Beat Budget Airline Charges Article Discussion

rafter_2

Let me get this straight, you screwed up by not printing your return boarding pass, which you have admitted was a mistake on your behalf on your post, rightly got charged and now will never fly Ryanair again?

MidlandsTel

Thanks Rafter for pointing out that I screwed up, I know that thanks very much...

I, like many, do not like the underhand way in which Ryanair goes about its pricing/charges, nor do I like being ripped off, and most of their charges are excessive. A £10 fine for reprinting a boarding pass would be a sufficient slap on the wrist to teach people a lesson, but £40 each!!!

The reason for my post was to reiterate the point to other people so they do not make the same mistake, but hey, personally, I did not like Ryanair and no I will not fly with them again.

So who are you, do you work for Ryanair or something?

pompeyrich

yorkshireman99 wrote: »

To be honest, I now just can't be bothered with calculating all the extra charges. So often, in the past, i've found it is actually significantly cheaper to use an established carrier than to book with a so-called budget airline, that i now go direct to the national carrier(s), and, provided the fare is reasonable, book directly with them. No hassle, and some food/drink included for no extra charge. i'm surprised more people don't do the same.

My last excercise was for travel to Pisa. Jet 2 £94 (Plus other unknown extras?), BA £88 return (all inclusive). It's time more people recognised how they are being ripped-off by the 'budget' airlines.

I was of the same opinion, BA to Barcelona has always been cheaper than Easyjet when I was looking to fly, however I once needed a flight to Bremen and Ryanair were able to do the return for £20 all in. So, as with everything else, it is worth comparing all the options available and choosing the best option on each particular occasion.

musicals

SkyEurope went bust yesterday (and took £200 of my money with it) so please can you remove the company from the Cheap Flights guide?

Chester85

yorkshireman99 wrote: »

To be honest, I now just can't be bothered with calculating all the extra charges. So often, in the past, i've found it is actually significantly cheaper to use an established carrier than to book with a so-called budget airline, that i now go direct to the national carrier(s), and, provided the fare is reasonable, book directly with them. No hassle, and some food/drink included for no extra charge. i'm surprised more people don't do the same.

My last excercise was for travel to Pisa. Jet 2 £94 (Plus other unknown extras?), BA £88 return (all inclusive). It's time more people recognised how they are being ripped-off by the 'budget' airlines.

The legacy established carriers are only operating in limited markets though, very few use regional airports unless you go through one of the hubs.

For years I in the 80s and 90s I was paying exorbitant fees to fly over to Dublin with Aer Lingus and BA and often used the ferry to avoid quite obscene fares (up to £400)

Now I fly with Ryanair and have never paid more than £20 return (fees included) I could take extra bags and still save a bloody fortune

I fail to see how clearer the Ryanair site could be. Those who cannot decipher it (including the numerous click here for full fees and charges lists) or those who cannot read the large sized fare table quite simply shouldn't be allowed on an aircraft as they clearly lack mental capability.

The way people go on about the LCC makes me think they'd all love to return to the dark ages of the legacy carriers and travel agents spending hundreds of pounds to get a bag of nuts and a free coffee.

BusPass_2

Chester

A man after my own heart!!!

Your last paragraph should be posted at the top of every Ryanair thread.

PolishBigSpender

Chester85 wrote:

The way people go on about the LCC makes me think they'd all love to return to the dark ages of the legacy carriers and travel agents spending hundreds of pounds to get a bag of nuts and a free coffee.

I've been saying this over and over again on here and people just don't get it. I don't think they flew before Ryanair, so they have nothing to compare it to. I remeber not that long ago when you'd be looking at 300 pounds to fly to London from Warsaw, and even more if you wanted to fly via a regional airport. Ryanair can do it consistently for around 50 pounds including baggage. Who wins?

MidlandsTel wrote:

Just returned from Faro in Portugal, before we went we had scrutinised the paperwork issued and checked Ryanairs website and had measured and weighed all our cases and hand luggage...plus printed off boarding passes.

Sensible. Did you not query the lack of boarding passes from Portugal, given that you knew that Ryanair had moved to an online check-in system?

Outgoing...no problems, smooth with no hitches, but loads of people at the airport queues were being turned away as luggage was over weight or they hadn't checked in online. There were a lot of upset people.

Upset due to their own stupidity, I imagine. It's always easier to blame the airline than yourself though.

Return trip...got to check in, we hadn't printed boarding passes for the return journey and the Portuguese handling agent stung us for £40 X3 =£120 before we could get our boarding passes.

You didn't check in for the inbound flight, so it's a fair charge. It's listed on their website in black and white.

When we had originally printed the outgoing boarding passes, it did not then prompt us, at any point, to then go and print the return journey boarding passes, we just assumed it was dealt with differently as it was handled by a foreign airport agent. Wrong! And they have facilities to collect all extra fees and charges [in cash only] through the foreign airport handling agents now too.

