Bypass airline credit card charge

ArraMusha

As seen in the independent...

http://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/bypass-airline-credit-card-booking-charges-1831848.html

mickoneill30

The Indo reporters should read Boards. They'd get these kind of tips months ago.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=58030251&highlight=entropay#post58030251

MunsterCycling

Wow Indo shocker, they must have read boards about two months ago. Crud paper.

MOH

However, a financial adviser known to this journalist is adamant you can get a Visa Electron card by logging into www.entropay.com.

A financial adviser known to this journalist, hmm? Doesn't go by the name Mr. B. Ordes, does he?

cojomo2

In the article he mentions that he loaded the card with 15 euro and it worked.

I heard that you have to load it with sterling, and that it wont work if you load with euro. I use this service but always load with sterling. Can any1 confirm it works with euro as that would be handier. Thanks

Onikage

cojomo2 wrote: »

In the article he mentions that he loaded the card with 15 euro and it worked.

I heard that you have to load it with sterling, and that it wont work if you load with euro. I use this service but always load with sterling. Can any1 confirm it works with euro as that would be handier. Thanks

Didn't work for this guy: http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?p=893159

Royale with Cheese

Ugh, the less widely reported this is the better.

MunsterCycling

Nope if you load the card with euro then its an ordinary CC but using it with £ (funny money) you can use a Visa Electron.

MC

Ah yes, glad Ireland has high standards of journalism

gerkoff

Anyone know if you would avoid CC charges by using a visa debit card like the halifax one?

dubrov

I used my Halifax Visa Debit Card with Aer Lingus a few months ago and wasn't charged any credit card fees.

I selected Visa Electron (even though it is not a Visa Electron) and entered all the details as normal for a debit card.

MarkR

I used my halifax visa debit and was charged as if it was a standard visa. Used to be cheaper IIRC

ch750536

Check the sig and give the gratitude lads.

dubrov

MarkR wrote: »

I used my halifax visa debit and was charged as if it was a standard visa. Used to be cheaper IIRC

I had to select it as a "Visa Electron" to avoid the charge.
If I selected Debit card, I was still charged.

Maybe they have closed the loophole now as well!

homer911

I've just booked 4 seats to the UK (return) for €8 all in, using the Entropay Card as a Visa Electron Card. Had to put the minimum £10 on it (plus 50p admin charge) but still have £2.99 to spend, so it does still work!

My first bargain with Ryanair - thanks all!

Presumably now, if I wanted to, I could transfer the remaining credit on the Entropay card to my PayPal account, rather than let it languish unused? Anyone tried this? Any problems with credit card names?

Thephantomsmask

It's £1.49 to move cash if iirc so may as well leave it for the future tbh. While the publicity isn't good, I can't see ryanair closing it yet as so other budget companies like easyjet have the same no charge on electron policy and it means they could no longer claim to offer "free fares" when they do the 1c offers. Haven't seen one of those in a while though.

daveyjoe

There's a step by step guide here by the way: http://bargainsireland.wordpress.com/2008/11/21/avoid-the-credit-card-charge-when-booking-with-ryanair/

(and that was blogged in November, making the Indo exactly 8 months late)

daveyjoe

Also, the article is inaccurate:

The Indo wrote:

You can avoid these dirty little charges if you get something called a Visa Electron card.

This is a disposable credit card. You do not physically get a card, instead you get a number much the same as buying credit for your mobile phone

1. It's not specifically disposable, entropay offer it as a disposable card but it's available (albeit no in Ireland) as an ordinary physical card.

2. It's not a credit card, it's a debit card.

undo

daveyjoe wrote: »

1. It's not specifically disposable, entropay offer it as a disposable card but it's available (albeit no in Ireland) as an ordinary physical card.

