14 September, 2017

Jetstar now offers pay later option with Afterpay

By Hannah Edensor

Jetstar has teamed up with a buy now, pay later company known as Afterpay, meaning travellers can snag a flight and pay it off in interest free instalments.

The partnership was announced this morning, and is available from today as part of its pilot program.

To start with, it’ll only be available on domestic flights, although there’s talk of expanding it to international flights in the near future.

Afterpay is kind of similar to the whole lay-by system, and is fully integrated with the store’s online checkout. All you need to do is choose Afterpay as your payment option when you’re ready to buy.

This allows you to actually obtain the product – in this case, a Jetstar flight – before you’ve fully paid for it.

Afterpay also has partnerships with hundreds of other companies, however is particularly huge in the fashion retail space.

With the Afterpay partnership, travellers can purchase both flights and extras such as seat selection, meals and checked-luggage, although it’s capped at spends of $200 to $1,000 excluding payment fee.

There’s also a non-refundable payment fee of $10 on Afterpay purchases with Jetstar.

Flights also have to be booked at least eight weeks ahead of stepping onto the plane, meaning most tickets will be pretty much paid off by the time you take off, given repayments are made fortnightly.

Afterpay-snapshot

Jetstar’s Group Chief Officer Jayne Hrdlicka said, “Many of Jetstar’s customers already use Afterpay to purchase items at retailers and are familiar with the flexibility of paying over time”.

As a result, this partnership makes it perfect for its millennial market, which makes up a decent chunk of the budget airline’s target market.

Head of Afterpay Nick Molnar added, “There has been a clear shift in millennials share of the wallet towards service industries and more specifically towards travel.

“At Afterpay, we are focused on offering Afterpay for life’s little luxuries and we believe the demand for Afterpay in the travel market will be very strong.”

Jetstar is not the first airline or travel agency to offer a buy now, pay later scheme, with Flight Centre and Virgin Australia also jumping on a lay-by style bandwagon themselves in the past, with their own programs to allow greater payment flexibility on travel.

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