Are Ryanair taking the mickey on hidden "Fees" again?

2sides2everystory

I have used Ryanair for a long long time.

This year is the most expensive yet, by quite some distance I feel - yet a large proportion of their propective customer base might not realise how different it is this year. So how do they get away with that? By some means fair and some foul I would suggest ...

I have just been looking at some flight options and have been comparing costs online for a week at a glance.

Fri, 15 Apr 11 from 19.99 GBP Total Price: 25.99GBP (+30%)
Sat, 16 Apr 11 from 59.99 GBP Total Price: 97.06GBP (+62%)
Sun, 17 Apr 11 from 39.99 GBP Total Price: 77.06GBP (+93%)
Mon, 18 Apr 11 from 36.99 GBP Total Price: 42.99GBP (+16%)
Tue, 19 Apr 11 from 39.99 GBP Total Price: 77.06GBP (+93%)
Wed, 20 Apr 11 from 79.99 GBP Total Price: 117.06GBP (+46%)
Thu, 21 Apr 11 from 39.99 GBP Total Price: 77.06GBP (+93%)

The price in blue is the promoted price on the Week At A Glance ribbon of their flight selection page. The Total Price in black is the actual price if you select the At A Glance price. The percentages shown in brackets are the extent of the hidden hike which is not promoted until you are baited by the At A Glance price and switched to the higher price. My understanding of this type of marketing/price-labelling is that it is plainly illegal.

These "Total Price"s are of course potentially still not the Total Price as they are the prices before hold baggage is purchased and without the addition of any further "Administration Fee" of £6 for paying by any method other than the one obtuse option they currently favour.

Why is this practice tolerated by the OFT, so causing Ryanair's competitors to copy their bad habits?

richardw

No, the prices in blue that you list are not marketed by ryanair.

Louisdf

To be fair on the front page, where it lists all the lowest fares, they DO include the online check in fee. For example at the moment, they are offering flights for £18.99 to Milan Bergamo. When you book, it is listed as £12.99 +£6 online check in fee. If on the front page, it only said £12.99 then I would feel ripped off though.

2sides2everystory

The prices in blue are not marketed by ryanair.

You seem to be splitting hairs on the order of words you wanted to use in your post, richard, but are we now actually splitting hairs on the word "marketed"? The prices in blue are presented by Ryanair when the prices in black are hidden. The prices in black are only revealed when you select the price in blue that you want and which of course in my illustrated example does not exist even once in the seven prices given. That is definitely baiting and switching using their spiders web of an internet site to lure you in from their home page which currently has a massive "Flights from £7" logo on it.

richardw

The home page currently has Gatwick to Cork one way £9.98, this is the marketed price.

If I want to fly from Gatwick to Cork tomorrow, the blue price is currently £63.99, £63.99 is not marketed anywhere and this is why they are not breaking OFT rules.

The marketed price is available

Going Out: 10/05/2011 13:35hrs
London-Gatwick - Cork
1 x Adult 9.98 GBP
Taxes/Fees 0.00 GBP
1 x Free Web Check in 0.00 GBP
Total Cost 9.98 GBP

whatmichaelsays

2sides2everystory wrote: »

I have used Ryanair for a long long time.

This year is the most expensive yet, by quite some distance I feel - yet a large proportion of their propective customer base might not realise how different it is this year. So how do they get away with that? By some means fair and some foul I would suggest ...

I have just been looking at some flight options and have been comparing costs online for a week at a glance.

Fri, 15 Apr 11 from 19.99 GBP Total Price: 25.99GBP (+30%)
Sat, 16 Apr 11 from 59.99 GBP Total Price: 97.06GBP (+62%)
Sun, 17 Apr 11 from 39.99 GBP Total Price: 77.06GBP (+93%)
Mon, 18 Apr 11 from 36.99 GBP Total Price: 42.99GBP (+16%)
Tue, 19 Apr 11 from 39.99 GBP Total Price: 77.06GBP (+93%)
Wed, 20 Apr 11 from 79.99 GBP Total Price: 117.06GBP (+46%)
Thu, 21 Apr 11 from 39.99 GBP Total Price: 77.06GBP (+93%)

The price in blue is the promoted price on the Week At A Glance ribbon of their flight selection page. The Total Price in black is the actual price if you select the At A Glance price. The percentages shown in brackets are the extent of the hidden hike which is not promoted until you are baited by the At A Glance price and switched to the higher price. My understanding of this type of marketing/price-labelling is that it is plainly illegal.

These "Total Price"s are of course potentially still not the Total Price as they are the prices before hold baggage is purchased and without the addition of any further "Administration Fee" of £6 for paying by any method other than the one obtuse option they currently favour.

Why is this practice tolerated by the OFT, so causing Ryanair's competitors to copy their bad habits?

They can do it because it is possible to get the advertised fare. I know because I did it last week with a booking to Dublin. If you are happy to agree to do business on the terms preferred by Ryanair and not your own, you can get the advertised fare.

2sides2everystory

You are both splitting hairs and I do not understand why.

Like millions of other Ryanair customers I know that the only place I can be sure to get offered a price by Ryanair and actually buy it at that price, right now, is ryanair.com.

So why do I have to endure a page full of low lying bait which are totally meaningless to my buying decision in order to get access to the higher switched real prices I know will be hidden beneath ?

No more splitting hairs please. It is all marketing and the examples show it is being done illegally by Ryanair. Why is this lying tolerated ? The blue is Ryanairs (a straight cut and paste from their website). Each blue price they presented contains meaningless misleading information linked to dates on which the price quoted is not available.

If I went to Tesco next week and put 7 items in my basket based on shelf prices and then when I reached the scanners, all the prices went up by as much as 93%, then how long do you think Mr T would be allowed to keep that up?

richardw

I understand your point, but it isn't illegal, the black prices would be more useful to help choose flights, easyJet stopped doing the blue prices a while ago now.

2sides2everystory

Of course it is misleading richard ... you are getting too mixed up in previous interpretations of what might have been been illegal and what might not have been in relation to newspaper advertisements and home page banners. They were interpretations at the time to fit the items being discussed in previous complaints that's all.

Here we have blatant misleading marketing on a well known website using totally non-available price-pointers for flights on particular dates as invitational links to completely different (in some cases 93% higher) prices below the links. You cannot buy the flights at the link prices and you cannot buy a flight on the date of the deliberately false linked price without selecting the deliberately false linked price.

I cannot think of a more blatant bait and switch. The blue prices exist for no other informative purpose other than as marketing bait.

richardw

Sometimes the black price is less than the blue on

ie Gatwick to Alicante 16 May the blue price is £29.99, the black price is £28.49.

budgetflyer

Their pricing is now more honest than most airlines.
Often they are tax free, free online check in too.
When not, at least the compulsory charges are all on the same page.
compare to Jet2
lead price in panel £41.99 then click to select and we get-

Base Fare
£41.99
Taxes
£26.00
Total:
£67

then next page- check in fee is added on, then baggage. then choose your seat,then upgrade your seat, then meals, then finally card fees