FORUM

My wife has just booked some flights for April and come across some new charges you all might not be aware of...

It seems now if you wish to take the following there is a £57 pound charge
for a canoe, bicycle, golf bag or fishing rod, Musical instrument or Ski's...

Even more galling for young families they will now be charging you £19 if you wish to take your pushchair!!!

We have to pay the £9.50 charge per person per leg to check in (as my wife is disabled) but they do refund that once you notify them to provide assistance... but a £19 charge for a pushchair is bound to make a few parents see red!!!!

Oh my God, you have to pay for legs now??????????????

I think I shall start looking for a few pushchairs on the videgreniers and flogging them at the airports!

Yes it's all changed, we got 2 flights for £20 no taxes, but paid £19 for the credit card ????

Last summer golf clubs were being charged at £30 so that is quite a hike. We had to take a friends clubs down in our car and we keep 2 sets permanently in France because of these charges.
The pushchair charges are only charged on the second one at the moment, that may change though.
I get annoyed at the debit card charge as I can't see how that involves any handling.
But at the end of the day where would we be without the low cost airlines?
Flying used to be a lot more expensive and even with these charges there are some bargains to be had.

Oh my God, you have to pay for legs now??????????????

Tiffany high heels are extra.

I agree we should not whinge at the prices. Around 1990 when Outie and I were jetting to and from the Med 3 or 4 times per summer season we were paying nearly £100 for one way flights.

But boy do I begrudge the card charge, the check-in fee, baggage handling fee........and no free burnt bacon and beans breakfast

opas wrote: But boy do I begrudge the card charge, the check-in fee, baggage handling fee........and no free burnt bacon and beans breakfast

1. Use Electron/Solo.

2. Book in on line.

3. Only take cabin baggage.

4. Use BMI instead, you can have a decent bacon baguette - but it's not free.

5. Stop complaining!

Yes I noticed there were no charges for an electron card, still charges for even a debit card.

Serge wrote: 5. Stop complaining!

no chance, I am too good at it, worked at it for years and now fully qualified.

However the debit card and elecrron card do not give you any comeback in case of the supplier going bust (unliklely with ryanair I admit) or doing a wrong deal (not so unlikely).

I think that what is really galling is that the charges imposed by the operators do not actually reflect their true difference in costs between payment methods. I believe they are overcharging on credit cards to dissuade us from using them.



Re: pram charge. I have said this before. Ryanair is actively displacing the family market in favour of other travellers. I hope for them that the loadings can be sustained by the non-family market.

John

Owens88 wrote:I believe they are overcharging on credit cards to dissuade us from using them.

There must be a cost associated with Credit (or Debit) Card payments and I don't particularily mind paying a seperate charge for that if that's the way they want to play it. But this charge must be PER TRANSACTION and not PER TICKET.

There was an interesting Watchdog programme on the telly last year
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/watchdog/200 ... ights.html
when they investigated RyanAir's claim for "free flights". They even got as far as interviewing the great Michael O'L himself by turning up un-announced at his offices in Ireland. He refused to be drawn into explaining the rationale behind his Credit Card charges, and the conclusion drawn by Watchdog was that, as Visa Electron is so hard to actually come by, it was used as a ruse to claim that flights were "free" when most customers had to pay high Credit Card fees.

Mind you, I had to book some EasyJet flights the other day and Visa Electron was the only payment option free of any surcharge.

Royal Bank of Scotland do a Visa Electron.. got ours in just over two weeks... when booking a bunch of tickets today my wife found she did not have enough credit left on the electron card... cleverly she remembered having seen a post elsewhere that RyanAir do a voucher scheme.. paid for vouchers using a credit card ( no surcharge ) then completed the booking a few minutes later with the voucher code and remaining credit on the electron card.
On six flights for 8 people she just saved nearly £80 in credit card charges

I have a visa electron card.
bit of a hassle getting it and am not sure it was worth the effort.
i was in england at the time, and took euros to the post office especially so that I could apply for the card. (wanted a card in euros partly because we live in france most of the time and partly because there was no fee for a card in euros - unlike sterling)
they told me they would have to change the euros to sterling before converting them back to euros to open the account!! (two lots of exchanges losing quite a lot of the cash in the process)
rather than do that, I used my debit card to buy euros - poor rate of exchange but never mind. actually, it seems like a bargain now at around 1.23.
i booked my next Ryanair flight from france using the card - no fees, no problem.
i now have around 75 euros left on the card. (started with 150)
if i want to top it up it will cost me! can't remember how much but it is definitely not free. some sort of percentage extra.

not sure if the whole idea was worth it really.
sorry this is a bit garbled but i think you will get the gist.

