MSE News: Ryanair forces ALL customers to pay booking charge

The_Groat_Counter

MSE_Guy wrote: »

"Passengers will no longer be able escape a £6 fee by using the airline's prepaid Mastercard..."

Good. Advertised prices should be available to everyone paying with a standard debit card.

The very loose justification that processing card payments costs £6 / €6 per passenger, per flight is just totally absurd.

Markets work best when pricing is transparent. Ryanair will still be lower cost much of the time, so they have nothing to worry about in being honest with their pricing.

tobiascurious

Those Red Hot Fares starting at £18 (with a possible £6 discount for using the Cash Passport) used to be Red Hot Fares at £12 (plus £6 admin fee).

Now everyone will pay £18 for that fare, rather than some paying £12.

This is not good news guys

whatmichaelsays

tobiascurious wrote: »

Those Red Hot Fares starting at £18 (with a possible £6 discount for using the Cash Passport) used to be Red Hot Fares at £12 (plus £6 admin fee).

Now everyone will pay £18 for that fare, rather than some paying £12.

This is not good news guys

Completely agree.

The way to improve things is not to drag everyone down to the level of the slowest man but to drag the slowest man to the level of the fastest.

WickedWolfie

whatmichaelsays wrote: »

Completely agree.

The way to improve things is not to drag everyone down to the level of the slowest man but to drag the slowest man to the level of the fastest.

No, the way to improve things is for everyone to follow the clearly set out legal requirements rather than let one particular company, which is proud of its "maverick" reputation (never forget Mr O'Sleazy was publicly called a liar by an Irish judge!), as a bare minimum bend and in extremis drive a coach and horses through the rules.

If I had my way O'Sleazy would be prosecuted every time he tried to bend the rules until he either cleans up his act or ships out!

Dave_save

tobiascurious wrote: »

I hope the "no hidden fee" campaigners are happy now.

Because now no-one can avoid this £6 fee whereas anyone could before, for a little bit of extra work

That's not exactly true. If, as you say anyone could and did avoid the extra charges, and then this 'anyone' becomes 'everyone', the first thing Ryanair would have done would be to increase the basic flight charge to a level which maintains their overall revenue. Thus the status quo would have been restored and everyone would pay more anyway.

There should be NO hidden fee on something as basic as payment. This is and was just a scam and Ryanair and the others know it. The fact that Ryanair and the like 'hide' the fee, and make it difficult to avoid, is of course down to the fact that they see the consumer as someone to con.

How on earth they got away with it for so long is hard to understand.

Personally, I made the decision a few years ago to avoid Ryanair at all costs. I use other airlines as I find their level of openness and honesty more acceptable than O'Leary's!

tobiascurious

Dave_save wrote: »

That's not exactly true. If, as you say anyone could and did avoid the extra charges, and then this 'anyone' becomes 'everyone', the first thing Ryanair would have done would be to increase the basic flight charge to a level which maintains their overall revenue. Thus the status quo would have been restored and everyone would pay more anyway.

Anyone could avoid the £6 fee but it was a bit of a faff to get the Electron / Cash Passport so many occasional travellers just paid it.

tobiascurious

Dave_save wrote: »

Personally, I made the decision a few years ago to avoid Ryanair at all costs. I use other airlines as I find their level of openness and honesty more acceptable than O'Leary's!

Even with hidden extras I have saved a lot of money by flying Ryanair. The other airlines also have hidden extras.

tobiascurious

richardw wrote: »

What about ryanair flights from elsewhere to the UK?

Are they admin charge free when using another method by UK residents?

I think that for buying a flight originating from a country in which you can buy a Cash Passport, it works in the same way as the UK, €6 admin fee unless using Cash Passport

The other countries eg Austria still allow use of Electron to avoid the €6

jpsartre

tobiascurious wrote: »

I hope the "no hidden fee" campaigners are happy now.

I am. Now prices allow for customers to do straightforward comparisons and do not disadvantage those airlines that include all charges upfront. So great result overall.

tobiascurious

jpsartre wrote: »

Now prices allow for customers to do straightforward comparisons and do not disadvantage those airlines that include all charges upfront.

Not really. Ryanair are charging £6 per person per one-way flight, whereas Easyjet charge £9 per booking. Other airlines still offer discounts for the use of Electron cards.

All airlines charge for pre-booked baggage differently including hand luggage (which for one airline is free only below a certain size!).

So it's still quite tricky to compare prices