Furthermore, the disposable card is useless for Ryanair as it's Mastercard based, not Visa.

pissed

Just about to open an account. Its asking for account currency. So do I have to state GB £ as I see in some posts people saying it has to be funded with sterling or it wont work for the likes of Ryanair? Also I take it there is no problems with funding an account with an Irish credit card (Visa).???

snowdaze

open it ias a GBP account
no problem funding it with an Irish Visa a/c

okidoki987

Only works using GBP.
Use an ordinary Irish cc to fund it and they will convert it from your Euro cc to the Electron in GBP.

pissed

Thanks for the replies

daveyjoe

For what it's worth people are reporting that you can now use Euro as the base currency and the card will still work as an electron (I have not verified this myself though): http://bargainsireland.wordpress.com/2008/11/21/avoid-the-credit-card-charge-when-booking-with-ryanair/

snowdaze

the euro entropay did not work a few weeks ago for me when I tried....
if you have a GBP one it will start with the numbers 4101 and then it will work:D

I can't imagine Ryanair changing this...not their style:D

Jeanious

Royale with Cheese wrote: »

Ugh, the less widely reported this is the better.

+1000, that's why ive told fcuk all people about it!

The moaning of people who get ripped-off by Ryanair is like music to my ears, cos every one of them that pays over the odds means that one smart person who doesn't check-in bags/doesn't lose their boarding card/doesn't buy any of the absolute rubbish that they sell etc. can get a flight for next to nothing.

And the beauty of it all is that the Visa Electron is the only way they can say they have free flights, and for just that reason i doubt they'll close this loophole for a long time to come (famous last words!)

Rowley Birkin QC

Just got myself an entropay there, looking to pay for a flight that's costing €98.20 (before the €10 CC charge). Two questions, is it still worthwhile paying using it for flights like this, i.e. non free or .99c ones? If it is, how much GB£ do I need to deposit to my entropay to cover the cost of the flight?

Cheers.

ch750536

bigkev49 wrote: »

Just got myself an entropay there, looking to pay for a flight that's costing €98.20 (before the €10 CC charge). Two questions, is it still worthwhile paying using it for flights like this, i.e. non free or .99c ones? If it is, how much GB£ do I need to deposit to my entropay to cover the cost of the flight?

Cheers.

See the sig for more details of this, not straightforward.

Rowley Birkin QC

ch750536 wrote: »

See the sig for more details of this, not straightforward.

Cheers for that. Still though the head is not the best this morning

Am I better off taking the hit on the CC, as in paying the total cost of €108.20, two way flight for 1 person, on the ryanair site or depositing money to Entropay and paying that way?

I just can't make sense of that table this morning, apologies.

walshki

ch750536 wrote: »

See the sig for more details of this, not straightforward.

Howdy ch750536,

I've used entropay a couple of times now (ryanair and aerlingus) and it's working great. One thing I'm concerned about is the exchange rates involved. Namely you have to do two currency exchanges, one euro to sterling to load the entropay card and another sterling to euro to actually pay ryanair. I must look at the actual charges on my credit card but in your experience how much is this taking off the saving? Has anyone looked at this. It won't make a difference for the cheaper end flights but it might change the threshold at which its worthwhile.

homer911

bigkev49 wrote: »

Just got myself an entropay there, looking to pay for a flight that's costing €98.20 (before the €10 CC charge). Two questions, is it still worthwhile paying using it for flights like this, i.e. non free or .99c ones? If it is, how much GB£ do I need to deposit to my entropay to cover the cost of the flight?

Cheers.

€98.2 is about £88 at the moment - that means putting at least £90 on a virtual card which will cost you £94.46 (4.95% comm.) or approx €106

Rowley Birkin QC

homer911 wrote: »

€98.2 is about £88 at the moment - that means putting at least £90 on a virtual card which will cost you £94.46 (4.95% comm.) or approx €106

Cheers for that, I just booked on the Ryanair site, didn't seem worth the hassle for €2.

I'm gonna throw maybe £20 into the card though, just to take advantage of any future sales.

