Ryanair - Sharp Practice

Colonel Sanders

Recently booked flights with ryanair.com and wasn't interested in either checking in bags, insurance or priority booking (all of which incur extra charges). First I deselected insurance (which they always automatically select for you). Then selected no bags. When I did this it automatically selected I wanted to pay for priority seating. If selecting no bags to check in you are only given the option of no bags+ priority boarding i.e if you select no bags they automatically check priority boarding whihch is another box you must untick. This is nonsense, I saw what was happening and made sure not to select any of the additional stuff. What made things worse was that I pressed the 'back' option on my internet browser to edit the billing addresss and the insurance option was again automatically selected eventhough I had deselected it the first time!!

This is sharp practise IMO as any passeneger booking who was not as vigilant as I was could accidently book a lot of sh!te that they never intended to

Carrigman

Yep, there are traps there for the unwary. It's certainly sharp practice and very annoying. It's saying in effect to customers: "most of you are too thick to see these tricks of ours and so we will therefore take your money on the principle that there is a sucker born every minute".

On the other hand it does I suppose help to keep the prices down for the rest of us. The typical air fare booked well in advance is still ridiculously cheap even with these charges included. And we have only one man to thank for that: Michael O'Leary. If I had my way I'd have a statue erected to him in evey town in Ireland. Only for him we'd be paying €600+ for a return trip to London. I can easily forgive him therefore for his revenue earning ruses, distasteful and all as they can be.

opa01_2000

Would agree that Ryanair have reduced prices - IF IT WERE TRUE. Recently booked three tickets from Derry to Stansted about 2 months in advance. Total cost was £22.99 one way and 11.99 the other. Total expected cost less than £105. Total cost when you added in 1 bag, taxes, charges, visa transaction charge etc, etc came to £249. Translated into Euros this is about €367. We then got hit by an overweight baggage charge as Ryanair allow only 15 kilos and although there were 3 of us the allowance is only allowed per person so although we had paid for 3 seats, one bag has to be less than 15 kilos, not 45.

A colleague had his flight cancelled and decided to accept a refund. He was told it would be paid back onto the card he had made the booking with. However, this didn't happen and when he wrote to Ryanair to complain he was told that as the flight was cancelled due to adverse weather conditions he would have to claim against his travel insurance.

Easyjet, BMI Baby are much better airlines and much cheaper, less hidden charges, more information .