Reply With QuoteIt's Ryanair they specialise in extracting the micheal.
Booked a flight for a few of us.
£190 each, return to Spain.
Got one of the names spelt wrong.
Called up to adjust it this morning.
£110 admin fee to make the change.
Surely that has to fall into some kind of "taking the piss" legal catagory?
It's Ryanair they specialise in extracting the micheal.
Shocking. Just outrageous. Complain to everyone you can think of. What an awful company.
It's punishment to make you try harder next time
Don't forget to print your boarding pass before you get to the airport: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/tr...ding-pass.html
If you don't have time to read the article, the URL gives a pretty good indication of O'Leary's response.
I tried to avoid using them if at all possible. £110 is outrageous.
You should have changed your name by deed poll to the misspelt one and bought a new passport.
Work colleague of mine did the same thing ......similar charge.
I believe it's partially to do with ticket reselling .......ie buying a ticket when it's low at say £1 and reselling it to another individual when the prices go up , doing a 'name change ' to give to them.
However , no common sense seems to be ale to be applied and 'genuine' errors are seeing people being extorted for a better word.
My colleague argued with the call centre till he was red in the face .......in the end , he went into the airport before he was due to fly , put on a smile and asked the girls at the desk to change it ......they did FOC .
He bought them a nice box of chocs and a bunch of flowers to say thanks.
People still fly with them in droves...
(I agree - a truly awful company that is setting the standards for everything-has-a-fee flying)
I fly with them a lot because they're the only airline that does (almost) door to door to my other house. Not a particularly great experience, particularly when combined with the purgatory that airports have become these days.
Seriously, what are passengers supposed to do, take a printer with them?Originally Posted by Seabadger
Never understood the logistics of this for a longish holiday.
Manchester - Spain
Ticket £10
Baggage fees £60
Choose a seat fee £15
Fuel surcharge £10
Check in at airport (not online) fee £30
Credit card fee £15
Booking fee £15
Soon:
Use the toilet fee £5
Carry on hand luggage fee £20
So that headline £10 ticket soon becomes £100!
Have I missed any fees?
That's a lot of money.
Not sure if I remember correctly but wasn't one of the issues with bank overdraft charges that the administration wasn't costing that much? So, the charge was say £30 but in reality the admin costs were lower.
I'd be surprised if the this didn't fall foul of the same reasoning.
I can see why they want to make it difficult for people to change the actual names on the ticket, but a typo is very different to a full name change IMHO.
Love it.It's punishment to make you try harder next time
On a more serious note, we fly Ryanair about 5 times a year from Dublin to Carcassonne. Never any problems, you just have to learn the Ryanair way and be smart to it.
I don't agree with a £110 charge but really if it was a mis spelling and not an actual name change you only have yourself to blame. When I'm booking it's only for my wife and I so I know the names pretty well but I still check everything carefully before submitting.
Tell them you're dyslexic.
I have every sympathy. I hate them. Once every few years they seem to be the only carrier that goes somewhere I need to go and I hate the experience every time. Billboards in the plane, scratchcards, no seat storage and the scramble that exists for internal storage since they started charging insane amounts for luggage.
I never fly with them if there is a viable alternative. Ever.
My missus was stranded in Morocco for 4 days after a flight was over booked. They promised they'd get hotels and a couple of hundred euros paid to them, but it never appeared. They are lying conniving cheats.
More importantly, they are not cheaper than their competitors. Their service is cheap, but the prices aren't.
I use Ryanair, Easyjet and Jet2, whoever is cheapest, I couldn't give a monkey's fart about who is good or bad, I just want to get to my destination as cheaply as possible, I get no pleasure from airports or flying. I view the fares, add on's and staggered pricing all a game and often fly out and back from the same destination with different carriers.
I actually fly with Ryanair tomorrow, out of Leeds to Barcelona, less than £50 for me and my good lady, r.e.t.u.r.n.
People who fly often with them tend to know the score whereas first timers get crucified for mistakes and not reading the small print. I try and avoid them.
I wouldn't pi ss on that O'Leary if he was on fire, his customer care ethics simply suck.
i don't drive a 1980's lada
i don't travel long distance on the cheapest coach available
i don't fly ryanair
no matter how cheap any of the above maybe
I refuse to fly with Ryanair and never will.
"A man of little significance"
I like to save my money for spending on pleasure, not transportation. I've used them all (Ryanair, Easyjet & Jet 2) for many years and haven't noticed any difference in service or quality, if pushed the grey leather Jet2 seats are the comfiest, but they are not going to swing the deal.
£50 for two, return, Leeds to Barcelona, long live Ryanair!
Thanks for the sympathy guys! It is utterly unreasonable.
I can appreciate one chaps post stating that some people book flights on bulk in advance for one pound and then change the names before the flights, that is actually a reasonable reason for having the charges, but in my instance its just unfair.
