Ryanair Credit Card Charges

noh

beer_tins wrote: »

Got to say that it is not clear what the charges are in advance. You don't know this until you're actually booking. It's like taking an item to the till at a supermarket and them adding various charges once you're there. Would you say that the pricing is transparent because they tell you once you're at the till?

The fees are listed and available before you book, from a link on the home page.
http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/faqs.php?sect=CHARGES

cofotony

To those saying they agree with the costs being split.... how can you???

I am all for the way Ryanair do it in some respects. Desk check-in has real people who get paid real wages, so charging a fee for checking in manually is fair. And they've calculated a cost for that, fair enough again.

However..... If I book 4 flights to Sweden, as I just have, can Ryanair justify to me that it costs them £4.50 each way per person? Will their bill for my transaction be £36 from VISA, for example?? Will it f***. It costs them maybe £2 - so why not charge me £2 and add 4 per flight each direction?

Maybe they'll say that it's what it costs to maintain their computers... But then that should be shown in the price of the flight, not in the booking fee.

I used to think these no frills flights were excellent, and to be honest I think Easyjet for example are excellent. I do a lot of weekend aways but Ryanair are getting written off in my book. Alot of the time a flight with BA will be very close and i'd rather pay a bit more and fly with a "proper" airline. If it wasn't for the fact I was going somewhere random I really wouldn't be bothering to use Ryanair.

Reminds me of the time I went to "Stockholm" to visit a friend. Flew in to Skavsta and flew back from Vastaras (not sure on spellings). I think 100km from the city centre is a little excessive..... But then i'm sure they make a killing on the "Terravision" bus that then charges to take you to the city I wanted to go to in the first place. It's like getting a flight to London then landing in Northampton!!!

MrChips

To get round this problem, I opened a current account with a Visa Electron card a couple of years ago specifically to avoid this fee. I keep a couple of hundred quid in it and only ever use it to purchase Ryanair flights. Must have saved about £50 since then.

I would recommend this approach, although a previous poster suggested these were being phased out so not sure if it is still possible. If Visa Electron is removed, I think Ryanair will be forced to either include the fees in their original quoted price, or come up with another "special" card which is fees free as they can only justify the prices as shown on the grounds that they are achievable if you book in a certain way (i.e. check in online, no baggage, no insurance, pay by electron etc).

For what it's worth, I agree it's annoying the way they keep adding on charges as you go from page to page on their website, but that's their business model - accept it or don't use them. They don't make big profits and they rely on these "excessive charges" to generate what small profits they do make. What is effectively happening is they are charging, say, £30 a ticket each way but dressing it up as a £10 fare and then adding on these charges based on their knowledge of what percentage of customers will go for which options. Yes, those who don't have an Electron card are subsidising those who do, but if 99% of people booking don't have an Electron card, effectively the price they charge after the transaction charges are applied ends up being only 1% higher than the "correct" one.

Regarding the disabled policy though, that's a whole different story...

System

I saw the Irish guy who owns Ryanair on BBC breakfast last week and they asked him about the card charges and he said people should use Visa Electron as it was free (and 60% of their customers do now). Personally i have no problem with Ryanair, i like the fact you can bring costs down by just taking hand luggage and checking in online. I flew with them alot last year and visited places like Budapest, Dublin, Shannon etc. and rarely paid more than a fiver each way including card charges (budapest was £9 each way). Compare them to other companies and they are a bargain. People tend to be snobbish about them but for a 2 hour flight i would prefer to save alot of money than to be treated like a VIP. Being on a plane is no different to being on a bus or train these days so personally i would rather just get the cheapest possible price. As for the disabled comment well I have some reservations whether that actually happened! Even if it did but not to be heartless at the end of the day its a business and if someone who is disabled is taking up more room i can see why as a business Ryanair would want to charge them more. Morally its obviously wrong of course!

mime20

goater78 wrote: »

As for the disabled comment well I have some reservations whether that actually happened! Even if it did but not to be heartless at the end of the day its a business and if someone who is disabled is taking up more room i can see why as a business Ryanair would want to charge them more. Morally its obviously wrong of course!

Before the case for disability discrimination was won against Ryanair my parents flew to Ireland with them. My mum was charged £5 (think it was at both airports) for the airport assistance (this is provided free by every other airline). She doesn't take up any more room on a plane than anyone else (she's actually skinny so probably takes up less!), but can't walk up stairs to actually get on a plane.
I've heard from other disabled travellers that they are still the most disability unfriendly major airline operating out of the UK.

System

mime20 wrote: »

Before the case for disability discrimination was won against Ryanair my parents flew to Ireland with them. My mum was charged £5 (think it was at both airports) for the airport assistance (this is provided free by every other airline). She doesn't take up any more room on a plane than anyone else (she's actually skinny so probably takes up less!), but can't walk up stairs to actually get on a plane.
I've heard from other disabled travellers that they are still the most disability unfriendly major airline operating out of the UK.

Although i agree thats awful you could always argue that at the end of the day someone has to pay for the assistance at the airports, air companies that don't charge disabled people for assistance must get the money back through the fares of all customers. I have no objection to this policy as i am perfectly happy for a proportion of my fare to go towards providing this service. However Ryanair adopt a policy that the basic service to just fly with them is very cheap, if you want any extras e.g check in bags, express check in, assistance at airports then the person who requires this has to pay for it. In there defence as well they don't hide this fact!

I imagine the experience put your mum off flying with ryanair and it would put me off as well if it happened to me. But personally i like the fact with them that you only pay for what you want

Rachel_Larsen

It may be reasonable to pass on the cost of the credit/debit card transaction to us however when that comes out at £57 because there are 6 of us travelling return journey it is extortionate. The transaction is only a single transaction as far as the transfer or funds goes so it should be a single charge not £4.75 per flight per person.

nikkinoo_3

A while ago I suggested that it might be possible to purchase Ryanair Vouchers online and then redeem them against flights, thereby avoiding their extortionate credit/debit card charges.

Well... I've just priced up flights for 3 people, which came to £118.50 total.

I then opened a separate window and purchased vouchers totalling £125, which I bought with my cashback cc at no extra fee.

Having noted down the voucher numbers (be very careful as they're 18 digits long) I then redeemed them against the flights. Unfortunately you don't get change, but it still works out as a bargain compared to the >£28 they wanted to charge for payment with my usual card.

It's a bit of hassle as I had to make 2 cc transactions to buy the correct denominations - and be aware that you can only redeem a maximum of 4 vouchers per booking - but it was well worth it to save over 22 quid as I don't have a visa electron account.

So... in conclusion, it does work and goes some way to beating their system.

Happy flying

PBA

MrChips wrote: »

To get round this problem, I opened a current account with a Visa Electron card a couple of years ago specifically to avoid this fee. I keep a couple of hundred quid in it and only ever use it to purchase Ryanair flights. Must have saved about £50 since then.

I would recommend this approach, although a previous poster suggested these were being phased out so not sure if it is still possible.

Electron's not being phased out, no worries there. Actually you don't even need a separate account, Abbey will issue a Visa Debit and Visa Electron card on the same account. I work for Abbey, so don't know if other banks do this as well, but many of my customers have a Visa Debit in their wallet and an Electron sat by the computer at home for cheaper Ryanairing.

Innocent_Guy

PBA wrote: »

Electron's not being phased out, no worries there. Actually you don't even need a separate account, Abbey will issue a Visa Debit and Visa Electron card on the same account. I work for Abbey, so don't know if other banks do this as well, but many of my customers have a Visa Debit in their wallet and an Electron sat by the computer at home for cheaper Ryanairing.

That is interesting.....