After satisfying himself with the technical details of my product, he moved to price. He boasted that he got 0.5% discount on his last PC purchase but warned me that that wouldn’t suffice this time.<\/p>\n
I was perplexed. Discounting the list price by up to 10% was a standard industry practice and also permitted by my company’s policy. While I could’ve easily given him 10% discount and closed the deal, it struck me that, in the yarn trading business, margins were wafer thin and even a 0.5% discount was a lot of money.<\/p>\n
I told him I could go up to 0.75%. He balked at that and demanded 1%. I asked, only half-jokingly, why someone who owned a penthouse on Warden Road was bargaining so fiercely over a quarter percentage point – implying that, at his paygrade, the difference between 0.75% and 1% ought to be immaterial.<\/p>\n
He said something that has stayed with me forever: “It’s only by negotiating like this that I could buy a penthouse in Warden Road”.<\/p>\n
This was my first encounter with Nickel-and-Diming<\/em>.<\/p>\n During the next 40 years, I’ve come across many more examples of this practice.<\/p>\n Back in the day, nickel-and-diming<\/em> happened only in trading firms and so-called lala companies<\/em>. For the uninitiated, a “Lala company” is an informal term used in the Indian corporate world to describe a traditional, family-run business that is owner-driven rather than professionally managed.<\/p>\n But the practice has now spread to large MNCs and entered the playbook of billionaires and oligarchs.<\/p>\n Let’s see a few modern world examples of nickel-and-diming.<\/p>\n 1. Uber Cancelation Charges<\/strong><\/p>\n Uber fines the rider even when the driver cancels. Very few riders jump through the hoops required to claim the measly refund. As a result, the rideshare major worth $250 billion pockets the 50 cents cancellation charge.<\/p>\n 2. Jeff Bezos Legal Fees<\/strong><\/p>\n Michael Sanchez, the brother of Jeff Bezos’ then girlfriend, sued Jeff Bezos for defamation. A judge threw out the lawsuit<\/a>. Jeff Bezos incurred $1.7 million in legal fees.<\/p>\n With a networth of $271 billion, Jeff Bezos is one of the three richest persons in the world. That didn’t stop him from seeking $1.7M damages from his now brother-in-law.<\/p>\n 3. Ryanair Seat Fee<\/strong><\/p>\n Ryanair pioneered nickel-and-diming practices like charging for checked in baggage and the use of toilet in the airplane.<\/p>\n According to rumors 15 years ago, the Irish budget carrier proposed standing-room-only on short-haul flights, with seats available at an extra cost. Apparently, the EU aviation regulator vetoed this egregious attempt at nickel-and-diming by the airline.<\/p>\n Those rumors are back again. Ryanair has denied them, clarifying that the Skyrider<\/em> upright-seat concept posted by people on X fka Twitter and Instagram is only a prototype \/ concept and not an approved commercial airline seating system.\u00a0Let’s see how this movie plays out.<\/p>\n Then there’s the sharp practice of selling cheap air tickets for remote airports that are misleadingly called by their closest city names. Take Frankfurt Hahn<\/em> (HHN) for example. It’s situated nearly 100 kilometers away from Frankfurt city and its main airport (FRA) (see footnote 2<\/em>). The London-Frankfurt air ticket might cost peanuts but the taxi from HHN to Frankfurt will cost a bomb – even the coach service might cost more than the air ticket. This is much more than nickel-and-diming, I’m not sure if Ryanair pioneered this airport nomenclature but let me put it out there since it’s relevant in the current context.<\/p>\n 4. VietJet Empty Seat Fee<\/strong><\/p>\n On long-haul flights, many of us have seen vacant seats next to us, lifted the armrests, and sprawled across two or three adjacent seats.<\/p>\n If you do that on VietJet Air<\/em>, you might be woken up by the flight stewardess wielding a POS terminal telling you to cough up money for the empty seat(s)! The flagship carrier of Vietnam brands this product \/ service “SkySpace”.<\/p>\n Not sure how much the empty seat costs. Since VietJet Air is a budget carrier, I wouldn’t be surprised if the empty seat costs as much as a normal seat, so this could be a case of you nickel-and-diming the airline for the primary seat and the airline nickel-and-diming you for the empty seat!<\/p>\n #ProTip for Cinemagoers<\/em>: Many higher-priced seats in multiplexes are often empty. You should be careful walking up the aisle and sitting on unoccupied premium seat lest you get a bill, or, worse, find your credit card automatically charged for the differential ticket price!<\/p>\n 5. Banking Fees<\/strong><\/p>\n The banking industry is arguably the OG of nickel-and-diming. In fact, it was from a banker that I first heard this phrase (see footnote 3<\/em>).<\/p>\n There are many examples of nickel-and-diming by financial institutions.<\/p>\n How common is “overdraft protection” in the Indian banking industry? TIL that at least two Top 5 pvt sector banks in India offer this facility – called Temporary Overdraft – and, that too, without any fees. https:\/\/t.co\/yErKeS2MjW<\/a> via @GTM360<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 SKR (@s_ketharaman) March 14, 2019<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/gtm360.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/nickel-and-dime-fi.jpg\")
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