Ryanair Flight Change Fee Waiver

Urethra Franklin. · 16-03-2020 8:28pm #1

Hi, maybe someone can help me with this. I booked return flights to Amsterdam for the 13th and 17th of March. On the morning of the 13th I changed the dates of my flights due to the Coronavirus, I had not checked in for either flight at this time. I was charged a 70 euro flight change fee as well as 16 euro more for flight cost difference. Ryanair announced on the same day that they were waiving the fee for anyone due to fly on the 13th to the 31st. As per Ryanair's announcement I should not have charged the change fee but I am not sure how to go about getting in contact with them. When I originally booked those flights they were pretty last minute and with the flight change fee on top it has bought the total to 300 euro. They also charged for a price difference in flights, but when I verified the price of the new flights compared to my original ones, my new ones were cheaper and thus I shouldn't have been charged a surplus coat difference.

I tried their online chat service as soon as it opened the following day and I was waiting for nearly 5 hours, nobody ever got back to me. I lodged 2 complaints via email but I've been told emailing Ryanair is hopeless, I messaged them on Facebook, I made 2 posts on their Facebook announcement about the flight fee waiver; I haven't called them as it costs 15 cent a minute and I've read stories recently where people have tried calling them for over 2 hours and still are not getting a reply before giving up.

EverythingGood · 16-03-2020 8:51pm

did you do it before they announced?

Urethra Franklin. · 17-03-2020 1:23am

EverythingGood wrote: »

did you do it before they announced?

I have no idea what time they announced it at but their announcement states
"From today until Tue 31 Mar, Ryanair will waive the flight change fee for customers who wish to change their travel plans due to the current Covid-19 outbreak. This policy applies to all existing and new bookings”, it does not specify a time point other than Mar 13th, that is specific as the post gets; March 13th. My job deals a lot with terminology and complaints and statements, such as the one above so perhaps I am taking it too literally (this is what happens in my line of work, we literally will obsess over a comma or a word to see if it brings new meaning to the statement) but from my understanding of the statement, it specifies "from today" i.e. Mar 13th, not Mar 13th at 2 pm, Mar 13th from the release of this announcement release, etc; Mar 13th encompasses 24 hours, "today" signifies an entire day; not from a specific time point within that day. I changed my flights around half 11 in the morning as well as my 4 hour window until my flight was closing in (you cannot change flights once your flight is due to take off within 4 hours).

GerardKeating · 17-03-2020 12:15pm

Urethra Franklin. wrote: »

but from my understanding of the statement, it specifies "from today" i.e. Mar 13th, not Mar 13th at 2 pm, Mar 13th from the release of this announcement release, etc; Mar 13th encompasses 24 hours, "today" signifies an entire day;

That all correct in theory, but if you made the change before they made the decision, they how could they have had time to update the online system.

They might go back and retrospectivly refund you, or not even notice this has happend, thye are a tad busy now for some reason, perhaps wait a few days and give them a chance to catch up

Ryanair Flight Change Fee Waiver

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