Ryanair booking - I'm perplexed!

Kittenonthekeys

Made a booking 3 hours ago with Ryanair for March 2012, paying with a credit card. I got a booking ref. number during the booking process on their website (status Not Confirmed) but as yet no confirmation email has arrived.
I went to 'Manage My Booking', put in all the info correctly but it came back as unrecognised.
As yet, no payment has been taken from my card.
I know I'm not due to travel until March but I need to know what has happened to my booking and whether or not payment will be taken.
I wouldn't have used them at all but no other airline travels to this destination.
Please can anyone advise me the best thing to do? Should I wait a bit longer to see if I get a confirmation email, or call them? How long do confirmation emails normally take to come through?
Thanks for any advice.

2sides2everystory

I have had the booking engine fall over at the payment stage many times but in every case (pre their new booking engine which has the anti-scraper 'type these words' security and the no way round it Mastercard Prepaid incurs £6 fee for flights starting in the UK) when I went to manage my booking I found an ok booking using Option 2 (email/date of flight/route).

You have been looking for the booking using the Option 1 booking reference which I imagine you copied down originally. Have you tried searching using Option 2 instead? Maybe you copied down the booking reference slightly incorrectly? E.g. an I instead of a 1 ?

If you used a credit card then if you call your card company they should be able to tell you if there is an authorisation pending. I am not familiar with a "Status Not Confirmed" error message.

Sometimes confirmation emails are delayed a few hours but the surest confirmation is being able to find your booking under the Manage My Booking routine and usually if the booking went through you will find it immediately in there even if you've received no email yet.

tomjonesrules

Have you checked your junk mail folders? If still nothing in the morning give them a call. I've seen this before but it was nothing to worry about.

Kittenonthekeys

Thanks - no, nothing in my Spam folder.
I had tried both Options 1 and 2 within Manage My Booking but neither option will bring up my details. Both come back with
"The details you entered in order to retrieve your reservation did not match those on record. Please verify the information is correct and try again."
Yes, I would have thought that something should be in there, even if it is not yet confirmed.
I know I have not made any errors in typing it in - I've now tried at least a dozen times. I've booked flights/holidays online for many years so I'm not exactly a novice but I've never come across a system like this; email confirmation has always been instantaneous!
Fortunately (and knowing what Ryanair is like :mad:) it did occur to me that it wasn't wise to rely on receiving a confirmation email, so took the precaution of printing out the original booking page from their website, or I would have had nothing at all to show I had even booked!
I will have to call my card issuer to see if payment is pending.

2sides2everystory

Well done for grabbing a print of the confirmation page - does that page contain those words "Status Not Confirmed" or was that something you saw elsewhere? I don't think in maybe a hundred and fifty Ryanair bookings (but none in the last four weeks of shenanigans with Ryanair Cash Passport!) I have ever seen that phrase. If no such words appear on your confirmation print I would be relaxed for the moment as at least you have evidence of what looks like a valid booking to the extent a booking reference was issued to you.

Kittenonthekeys

2sides2everystory wrote: »

Well done for grabbing a print of the confirmation page - does that page contain those words "Status Not Confirmed" or was that something you saw elsewhere? I don't think in maybe a hundred and fifty Ryanair bookings I have ever seen that phrase. If no such words appear on your confirmation print I would be relaxed for the moment as at least you have evidence of what looks like a valid booking to the extent a booking reference was issued to you.

Yes, it does say 'Status: Not Confirmed.'
And yes, I also have a booking reference number! :question:
The page says "Your booking is complete" and further down it also says "Booking is not confirmed until you receive email itinerary."
Go figure.
It's obviously not my night, as I've just been onto my card issuer who informed me that their system went down 5 minutes before I called!

Neil49

I've noticed on another posting on this site (entitled Ryanair Girona) that Ryanair have just announced a number of route cancellations and amendments.

It may be worth you looking at that post and also the link associated with it which I've copied below as you may have tried to book on one of those routes.

http://www.theairdb.com/news/20111206120-ryanair.html

Alisha2008

If it says "Status not confirmed", you didn't get the email and you can't access your booking... I think you have no booking! Are you sure there was enough money on your debit card..?

I also print always the confirmation page (before receiving the email, just in case), but all my bookings have always said "CONFIRMED", never seen one not confirmed...

Kittenonthekeys

Thanks for the link, Neil but my route was not included in there.

I called Ryanair today (one of the Dublin landline numbers, so at least it didn't cost an arm and a leg) and got through immediately.
Alisha- you were right, there was no booking as my card had been declined for reasons unknown - there was enough money on it - but of course I had no idea it had been declined.
When I pointed this out, Ryanair said that if this happens, you still get a booking reference but the flight isn't actually booked and the confirmation email just never arrives - they don't inform you so you are in effect waiting forever. (Not keen on email generally, are they?)
My bank told me today that they'd had quite a few calls just like mine as Ryanair's system was apparently down last night so maybe that was why it didn't go through.
I've decided not to bother going now, mainly because no other airline goes there and I can't face the thought of Ryanair ever again. I wouldn't even have minded so much if the flights had been cheap, but they weren't.
Thanks for all your replies.

2sides2everystory

Kittenonthekeys wrote: »

Alisha- you were right, there was no booking as my card had been declined for reasons unknown - there was enough money on it - but of course I had no idea it had been declined.
When I pointed this out, Ryanair said that if this happens, you still get a booking reference but the flight isn't actually booked and the confirmation email just never arrives - they don't inform you so you are in effect waiting forever.

As Alisha says, a booking reference with status not confirmed is a bit of a rarity I believe, unless it is the product of a website close to toppling over as I suspect due to all the forced tweaks they seem to have done to it recently to tie us up with more card fees and cut-off our escape routes,

Let's face it, a verbally quoted booking reference alongside valid photo ID used to be enough to get you on a Ryanair flight right up until just over 4 years ago I think. That was when Ryanair came up with the ruse of a charge for airport check-in which eventually became a £40 penalty behind which was rowed in the amazing online check-in fee. So where are we now? Essentially we are in a place where customers not only have to buy our tickets but we then have to pay for the privilege of actually using them!

At the bag drop recently I was behind a couple of American backpackers who were queueing for the second time have first been redirected to the Info Desk to pay through their noses. They had been caught out by one of Ryanair's forty quid traps for the unwary and taken for £40 apiece. "Not being able to print the boarding pass within 4 hours of the flight ? Whoever heard of such a thing?" I heard them say.