Marguerite & Steve wrote:Yes I noticed there were no charges for an electron card, still charges for even a debit card.

So from what I gather an " Electron" card is for people within the UK banking system who want to add another card to their list of Credit cards.

Could this be why the UK is in melt down.

Incidently if "Electron" is so good why is it not accepted in most mainland Europe shops, Petrol stations and French Motorways.

And most businesses within the Republic do not accept it, only M O'L.


Most people in mainland Europe have one card " Carte Bleue"


Strange that.

The electron card is not a credit card but more a cash loaded card used like a debit card. We have got one purely to use when purchasing the airline tickets... just want to stop paying the over the top charges they levy for the use of a credit card

A few years back it used to cost about 900 € for a return flight from Toulouse to Gatwick-return.

Yet you were allowed to pay with a credit card free. Lots of luggage was free too.

So compare which method would be the best~use the BA prices or the Ryanair "menu flight prices"?

Blackduff

The answer is simple really,
If you don't like paying Ryanair's charges, get a BA flight to Paris and then Airfrance down to Perpignan, or take the train.

That would cost you a lot more but at least you would have the security of thinking that you had not been overcharged ..............................

Come on, get a grip on reality!

Marguerite & Steve wrote:Yes I noticed there were no charges for an electron card, still charges for even a debit card.

Serge wrote: 5. Stop complaining!

no chance, I am too good at it, worked at it for years and now fully qualified.

Ah But didn`t someone mention that they are now charging for Electron? I do use that, and only take hand luggage.........I am not particularly fond of any airline food........unless we are talking Swiss air

I thought they were charging for Electron as I tried to use my son's card and it was going to charge me. After asking him he said the bank had changed it to a debit card, so I think Electron is still free.
However it does say on the site that it is an introductory offer. I wouldn't rush out to get an Electron as by the time you get one Ryanair might be charging.

Webdoc,

Running my own company in the UK we do most of our transactions by card. Yes there is a fee that we are charged for this service, it is 50p per debit card transaction regardsless of the amount taken & not as dear old Ryanair charge it as a per person booking fee. Even if we take a credit card tranaction we are onlly charged 1.5% of the amount as a handling charge as a maximum amount. This rate reduces dramatically the more card transactions we do.

You don't have to be a genius to see that this is how they keep their FLIGHT charges low as the card handling fees must be subsidising them.

If the passenger#1 wants to put four paying customers onto the same credit card transaction. Then passenger#2 decides to change something or maybe wants to go somewhere else.

Now, what will happen to all passengers#1 through passenger#4. Their tickets will have to be canceled although they still want to take this flight. Since it was all into the same ticket price, it has to be canceled by all tickets.

Do you think passengers #1, #3, and #4 are going to be happy, even they wanted to save this "group" payment system.

I think that RA is doing the most simple system, since people do change things.

Just a thought.

Blackduff

blackduff wrote:
Do you think passengers #1, #3, and #4 are going to be happy, even they wanted to save this "group" payment system.

I think that RA is doing the most simple system, since people do change things.

Just a thought.

Blackduff

Hi

See my previous assertion that Ryanair is anti-family.

John

Owens88 wrote: Hi

See my previous assertion that Ryanair is anti-family.

John

We can argue about the fairness or otherwise of Ryanair's charging policy till the cows come home,John,but I'm rather puzzled by your opinion. What would be the commercial rationale of being "anti family"? I cannot see how they'd run flights like STN-PGF, LTN -GRO, LPL-PMI if they were just going for the adult/Biz market. Especially in the summer.

Those who criticise their charges for optional items(bags,insurance,priority boarding food etc) are way wide of the mark. but those who don't like their ever increasing fees for cards payments are spot on. I mean it isn't though potential FR punters have any way of paying for the flights other than by a card.

Cash OK,Mr O'Leary?

Those who criticise their charges for optional items(bags,insurance,priority boarding food etc) are way wide of the mark.

I am just totally hissed off with FR and their extras policies... it is much simpler to just surley say the flight is "X"£ inclusive and not play on the 1p flights pricing as shown by a recent purchase.. flights were 1p but by the time everything is added 3 tickets were just over £200. a good price that i was happy with so "Mr O'Leary" why not state flights are say £65 including all charges.... its a minefield booking and you really need to have your wits about you and the current system plays on peoples inabilty to grasp this.. hardly good customer service... what was once an easy process becomes more complex each time you make a booking.

