a subsidiary of MyTripOnline. The company has been contacted for comment.
