BBC News: Credit and debit card surcharges 'are excessive'

NFH

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12423004

Stephen McNamara, of Ryanair, defended his company's practices and said the complaint from Which? was misconceived. "[Which?] says we charge 5 euro or £5, simply to process a card transaction and that is incorrect," told the BBC. "The charge is to cover the entire system - the building of the website, the booking engine, the security of the website at the very end."

So Ryanair have finally admitted that it's not a payment processing fee. And in any case, if it's supposed to cover all these other costs, why does Ryanair charge for most payment methods but not for others? If the fee is not to cover processing the payment, then the cost should be included in the ticket price.

MarkXy

Much as I love Ryanair, I think "Which" are correct here. In the past, Ryanair used to call it a "card fee" and I have old emails from them to prove it.

Even if the cost is to cover the building of the website, there is no reason why it should be per person per leg. I hope 'Which' can persuade the OFT to force Ryanair to include the "administration charge" in the advertised price.

jammin_2

I hope they don't. I like to save €5 each way by paying with Prepaid Mastercard.

whatmichaelsays

Which, quite simply, are an irrelevance.

Ryanair make a proposal to you and you can either accept or reject those terms. Nobody is forcing you to fly Ryanair and they are not the only airline.

O'Leary makes it clear - you do business with him on his terms. If the likes of Boeing, Airbus and some of the world's biggest airports have tried and failed to break O'Leary's policy, what makes a poxy magazine think it can do different?

NFH

whatmichaelsays wrote: »

Ryanair make a proposal to you and you can either accept or reject those terms. Nobody is forcing you to fly Ryanair and they are not the only airline.

Not entirely true. Ryanair attracts customers' initial interest by advertising headline fares that exclude compulsory additional charges. That is misleading. Potential customers should be able to compare fares without having to add up all the various component charges in a spreadsheet for example.

whatyadoinsucka

NFH spot on ryanair are not always the cheapest, they may advertise to be the cheapest but when you add on £5 here and £5 there it soon adds up, i set up a basic halifax bank account (visa electron) purely for booking flights. Ryanair did once accept it but not anymore.

The most anoying thing i find with ryanair is they change the tax payable. for the different fare rates.

Therfore a £10 flight the tax is £25, whereas a £15 flight the tax is £15, so sometimes its best to avoid the sales and just book when no 'false advertised prices are available

I far prefer easyjet. of the budgets, a friendlier service and an upfront price, no messing

Vendee

NFH wrote: »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12423004

Stephen McNamara, of Ryanair, defended his company's practices and said the complaint from Which? was misconceived. "[Which?] says we charge 5 euro or £5, simply to process a card transaction and that is incorrect," told the BBC. "The charge is to cover the entire system - the building of the website, the booking engine, the security of the website at the very end."

So Ryanair have finally admitted that it's not a payment processing fee. And in any case, if it's supposed to cover all these other costs, why does Ryanair charge for most payment methods but not for others? If the fee is not to cover processing the payment, then the cost should be included in the ticket price.

And of course if the "admin fee" is supposed to cover the entire system, why do they charge for you to print out your own boarding card?

P.S. Its a while since I looked in here. Nice to see the O'Leary apologists are still defending him

MarkBargain

"The charge is to cover the entire system - the building of the website, the booking engine, the security of the website at the very end."

But if every retailer did that, we would never be able to compare anything until the final page of checkout! Every company with a web presence has to pay for a website, booking system and security - they absorb that into their prices. Today Ryanair are advertising £6 flights on their front page, so the £5 administration fee is an extra 83% cost.

tingtong

NFH wrote: »

Stephen McNamara, of Ryanair, defended his company's practices and said the complaint from Which? was misconceived. "[Which?] says we charge 5 euro or £5, simply to process a card transaction and that is incorrect," told the BBC. "The charge is to cover the entire system - the building of the website, the booking engine, the security of the website at the very end.".

That is complete load of BS - why aren't the charges scaled better to reflect the true cost of payment with different cards ? People would have far more respect for Ryanair if they just came out with the truth, which would be something like this:

"Actually, we use the £5 per person, per flight charge on cards so we can advertise flights a lot cheaper than most people end up paying. It used to be free to pay with Visa Electron cards but when a lot of people got hold of these we decided to change it to Prepaid Mastercard. We'll have to keep an eye on this as lots of people seem to be getting these - quite soon we'll have to find a different card so we can continue to make it difficult for customers to avoid the charge"

malkie76

wah wah wah boo hoo hoo

Don't like one providers service then use another.

Vendee

malkie76 wrote: »

wah wah wah boo hoo hoo

Don't like one providers service then use another.

And what if there isn't one?