I have to say the purchase of vouchers and then using them to purchase the flight - just might be the way round the high credit card charges... and be an easier option for those without an Electron card - certainly worth exploring.

Owens88 John,
How when there is no charge for a push chair.
the conditions are:

one fully collapsible pushchair per child may be carried free of charge. Additional infant equipment such as car/booster seats and travel cots may be carried in addition to your personal checked baggage allowance. Infant equipment (car/booster seats and travel cots) booked online is charged at the rate of £9.50/€10 per item/per one way flight or at the airport or through a Ryanair call centre, the standard rate of £19/€20 per item/per one way flight will apply.

Where is this anti Family ??

RJ, he is only charging xxx for the flight,

Airport tax, Landing Security Fee's etc are out of his remit but he has to charge them.

Stealth taxes would be the appropriate word.



What annoys me are Parents and Grand Parents who cannot keep their Rugrats quiet, under control, and do not think that it is a problem if they are screaming for two hours or kick the back of my seat.

If your kids are badly behaved they should be in a zoo not on a plane/ Ferry/ Train with others whose kids were well behaved and didn't annoy others.

When I book with Ryanair I only ever look at the total cost, I always look at the breakdown of cost but only to see if I am paying for something I don’t need.

If the cost is ok I book but I don’t worry over the breakdown of how the total is arrived at.

A good example of this is, a few weeks ago I was exhibiting at the NEC in Birmingham for 2 days, I asked for a 13 amp plug to be fitted to my stand, there was no charge for the electricity (I could use as much as I wanted) but they charged me £150 to fit the plug, the price seemed fair so I paid, I didn’t moan about why one part was free while the other part cost £150, I just presumed that’s how the company made there money?

With all the comments and suggestions herein, has anyone thought of copying the lot and emailing this to Ryanair?

btw, whereas I could guess what RA stood for, I was asking myself if FR was 'France'?

Is it my impression...?- of late, I am getting the feeling that I am reading French documentation (URSSAF, CIPAV, CRAM, CNAV, etc. etc. etc.).



chantal

PaddyFrog wrote:
What annoys me are Parents and Grand Parents who cannot keep their Rugrats quiet, under control, and do not think that it is a problem if they are screaming for two hours or kick the back of my seat.

If your kids are badly behaved they should be in a zoo not on a plane/ Ferry/ Train with others whose kids were well behaved and didn't annoy others.

With you one hundred per cent on that one Michael. I used to think badly behaved kids on public transport,hotels ,restos etc was a purely British phenomenon (with perhaps (dis)honourable mentions for Holland,Ireland and the USA too),but it seems to be creeping in in France and Spain recently.

My kids/grandkids are/were made to sit down nicely and behave in such places. Why can't others demand the same discipline?

BTW Chantal,FR is just industry code for Ryanair. All their flight numbers are FR-something

john wrote:

PaddyFrog wrote:
What annoys me are Parents and Grand Parents who cannot keep their Rugrats quiet, under control, and do not think that it is a problem if they are screaming for two hours or kick the back of my seat.

If your kids are badly behaved they should be in a zoo not on a plane/ Ferry/ Train with others whose kids were well behaved and didn't annoy others.

With you one hundred per cent on that one Michael. I used to think badly behaved kids on public transport,hotels ,restos etc was a purely British phenomenon (with perhaps (dis)honourable mentions for Holland,Ireland and the USA too),but it seems to be creeping in in France and Spain recently.

My kids/grandkids are/were made to sit down nicely and behave in such places. Why can't others demand the same discipline?

BTW Chantal,FR is just industry code for Ryanair. All their flight numbers are FR-something

I agree totally, I have grandchildren and I expect them to behave anywhere public, and as they have been brought up with that expectation they are extremely good........gagging always works

Nigel and Karen wrote: they charged me £150 to fit the plug, the price seemed fair so I paid, I didn’t moan about why one part was free while the other part cost £150, I just presumed that’s how the company made there money?

Even so, it's a bit steep don't you think?

Marguerite & Steve wrote: I agree totally, I have grandchildren and I expect them to behave anywhere public, and as they have been brought up with that expectation they are extremely good........gagging always works

.......and don't copy Grandma!!!

Well I cannot complain about Ryanair - I have just booked 2 x return tickets from Shannon to Girona in March for a grand total of €10
I paid with Visa Electron so I didn't pay any credit card charges. I booked each person separately so if i need to change anything or add a bag it only effects one booking and I dont get caught having to pay a check-in charge for 2 people. Can't get better than that!