MSE News: Ryanair forces ALL customers to pay booking charge

N1AK

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

I can't speak for them all but I certainly am. Air travel is a competitive market and allowing companies like Ryanair to quote misleadingly low prices by ignoring the fees they were levying on most customers was distorting the market. If the £6 is blatant price gouging then another provider can step into the market for their routes and compete fairly.

Think about it logically. If there was no downside to Ryanair of just charging everyone an admin fee they would have already been doing it. As it was they were trying to milk most customers for an admin fee and trying to milk those who attempted to dodge it by the fee/penalty structure on their own payment method.

The line on what the advertised price could ignore had to be drawn somewhere and I think that it is in the right place now.

tobiascurious

May I bring to people's attention that easyjet's headline prices include only a fraction of the £9 admin fee on the basis that no-one books a one-way flight travelling alone.

jpsartre

That, for some reason, depends on which country you choose. On some of their sites, the advertised price is based on one person flying. On the UK site it's based on two people.

I don't understand why easyJet insists on keeping the admin fee and would rather they simply ditched it and adjusted prices accordingly. That said, I don't have a major problem with the way they show their prices since, one, it's clearly stated below the front page price how many needs to fly to achieve the price, and two, when you do a search and pick your flights, the total price, including admin fee, is displayed straight away.

Dave_save

tobiascurious wrote: »

May I bring to people's attention that easyjet's headline prices include only a fraction of the £9 admin fee on the basis that no-one books a one-way flight travelling alone.

Easyjet will be operating under the same rules as Ryanair once this is implemented. I believe it's only Ryanair who are blaming the Office of Fair Trading for the consequential price increases for some passengers.

john_le_squash

Just returned from Riga (Latvia) and was surprised that before being allowed into the departures area RYANAIR passengers have to pay a security charge of 4.92 Lats or 7 Euros. Reason is RYANAIR have refused to incorporate the charge into it's ticket prices so security it has to be paid by the passenger when departing Riga airport.
Also noticed that as well as crushing your bags into those wire baskets to check the suitcase size, passengers in flight luggage was also being weighed at the departure gate. Several passengers on our flight had to pay a hefty on the spot hold luggage fee for carrying too much weight.

RYANAIR Passenger Beware........................

tobiascurious

That's not great is it. The moral of the story is spend more time on MSE because the Riga problem was reported by a moneysaver back in April

NFH

john_le_squash wrote: »

Several passengers on our flight had to pay a hefty on the spot hold luggage fee for carrying too much weight.

The RIX problem is well documented, but I understood that Ryanair's weight limit on hand baggage was rarely enforced, and that only the size was enforced.

callum9999

NFH wrote: »

You have to be joking! The only reason they have the £6 admin fee is to mislead potential customers that the fares are £6 cheaper than reality. The majority of customers who pay the £6 admin fee are subsidising the minority who don't, and this current system exists purely to legitimise a misleading indication of price.

Every single fee is listed in one page on the ryanair website - accessible from the very top of the home page.

Every single step of the booking process warns you - in red writing so it stands out - that you may be charged a £6 admin fee.

ALL the information you need. The majority paying the fee is neither here nor there, you are stating that the majority are unaware they have to pay the fee (I've paid the fee before, and I'm fully aware it's there) - that is no evidence that they are being tricked en-masse.

MarkBargain wrote: »

"Outrage"? Hahaha.



Every cloud...

By the way, I have a Cash Passport myself, before it a FairFX Mastercard Prepay and before that a Visa Electron. I know all the loopholes to get cheap flights. That doesn't mean I think card fees or admin fees are right.

I don't think they're "right" either, that has nothing to do with it. Ryanair are a PRIVATE company and no-one has ANY obligation to use them. As far as I'm concerned, they could charge a £10 oxygen fee for all I care.

Dave_save wrote: »

If all these 'idiots' ceased to become idiots and had got a cash passport, and each saved the £6 'fee', do you really think Ryanair would continue to lose this revenue from the 'idiots'? What would have happened is the price of his flights to everyone, idiots and non idiots alike, would rise to compensate. So in future you'll be paying the true cost of the flight and the idiots could pay less and you'll pay more. So who are the idiots now?

And if that happened I would have zero qualms. Just like the people buying stuff full-price in Tesco etc. subsidise the offers I take advantage of (no-ones calling for their offers to be banned though...). While they are there - great, but I'm hardly going to begrudge people for doing the same thing I am. While it would be annoying (though your example doesn't make a whole lot of sense because the possibility of them upping the prices by £6 is always preferable to them actually upping them by £6), I would be perfectly happy that others were taking advantage of something I did.

jpsartre

NFH wrote: »

The RIX problem is well documented, but I understood that Ryanair's weight limit on hand baggage was rarely enforced, and that only the size was enforced.

Depends on the airport in my experience. At one of the airports I travel from often, every piece of handluggage is weighed at the gate every time.

NFH

callum9999 wrote: »

Every single fee is listed in one page on the ryanair website - accessible from the very top of the home page.

It's irrelevant that every fee is listed, because the £6 admin fee exists purely to legitimise a misleading indication of price. It is its purpose which is dishonest rather than the way it is displayed.