I've had an idea. If we all stick in about £100k each we could start TZ Air, a company with the sole intention of bankrupting Ryanair. We would fly identical routes and timetables. We'd be a little more expensive, but we'd treat our customers well and not have mental charges. I think it's a winner and would love it if a billionaire did it!
I wonder if they charge for oxygen in the event of the masks falling from the ceiling!?
Maybe you have to pull the mask toward your face and then put a two pound coin into a slot to start the flow of oxygen.........
There was an episode of come fly with me (The spoof show on Ryan air and other budget airlines) Where the company owner was charging people for life vests if the plane crashes in sea (Extra money for a whistle, extra money for air for the life vest) etc etc..........
I've never had a problem with them but a lot of people don't seem to want to hear that.
My next flight is in June. Here's a breakdown on price.
(PIK) to (ACE) £41.24
261 Levy £2.50
Web Check in £7.00
ETS Levy £0.25
Admin £7.00
Credit Card £1.46
Total £59.45
Seems ok to me. I only use them about 6 times a year so maybe I'm lucky.
Now I've said they're ok it will probably turn in to a complete and utter fuck up.
I only fly with Ryanair if there is no choice (and frankly some of the frills - normal - airlines' prices take the piss...400 quid to Spain?...leaving me with no choice. No thanks). As it happens, I've flown with them many times.
If you use them with the mindset that they will screw you and take you for every penny they can from booking through to traveling (and I genuinely do), you will check everything ten times and not make a mistake. It's a horrible way to travel - their planes are like flying public buses, the announcements in- flight are loud and never-ending and they'll just ignore the very basics of customer service to make a quick buck - all down to their bastard of a CEO.
I've also flown EasyJet many times but it's like First Class compared to RyanAir - I don't think it's even fair to call them competitors. Nicer interiors, no endless announcements, less militant on the bag sizes and no weight restrictions either (10 kg on RA), much less sly booking process and overall a more grown- up experience. The staff are even noticeably more pleasant.
I usually use them as first choice and only RyanAir if EasyJet don't fly to the desired destination.
Spread the word! EasyJet is a better choice!
BA is the better choice! I've been pleasantly surprised at where BA fly lately. I fly quite a bit and usually have to suffer easyjet or at worst, Ryanair. But recently I've found that BA fly on many of the routes and at not much more money.
The BA experienceis massively better from booking to landing too!
Long live British Airways! :)
I absolutely refuse to fly Ryanair though one observation I'd have is that their arrival on the London-Dublin route in the 90's did help drive down the prices of their competitors. The nasty approach to customer relations is absolutely embedded in the company and starts, as others have said, from the top down. A company that has a policy to prevent staff recharging their personal mobiles at work is not likely to have high morale, in my view.
I will fly Easyjet as I find that they're not quite so obsessive about shafting their customers but you still need to watch out and I'll still normally pay £50-80 to allow for the fact that the airport may be somewhat further out and the fact that you will have to pay for everything; they're also frequently not any cheaper these days anyhow. The other consideration is the position that you'll be in if something goes wrong. Most of the budget airlines will attempt to either do nothing or at most the minimum whereas the full-fat variety will typically cover things like hotels and meals; given the severe winters we've been having recently this can be a significant bonus.
If you have a home at each end of the route then you can de-risk part of the exercise though there are pitfalls. I seem to remember some indignant holiday home-owners getting very upset when Ryanair cancelled a number of routes to regional French airports a few years back. Planning a second home on the basis of a service provided by somebody who will sell their own grandmother to save 50p on landing charges is not particularly wise.
Having said all of this the history of the industry does not bode well and looking at what Willie Walsh did to Aer Lingus (not that these were ever a preferred airline of mine) and subsequently British Airways indicates a race to the bottom. I have recently dropped from being a gold card holder with one airline scheme to silver and the amenities on offer are now less than when I was previously at silver. As is often said, if you had a local bus journey of, say, 90 minutes you wouldn't have a particularly high level of expectation (although flights are often special occasions; not often said of bus trips) but then you also wouldn't have to be constantly alert to the bus company trying to take your trousers down at every opportunity.
In the Sotadic Zone, apparently.
We bought our other place for a number of reasons; direct Ryanair flights replacing what had previously been a flight - tram - 3hr train journey was an added and unexpected bonus. Having said that, Ryanair as everybody knows play hardball with their host airports and the regular scares about ending flights is annoying. They've already ended flights from Manchester to our local airport, which is annoying as friends from the north often come to join us and now they have to get to Birmingham or Stansted.
The one time I flew Ryanair (six years ago) I got stuck in Poland for three days and was basically told to "do one" when I requested a hotel. I will NEVER fly them again. In a normal year I fly around 100-150,000 miles and I don't care if they're going door-to-door, I'd rather give my money to KLM, BA or Lufthansa or basically anyone else. Yes, I end up paying substantially more, but I know I won't get screwed.
