MSE News: Ryanair 'sticks two fingers up at passengers' with new card fees

2010

NFH wrote: »

From 1st November, the £6 fee will not be avoidable.

Of course it`s avoidable, by getting RA cash passport card.

mikeeboy

NFH wrote: »

You've totally missed the point. It's not about how Ryanair's all-in fares compare to its competitors, but about Ryanair misleadingly advertising fares that are cheaper than its true all-in fares by excluding compulsory additional fees. From 1st November, the £6 fee will not be avoidable.

Not really, only as bad as any other airline saying prices "FROM" a certain price. Yeah if you want to fly to Timbuctoo one Tuesday in January.

So great, all Ryanair is guilty of then is a bit of misleading advertising. Them and 90% of all other companies then.

At the end of the day most people pay the £6 fee. If they chuck it on the flight price, we'd all have to pay it. Which is better?

mikeeboy

wozearly wrote: »

If it takes 3 hours to review all the alternatives, and you know that many are going to be offering a highly similar service at a highly similar price, and that certain carriers are likely to fall into the bottom end of that category, then picking one of those carriers and booking straight up frees up 3 hours' worth of your time.

That's three hours you could spend doing something you enjoy, rather than going through umpteen different websites to check flights, confirm all of the extra charges and fees, compare departure and arrival times / locations, etc.

Does it really take 3 hours to use sky scanner? More like 3 minutes I'd say.

NFH

2010 wrote: »

Of course it`s avoidable, by getting RA cash passport card.

If you had read the rest of this thread, you'd see that the card also costs £6, so it is not avoidable.

longjohn9394

I have to have total quiet in our house whilst I'm booking a Ryanair flight, so I can concentrate, as we all know one slight error and up goes the price. It's a nightmare booking a flight with all the pop ups and added items that you have to delete. but they fly to where I need to be but are they really cheap? not always, check other operators first. I don't expect a service from Ryanair just hard sell from take off to landing. Thought about designing some ear plugs to prevent Ryanearache!

apt

Other airlines are far from perfect, but Ryanair is in a class of its own. Other airlines also grossly overcharge for debit card purchases, but only Ryanair has changed the card that avoids fees twice, and only Ryanair has stipulated its own branded card rather than a type of card. It is not do-gooders, as an earlier post wrongly asserts, that have made Ryanair's UK site hard to use. This is Ryanair's own choice. Every other airline has implemented the OFT's ruling on transparency so customers can see at first click the fares for a range of dates including all unavoidable fees.

Evans_John

It's actually worse than painted. I was recently trying to book Stanstead either Ancona, Rimini or Pescara (Italy). Ryanair have a monopoly on flights from UK to all three airports in that part of Italy and if your daughter lives there you have no choice - it's hard to vote with your feet/wallet. The price for 2 return trips was shown as £44 on Skyscanner and on Ryanair's own first quote. This went up to a little over £98 by the time one bag was added and the on-line booking fees were added. When I went to pay by visa debit card the price went up to over £119. That's a charge simply for paying of around 20%. All in all, the charges for on-line booking and paying the bill amount to around £44 i.e. about same as the base cost of 2 tickets and about 60% of the fare/baggage charge

That's obscene when I have done all the admin work and Ryanair will be charged a low percentage for collecting payment via debit card.

Had it been the Ancona flight I probably would have gone ahead, but that was not available so I was left with Rimini which was less convenient - so I have on this occasion avoided Ryanair and taken the easyjet flight Gatwick to Bologna and hired a car. Further away but I feel good about NOT shopping with Ryanair. When will Mr O'Leary work out that in the long-term customers will find a way to use alternatives if only on principle.

CeeOtter

smerch1468 wrote: »

Ryanair deserve to go bust with this sort of attitude. Personally ive only ever flown with them once, they are a disgrace to the airline industry and as for O'Leary dont get me started.

I decided that any price was too much to pay for an airline that on one flight (from Athens) got all the baggage out onto the tarmac, then made everyone go and claim their own bags, in order to identify a suspicious extra bag. Chaos. Once we were finally back on the plane the stewardess carried the suspicious bag on board, held it up and asked if anyone recognised it! Unbelievable!:eek:

2010

NFH wrote: »

If you had read the rest of this thread, you'd see that the card also costs £6, so it is not avoidable.

If you had read post 111 you would see that although you do pay £6, you receive a £6 voucher off the price of your flight, making the card technically free.

Would you rather pay £6 each way for every single flight or get a "free" card.

No brainer (for some)

ukcommando

Ryanair clearly feel that all that matters is how low they can keep the headline price, regardless of what other charges are added later.

In the meantime, their reputation and corporate image seems to be on a steady downward trend. It's probably only when that starts to outweigh the attraction of their pricing in the eyes of customers, that they will consider changing tack. I'm tempted to hope it will be too late by then, and they'll get their comeuppance!

One thing that does puzzle me though; if they are still the cheapest on certain routes, even including the extra charges, then why risk winding up their customers? If they're not the cheapest with charges included, then why don't their competitors take a more pro-active stance in exposing the shenanigans?? Or is there some unspoke rule at work amongst airlines, not to engage in that sort of public spat? (Unless of course you happen to be Virgin and BA! )