Ryanair waives change fees, but not for baggage!

AndyVC

Ryanair is pushing their "zero change fees" for changing flights, which encouraged my wife and I to use them.  They specify that baggage and reserved seats will automatically be transferred.  My wife decided to take a later return flight back, so I had to have a 45-minute phone call to split our bookings.  I then was able to change her return flight, but without any warning found that we would have to pay for her bag again - £23.  The return flight was only £9.99, so it would have been much cheaper to transfer the bag to me and book a completely new return flight for her.  We only had the one large bag between us.  Ryanair have previously let us to transfer a bag between passengers for free, where one passenger couldn't travel, although they may since have realised that this is unusually generous for Ryanair.  

Upsidedownandaround

Where do they specify that baggage will be transferred for free?

Baggage has always been non-refunadable. Waiving flight change fees doesn’t change this it simply means you don’t pay the flight change fees.

If they didn’t have “zero flight change fees” then you would have paid these in addition to new baggage.

AndyVC

I've learnt from another comment that, apparently, they charge double for baggage for the new flight, treating it as baggage added later.  They do refund the initial baggage fee, but the doubling of the new fee makes it appear that they haven't.  The new flight was so cheap that it would have been easier just to have booked a new flight.

Upsidedownandaround

I doubt thats correct. Nothing has changed regarding Ryanair’s baggage policy with the flight fee change waiver. 

It remains the same. If you change your flight the baggage costs the same amount as adding baggage to your new flight after purchase I.e it is more expensive than a new booking including baggage.