Thanks again.

ronan1001

daveyjoe wrote: »

For what it's worth people are reporting that you can now use Euro as the base currency and the card will still work as an electron (I have not verified this myself though): http://bargainsireland.wordpress.com/2008/11/21/avoid-the-credit-card-charge-when-booking-with-ryanair/

This worked for me. Didn't read the thread fully so opened it in Euros, but the flights still went through.

greened

bigkev49 wrote: »

Just got myself an entropay there, looking to pay for a flight that's costing €98.20 (before the €10 CC charge). Two questions, is it still worthwhile paying using it for flights like this, i.e. non free or .99c ones? If it is, how much GB£ do I need to deposit to my entropay to cover the cost of the flight?

Cheers.

It is not worth while. Buy a €100 ryan air vouche (will cost you €105) and pay for the flight wiht the voucher. There is no extra charge for this. You will however not get any change back fromn the voucher but your flight cost is very close to €100.
flight total will be €105 all in.

exiot

The signup for the site seems to be down

"The service is not available. Please try again later."

Thephantomsmask

greened wrote: »

It is not worth while. Buy a €100 ryan air vouche (will cost you €105) and pay for the flight wiht the voucher. There is no extra charge for this. You will however not get any change back fromn the voucher but your flight cost is very close to €100.
flight total will be €105 all in.

Ryanair have been applying the credit card charge to voucher payments for a good while now, I think since March?

greened

Thephantomsmask wrote: »

Ryanair have been applying the credit card charge to voucher payments for a good while now, I think since March?

no.I fly regular with ryanair. They are only charging 5 euro all in for a voucher transaction. you could have a group of 6 flying and will still only pay 5 euro.

Santa Claus

Is there anyway of loading an Entropay card apart from a visa/MC ?
I've money sitting in a neteller account and hoping I can use that for something !

undo

Another CC is the only way to load an Entropay card. From looking at neteller's website, it seems you can transfer your money there into a virtual MasterCard. You could then use that to charge your Entropay card.

the_pod

I signed up for Entropay when I first saw this, loaded money yesterday and tried to book a flight on Ryanair - it declined the card several times but eventually gave me a booking number but said the flight is not confirmed until I receive an email. Nothing so far and the money has not been taken from Entopay yet.

Has anyone else had a similar problem? I need to book the flight but don't know if I should just use my normal CC now - I don't want to end up paying for this twice.

Rosielee

the_pod wrote: »

I signed up for Entropay when I first saw this, loaded money yesterday and tried to book a flight on Ryanair - it declined the card several times but eventually gave me a booking number but said the flight is not confirmed until I receive an email. Nothing so far and the money has not been taken from Entopay yet.

Has anyone else had a similar problem? I need to book the flight but don't know if I should just use my normal CC now - I don't want to end up paying for this twice.

Yeh Pod this has happened to me the last two times I used Entropay. It seems to me that there is not enough money in the account - even though i loaded what I needed...Only when I went back into my Entropay account and loaded another tenner and then rebooked the flights, were they confirmed.I have used this for the past year with no problems until now..I dont know if I am miscalculating with the loading but cant see how im doing this as its all self explanatory..or if they keep a few bob back in case the exchange rate fluctuates...havent figured it out ...if anyone can shed any light on this i'd be very interested to know ....another thing that has me confused is the fact that when I book flights a few weeks later my Entropay account shows a nil balance, even though i would be sure there was a couple of pounds in the account

BarryM

homer911 wrote: »

Any problems with credit card names?

Not sure it was specifically names but I did try Entropay on one UK site which said it accpeted visa electron and it was rejected. On Ryanair and others they don't seem to worry what the name is. I've used 'entropay' and my own name and both seemed to work.

Typical Indo crap, but maybe the sub editor held it back until he needed an item to fill a hole?

Bye, Barry

the_pod

I decided to try again with the Entropay details cos the money had not been taken off it and it there wasn't enough money for them to charge me twice - it worked in the end but it wasn't worth the amount of time and effort I wasted.

