YARS - Yet Another Ryanair Scam - Adding things you didn't ask for.

ApplesDunc

Seems like RyanAir have yet another way to get money out of you that you didn't expect.

I just checked in today for my flight to Valencia and just for convenience sake, I took the option to choose a seat for the inbound flight, just so that I could print out the boarding pass now and not whilst on the hoof (who carries a laptop and printer with them on trips anyway?).

I was presented with a credit card form before the final screen which I voluntarily filled in and pressed accept (note that there was no summary offered of what I was purchasing, since I only added a seat allocation, I naturally assumed that was all).

Next screen is a confirmation that I've now purchased a seat allocation PLUS Priority boarding for both legs at £20 each way, so £48 for something that should have cost £8.

After negotiating the "We don't really want to speak to you Chatbot", some CS person told me "You bought it - you got it, nothing we can do now", then cut me off.

So - since many of us have no option but to keep using Ryanair and just voting with our feet isn't an feasible (unless you want to go everywhere by train) Check and Re-Check what you are paying for BEFORE you hit accept because there's no chance Ryanair will accept that their systems are wrong and you will have to (like me) just chalk it up to experience.

Upsidedownandaround

Whilst it may not have provided a summary of what exactly what you are purchasing at the end I find it very hard to believe that it would have asked you to fill in your card payment details and at no point have the total payment showing as £48 instead of £8.

Your advice of check and re check certainly is good advice to heed for any online purchase with any company.

ApplesDunc

Upsidedownandaround said:

Whilst it may not have provided a summary of what exactly what you are purchasing at the end I find it very hard to believe that it would have asked you to fill in your card payment details and at no point have the total payment showing as £48 instead of £8.

Your advice of check and re check certainly is good advice to heed for any online purchase with any company.

Whilst I don't (obviously) have a video recording of the screens, I'm pretty sure that the body of the screen asking for my CC details did not explicitly say the amount it was proposing to charge.  I'll check this if I ever go down this route again. 

What it MIGHT have had is the little trolley icon in the top right of the screen showing the amount including the items I didn't select. [I don't know this for sure, but I develop websites for a living and that seems plausible]

My real point is that their entire booking process is designed to get you to pay way more than you ever expected by misdirection and confusing buttons and statements.  It's their business model - I don't really blame them for that, but users need to be VERY careful before they hit the payment button as there appears to be little or no recourse afterwards.

zagfles

You can use the Ryanair app for boarding passes, you don't usually need to print, although there might be some airports that still insist on paper. If you're staying at a hotel they'll almost certainly print off the boarding passes if you ask.

I've added seats to 4 Ryanair flights recently and only got charged for the seats, nothing else was auto added. If you were doing it on a touch screen device you might have accidently pressed a button while scrolling, easy to do, I always try to avoid using touch screen devices when making bookings.