Why would it be different abroad when Ryanair moved to an online check-in model systemwide? Your assumption (and lack of reading the website properly) cost you, not Ryanair.

I also tried to print off the return boading passes before we left our hotel for the return journey, after I had realised my mistake, but I couldn't. The system shuts you out 4hrs before flying, so you can't check-in or print boarding passes, so they get you for 40 quid each!!

Again, it's listed clearly on the website. The fact that you subsequently realised your mistake says it all - you had to pay because you didn't comply with the terms and conditions of your booking.

I am very computer savvy and use the web all the time and book/order stuff online all the time, but I missed this. The whole process is geared up, both at the UK airports and abroad, to screw the customer for every penny possible. Likewise, online, there are obvious on screen reminders missing so you get caught out, printing return boading passes is one such example of this.

Perhaps you couldn't check in yet for your return flight? Ryanair only allow you to print boarding passes for 14 days in advance - so that might be why the system didn't 'remind' you. Why do you need reminders anyway? It's pretty obvious to me that if you have to print boarding passes one way, it's likely that you have to do the same in return. As for the whole process being designed to screw the customer - no, the whole process is designed to ensure that the operation runs as cheaply as possible. Having to pay for staff at the airport costs money - and the 40 pound charge is designed to discourage people from using their staff.

Take the prices on Ryanair flights of refreshments as another example of their ridiculous policies, how about £5.20 for a small can of cider, or £4.20 for a small can of lager, outrageous. Or how about the ridiculously low 15Kg luggage weight allowance, 5kg less than Easyjet and others.

Do you know how much it costs to take a plane into the sky? Have you perhaps considered the fact that every plane costs around 70 million pounds? Or what about aviation salaries? It's not cheap for two pilots and 4 cabin crew.

If you can't manage 2 weeks on 15kg, then you're simply taking too much. I took a suitcase recently to the UK, crammed full - and it weighed 14.5kg. I really do wonder what some people are taking on holiday - the kitchen sink?

I have vowed never to fly Ryanair again, I am sticking with Monarch or Easyjet in future, may be more expensive but worth it my opinion.

Hardly 'money saving' is it? Remeber - Ryanair were cheaper, except you couldn't follow simple instructions and thus got charged.

So, in summary, if you re flying Ryanair, make sure you print off both sets of boarding passes, for outward and inward journeys

, but people, if you can avoid it at all, just do not fly Ryanair!! They now claim to be the worlds favourite airline on their paperwork...more like the worlds most arrogant airline.

Isn't it pretty obvious that you should print two sets of boarding passes?

Ryanair...if you are reading...on this one trip, all I observed was people who were disgruntled and felt ripped off by the stealth charges you impose; you may be the worlds favourite airline [by numbers of travellers] now, but it won't last for long if you continue down this road...

I'll remind you that Ryanair don't have cash problems. BA have, Iberia have and countless more. Oh, and Ryanair are also the best option for Polish flights, so there's a huge market that won't be dying anytime soon.

Thanks for providing me with more info for my Ryanair thread.

greyteam1959

Nice one Polish.........

Laughingbear

We travelled from Liverpool to Oslo with Ryan Air earlier this year.
We packed our cases and weighed them at home. They were a little over the 15KG limit (or so we thought).
We arrived at the check-in and weighed the case -22KG!!!
Although we knew we could be slightly over their 15KG limit, surely we were no where near 22KG.
At the front of quite a long queue, i requested that the cases be weighed on an adjacent, unused, check-in desk (for once, Ryan Air's - minimal open check-in desks - policy went in our favour!!). The case weighed 19KG!! i then asked to try it on yet another set of scales. It weighed in at 17.5KG!!
The checkin desk clerk suggested that her set of scales could be wrong.
Seeing the long queue behind me, i suggested that all the scales could have been wrong and ask when had they last been calibrated (since Ryan Air were at liberty to charge fees based on the weights of passengers luggage being 'over their limits'). The clerk rang her supervisor who told her to let us through - With NO EXTRA CHARGE!!!

skituscanycom

Working with the understanding that air fares used to be considerably higher, I view it as an interesting challenge to try to achieve the greatest discount that I can (i.e. avoid as many extra charges as possible in order to get the most ridiculously low fare possible).

Most of the time I am quite successful. However, once I got caught out when RyanAir changed the online check-in rules - allowing earlier check-in (up to 14 days) but now shutting off 4 hours before the flight.

My top money-saving tip is: ALWAYS check the latest rules - NEVER assume that they will be the same as on your previous flight :money:

I got to East Midlands fully expecting to have to pay 2 x £40 for my stupidity. In the event, the chap on the RyanAir ticket desk thought that it was unfair and refused to charge me ... RESULT >> I felt like I had just won £80!:j:j

I wonder how long he kept his job ... :eek: