Ryanair - Comments & Feedback Thread

omelette451

macsteffie wrote: »

I feel I've been fleeced for an extra £30, It wasn't 'perfectly' clear to me about the extra £30 so maybe Ryanair has work to do to flag this up more visibly!
I'm now worried by reports that the goalposts might change again and we'll be hit with charges in June when we checkin of up to £20 each which means we wo'nt be able to go at all.
I thought I'd contracted with Ryanair for the flight's and paid for them, it cost me £30 more than I thought, and I still don't think it was clear to me what I ended up getting charged, it's fine to say that they've made it 'perfectly' clear but they need to make sure it's perfectly clear in a way that is truly clear to anyone using the site, and not just those who know where to look!

Once you've booked the only reason you'd be asked to pay more is if you chose to use an extra service, but not even Ryanair would demand out-of-the-blue that you pay an extra £20, so there's no need for you to worry. (By 'extra service' I mean something like checking in luggage or at the airport when you have paid for no bags and opted for web check-in. Any new fees later introduced will be for new bookings only.)

I appreciate that I am a 'seasoned user', but I stand by my claim that anyone who's awake can easily know what they'll be charged. Going through a mock booking just now I've found two links (in blue, and obviously hyperlinks) saying "click here for information on handling fees" on the first page after flight selection. The same link, with the same words, is presented right next to the box where you have to select your card type (in big blue letters... try it, you'll see what I mean), and when you select a non-electron card type the 'payment amount' directly above clearly increases. I really am sorry that you paid more than was necessary (I know how horrible it is to feel you've been ripped off), but in Ryanair's case I feel it is sufficiently obvious. They've had too many complaints to get away with hiding this kind of stuff. But look on the bright side: you get a nice holiday, and you'll know for next time.

One final thing though... You mentioned that your mum is disabled, and I wondered if you've told the airline about that? They will only carry a limited number of 'assistance passengers' on each flight and have been known to offload passengers to the next flight if they haven't booked in advance and the places have already been taken. There's no extra fee involved but it may be worth giving them a ring if you haven't already.

apt

In my view if the OFT chose to investigate Ryanair's 'debt card fees' there would be a good chance that they would find them unfairly excessive for similar reasons to various charges made by credit card companies. No doubt Michael 'no fuel surcharges' O'Leary would then find something else to charge.

teralin

Would it be better to book two single flights in future instead of a return, then if you need to make changes, it would only be to one flight.

spiro

I think they try and make it obvious. At the 'Confirm' stage of a booking it says "Excluding handling fee (if applicable) click here for information on handling fees". If you click there is clearly says there is a £4.75/€5.00 per passenger per flight segment. When you get to the 'Payment' stage of the booking next to were you select the card type it says "A handling fees applies click here for information on handling fees" and if you click on it it will tell you the total card based on the card type you have selected. It even provides a breakdown of how the amount is calculated.

Pollycat

macsteffie wrote: »

I used a solo card (which is a bit like electron) so don't know if they have different policy for this, couldn't find anything in thier t&c's despiite searching about thier card charges so think it must be buried away somewhere if it's there at all.

macsteffie
On the RyanAir homepage, down the left hand side, there's a section called 'My Flight'.
The first option is 'RyanAir fees' which gives you a full list of charges.


Also on the homepage in the top left hand corner there's a FAQ search.
If you type in 'card charges' it brings up something called 'Why is there a handling charge when I reserve my flights' with a link to the full table of fees.

Regardless of whether the credit/debit charge levied is 'fair', 'legal' or 'disproportionate', the information is relatively easy to find.

This fee has been discussed countless times on here.

stoneman

jammin wrote: »

I'm not sure I understand your post.

Non-EEA nationals were previously (and currently) unable to check-in online. They have to pay for airport check-in and apply for a refund later. That's not a UK government regulation, it's just Ryanair's policy.

However, due to a change in Ryanair's policy, from Thursday of next week non-EEA nationals will, for the first time, be able to check-in online.

Sorry jammin, the point of my post was that it has always been OK and never a government regulation as I was told by RA staff, so either I was [STRIKE]lied to[/STRIKE] mislead so that they didn't have to argue with me, or the Senior Supervisor was unaware that it was just company policy. I know which one my money is on.:rolleyes:

bunking_off

apt wrote: »

In my view if the OFT chose to investigate Ryanair's 'debt card fees' there would be a good chance that they would unfairly excessive for similar reasons to various charges made by credit card companies. No doubt Michael 'no fuel surcharges' O'Leary would then find something else to charge.

I'd agree. Debit card costs to the merchant are typically the odd 50p. I recently had to pay £9.50 fees on a return flight that cost £10... 95% service charge is a little excessive. Still, guess they have to make their money somehow (just would prefer if they were more honest and priced the flights at £19.50 in the first place).

I don't honestly believe that they can process Electron any more cheaply...I think it's just a case that if they imposed a fee for every payment type, it'd have to be included in the core pricing. By imposing it on everything other than an extremely minority card, they can get away with it because strictly it's no longer a mandatory charge.

jammin_2

I wrote a reply, in relation to Omelette's post and the Irish non-equivalent of the Home Office immigration manual. But.. my post is now gone.

Who deleted my post? This censoring of MSE is getting tiresome.

dealsearcher

Further to the above when you click on your payment method the fee does show up. The fee should be around 50p and Ryanair are out of order to charge £4-75 per sector. I think they get away with it in the way bunking_off says.

Pollycat

bunking_off wrote: »

I'd agree. Debit card costs to the merchant are typically the odd 50p. I recently had to pay £9.50 fees on a return flight that cost £10... 95% service charge is a little excessive. Still, guess they have to make their money somehow (just would prefer if they were more honest and priced the flights at £19.50 in the first place).

I don't honestly believe that they can process Electron any more cheaply...I think it's just a case that if they imposed a fee for every payment type, it'd have to be included in the core pricing. By imposing it on everything other than an extremely minority card, they can get away with it because strictly it's no longer a mandatory charge.

But those £10 flights aren't £19.50 - not to those people who pay by Electron - they're exactly as advertised: £10!

Of course they can't process Electron cards cheaper than other cards - Ryanair chose an obscure card not used by many people purely so they can advertise cheap headline flights.
And as more people start to use Electron cards, they'll eventually charge for using Electron - but find another obscure card that will be free so they can continue to advertise cheap headline prices.

I really can't understand why some people click on 'pay' when the price comes up more than expected.
If that were me, I'd do a quick U-turn and see what I'd missed.
Surely that's like going into a shop to buy some shoes that you think are £50, but when the assistant says '£70 please' you just get another £20 out of your purse.

Personally, I look at the TOTAL COST of the flights I book (obviously taking departure/arrival airports, flight times etc into account).
I don't really care whether RyanAir charge £x for hold luggage but Easyjet charge half that.
All companies have their own business models and make profit in different ways.
What concerns me is the bottom line - and that's how much is going to come out of my purse.