MSE News: Ryanair to charge for Visa Electron bookings

MyUtopia_2

Going really obscure here, but I've found a cheaper pre paid MasterCard.

It's actually a gift card (but is a pre paid MasterCard) with two shopping centres (One is Dundrum, outskirts of Dublin, and the other is the Quays in Newry)

The Quays gift card is in £'s and Dundrum is in €'s. Best of all there is no monthly fee or usage fees for the first 12 months.
The activation fee for the sterling card is £1.

There is a forex charge but I've lost the bit of paper and the website isn't clear (perfectcard.ie)

Lots of downsides to it, can't reload and doesn't appear to be available outside of the shopping centres, which are both on Ireland.

But on the upside at £1 for 12 months it's heaps cheaper than anything else out there, you can get a voucher for as little at £10 and any left over amount can be used for part payment at any POS till.

Hope this gives us another option.

skituscanycom

Following a MSE recommendation a few months back I got a Caxton FX EURO card and have found it to be excellent.

I really like the fact that it costs NOTHING to obtain, own, load, spend, pay online or even withdraw cash from ATMs in Euros in Europe. e.g. If you put €500 on the card then you have €500 available to spend today, tomorrow, next week, next month ... whenever

Another benefit is that you can follow the exchange rate trends and load the card when YOU judge rates are good so you don't have to worry about rates dropping when you're actually on holiday.

But if you do run low when you're away, you can send a simple text message to transfer some more money from your bank account and you're back in business!

Only FairFX offers a slightly better rate, but then you have to pay €1.50 each time you use an ATM. In any case, if you phone and ask Caxton nicely, they will match the rate by giving you the extra euros.

Now with this latest Ryanair change it makes even more sense to have one!

Bear in mind that if you book flights in two seperate parts then usually the sector back to the UK is priced in Euros and generally it's the same amount of Euros as it would have been in £s. e.g. £15 = €15. More savings whilst the pound remains stronger than the Euro!

One final thought about Ryanair - as Martin says, BUSINESSES ARE NOT YOUR FRIENDS! It is up to YOU to be a SAVVY SHOPPER and do your best to outwit them. If you don't like this approach then GO TO A TRAVEL AGENT INSTEAD!

benjus

skituscanycom wrote: »

I really like the fact that it costs NOTHING to obtain, own, load, spend, pay online or even withdraw cash from ATMs in Euros in Europe.

Not entirely true... if you get a Euro card you have to load it using Caxton's own exchange rate, which (based on today's rates) is equivalent to a charge of about 1.7%.

If you then use the Euro card to buy a flight in GBP you will pay a further 2.5% to convert back to GBP.

So in terms of the topic of this thread, the Caxton Euro card is not bad but not amongst the best. However, if you buy a lot of flights priced in EUR it's a good option.

lufcgirl

MyUtopia wrote: »

Going really obscure here, but I've found a cheaper pre paid MasterCard.

It's actually a gift card (but is a pre paid MasterCard) with two shopping centres (One is Dundrum, outskirts of Dublin, and the other is the Quays in Newry)

The Quays gift card is in £'s and Dundrum is in €'s. Best of all there is no monthly fee or usage fees for the first 12 months.
The activation fee for the sterling card is £1.

There is a forex charge but I've lost the bit of paper and the website isn't clear (perfectcard.ie)

Lots of downsides to it, can't reload and doesn't appear to be available outside of the shopping centres, which are both on Ireland.

But on the upside at £1 for 12 months it's heaps cheaper than anything else out there, you can get a voucher for as little at £10 and any left over amount can be used for part payment at any POS till.

Hope this gives us another option.

Omg that is brilliant! I was in the Quays just last week and can get OH to go to Dundrum if needs be. Theres me sorted!

jammin_2

MyUtopia wrote: »

the other is the Quays in Newry
..
which are both on Ireland.

Newry is not in Ireland.

[runs for cover!]..

lufcgirl

lol you really have a thing about people saying Northern Ireland is in Ireland don't you?!

For the best Christmas shopping experience ever, please do visit Newry. Traffic was backed up for an hour and a half last Tuesday when Irish teachers decided to strike, but instead of striking decided to go shopping. Oh and they introduced paid parking just before Christmas at the Quays!

Despite this, I'm still braving it for the Mastercard

jammin_2

I prefer going up to Banbridge myself, or even Belfast. Newry is getting expensive and they're charging for car parking now too. Even so, 'tis cheaper than here in Waterford though!

jonmimir

whatmichaelsays wrote: »

Have Virgin / BA stopped advertising flights to "London" that land 32 miles away at Gatwick?

If you want to split hairs then it's 27 miles on the train to London Victoria station. But yes, I'd still be pretty disappointed if I landed at Gatwick expecting to be in London and still needing a half hour train ride to get to my destination.

This however compares rather favourably with Ryanair's offers of Bergamo instead of Milan (53 km - Google maps estimate), Brescia/Verona (66 km), Rygge/Oslo (70 km), Weeze/Dusseldorf (83 km), Girona/Barcelona (92 km), Reus/Barcelona (105 km), Torp/Oslo (117 km)... this last one is about the same as saying Southampton airport is close to London.

But this doesn't really matter to me as I'll be flying my last Ryanair flight in January and once my folks move from Limoges to Toulouse there will be plenty of ethical airlines to choose from instead of them. Even if they do work out more expensive I'll still be flying happier, knowing that I won't be giving that awful man any more of my money.

lufcgirl

For shopping, I prefer Dundalk and the Marshes (because I'm used to it now!)...I've got OH going there this afternoon to see if they do a prepaid Mastercard. Never been to Banbridge, other than driving through for the airport! I do like the big Sainsburys and Toys R Us about a half hour from Belfast Intl, haven't a clue what the place is...but anything is cheaper than Dublin!

I think the idea of prepaid cards from shopping centres is by far the cheapest idea. Even if you can't reload them, you can still buy another and pay £1...it's valid for 12 months which is good. Definitely the best option so far!

MrSmartprice

tokai222 wrote: »

Why bother, just stop using the patronising bas****s. We live 10 mins from East Midlands Airport and used to fly Ryan. 12 months ago we decided to stop using them and now travel to Birmingham to use BE. 4 trips last year, Great aircraft and loads of legroom, great service, no patronising MD!!

Mr O'Leary can patronise me all he likes if he continues to provide me with cheap flights. I actually find his comments quite amusing, especially when he runs rings round the likes of Watchdog's Nick Campbell.

I do think that refusing to fly Ryanair is cutting off your nose to spite your face. The best approach is to play by Mr O'Leary's rules and reap the benefit. We are off to Dublin for the day tomorrow, total cost for 3 of us, return, is 6p.