Never got any follow up from Ryanair about the initial unconfirmed booking. I really hate them but other airports are too far from where I'm going

podgeandrodge

Rosielee wrote: »

another thing that has me confused is the fact that when I book flights a few weeks later my Entropay account shows a nil balance, even though i would be sure there was a couple of pounds in the account

This has happened to me as well. And I know for SURE that there was a few quid left in the account which has now vanished. Entropay are trying to tell me that my Ryanair purchases matched my balance exactly! I know they didn't cos I had to upload an extra tenner to get the purchases through and knew there was about £5 left over.

Here are the screenprints - you can see that the 2nd Ryanair purchase miraculously matches the remaining balance. For this to have happened Ryanair would have had to use completely different exchange rates if you compare against the Euro prices of the flights.





Problem above is where the 2nd Ryanair flight brings the balance to exactly zero.



support are happy to say it all worked out quite nicely.



no problem with my normal visa above - 3 amounts taken out to fund the Entropay card.





the above flight prices from Ryanair when compared to the amounts taken from the entropay card would have to be completely different exchange rates.


Can anyone shed any light on this? I am thinking of posting for advice on askaboutmoney - Entropay are a regulated firm in the UK and something seems to be amiss. Unless of course I have missed something obvious!

Rafloution

I thought I had the same issue..they are charging me 9.50 gbp for a 10 euro charge... Entropay's exchange rate is messing it up seem to be making it up as they go.

The very same day charging me 19.18 gbp for a 20 euro transaction.

undo

podgeandrodge wrote: »

And I know for SURE that there was a few quid left in the account which has now vanished.

I had the same happen to me several times. But as of late, it seems to have stopped happening. I have 10 Entropay cards, each with between a few pence and a few pounds on it. Whenever I log in, all the balances are there. Maybe it is actually a genuine bug in their system that sporadically happens, not a scam?

Rosielee

podgeandrodge wrote: »

Here are the screenprints - you can see that the 2nd Ryanair purchase miraculously matches the remaining balance. For this to have happened Ryanair would have had to use completely different exchange rates if you compare against the Euro prices of the flights.

Can anyone shed any light on this? I am thinking of posting for advice on askaboutmoney - Entropay are a regulated firm in the UK and something seems to be amiss. Unless of course I have missed something obvious!

Im in total agreement with you there podgeandrodge. This has happened to me the last 4 times I have booked using Entropay. ..I could be out a few pence with the transaction and have to load the extra £10- next time its gone !...and my transaction history is the same as yours...I'm glad i'm not the only one with this problem. If I add up roughly what I 'lost' when the balance was unconvincingly reduced to nil...then I reckon I lost about £35 i'd say...I'm with you on posting for advice on askaboutmoney.com,maybe the whizzes over there can shed some light on it...i wont be using Entropay again until they cop on !.there is definitely something dodgey about it..:mad:

bleary

Bit worried now about trying to use this for an aerlingus flight . I have one account set up with GBP as my currency. Can I set up a euro card for Aer lingus and get charged for an electron card It might be easier to work out the actual charge

Our man in Havana

Do Aerlingus even take visa electron? They still charge the full surcharge for debit cards such as laser.

steve 0

Bond-007 wrote: »

Do Aerlingus even take visa electron? They still charge the full surcharge for debit cards such as laser.

I used Entropay a few months back and it was accepted as Visa Electron with no fee. Think others have also had success since then.

Our man in Havana

Aerlingus.com wrote:

Handling Fee

Charges as follows: €5 /£5 per person, per flight. Flights originating in the USA, Infant Bookings and Bookings using Visa Electron are not subject to the handling fee.

Happy days!

It is a bit rich charging the full fee for laser transactions seeing as it only costs them 20 cent per transaction.

Kotek Besar

Bond-007 wrote: »

It is a bit rich charging the full fee for laser transactions seeing as it only costs them 20 cent per transaction.

Probably less than that. Friend of mine has a restaurant, he pays 14c per Laser transaction, so I'm sure a big company like Aer Lingus will have negotiated to pay even less.