Frankly Ryanair are in the news enough for this sort of thing, and their tactics are well-known enough that anyone who gets caught out by them has nobody to blame but themselves.
I first flew Ryan Air from Stanstead to Cork in the early-mid 90s. I think at that time they only had four flights, yes four flights. They were wonderful, charming, friendly, generally excellent and a joy to fly with. In fact, you can enter pretty much any superlative in the previous sentence. Then they got greedy and overambitious.
Wasn't there a scandal a while ago because they wanted to introduce tokens for the toilets? I seem to remember that the law of having to provide a toilet where food and drink is served meant that they couldn't actually go ahead with it but they argued that as they were out of territory during flights, they didn't need to uphold ground laws. They lost...
I don't understand the grumbles much, their practices are well known, just play the game then you won't contribute to their staggering profits.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21227287
If I take a bike, I use Jet2 because it's half the cost. If I use Ryanair then I pay for the flights, nothing else, no food, no parking, no car hire, no luggage, no seat reservation. I even get dropped off outside the airport perimeter and walk the 500m to the terminal to save the £2 drop off fee!
I also hate them with a passion, and consider easy jet an altogether more pleasant solution, even if it's a far cry from what air travel used to be.
But I must say I really enjoyed reading RA had lost their case a few month ago: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/new...fter-ash-cloud
That must have hurt O'Leary in a place where the light never shines
'Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain' - Schiller.
Fair enough - but I'm guessing you pay a premium? I've never seen BA flights to short-haul European destinations for less than 200 pounds. Even the expensive/last minute RA/EJ flights are about a hundred pounds on average.
Just a continuation of my EasyJet praise. I don't know if they've changed things recently but they seem noticeably better than a few years ago. Maybe they're trying to differentiate themselves even more from RA. Not sure if the no-weight restriction thing on hand luggage and allocated seating (makes such a difference and at no charge) are recent introductions but it's almost like flying a frills airline.
I find it difficult using the Ryan Air web site to book flights and a hotel. You seem to have to book the flights 1st then book the hotel. Whereas on the Easy Jet site you chose your flight and hotel then book!!! Or is it me?
This weekend I flew to Cyprus. Out with EasyJet and back with BA.
BA was £32 per person cheaper and included meals, drinks and assigned seating.
Fastest way to become a millionaire?
Be a billionaire and buy an airline.
Airlines aren't really get-rich-quick investments.....
Most of the complaints people have stem from them making a mistake in the first place.
Yes the fees are exorbitant to do simple things like change a name or print a boarding pass but read the fine print before you go and sort it yourself and you can get some very cheap flights, which when you are a frequent flyer paying out of your own pocket is all I am looking for.
Well, I've just tried booking a flight, got right to the very end and the web site's crashed. I've no idea if I've booked or not???
Manage booking just gets an error page.
Probably not the most helpful of answers, but the thought of doing this has never occurred to me - my assumption being that if they're desperate to gouge on the ticket prices, they'll presumably do the same for hotels.
Interesting. Sometimes you do get cheaper fares on BA and the like but it's a lottery as to when you book.
Btw, you do get assigned seating with EasyJet included. As I mentioned earlier, not sure if that's a recent thing but it avoids the circus you get with RyanAir where there are massive queues at the gate ready for the free-for-all for seats.
It's the Ryanair way - and it's not a secret that they muller your wallet for the smallest infraction or alteration. The more Michael O'Leary hates his customers, the more people flock to his business, it seems - people seem to like it so much that it's one of the world's most profitable airlines.
But £190 return to Spain doesn't sound very low-fares to me...
...but what do I know; I don't even like watches!
Yeah, booking RA. BA were ok until they ave up all their slots at Gatwick. Fly to Palma for example an Easyjet has ten flights. BA will have two, one of which lands at 22:00. I'd rather not go than fly RA.
I'm happy to say (after reading this thread) that I have never flown RyanAir, and now have no intention of ever contemplating doing so.
What are these endless inflight announcements posters have mentioned?
A few weeks ago we flew to Florida and back with Thomas Cook Airways - a lovely Airbus with much more legroom than Virgin's 747's.
So clever my foot fell off.
Pre-recorded messages advertising J2O (obviously available to buy n drink on-board) - this will probably be played two or three times per flight.
Then there's the Irish lottery ticket announcements.
Duty Free.
Rip-off food and drinks service announcements.
All on nasty sounding speakers and played loud so unless you have earplugs in, you probably won't be able to sleep.
That makes me a sucker for punishment I guess but I have pretty high tolerance levels I suppose
Last edited by scarto; 23rd April 2013 at 22:15.
I have had the unfortunate pleasure of flying thema couple of years ago when i went with some mates to Italy.One of my mates was in charge of printing boarding passes and forgot to do costs us 40 euros each never again.
Plus there's the bugle call on landing, if it's on time of course
Yes, very embarrassing, glad I heard it though. The flight was early, there were 6 sales pitches, each lasting about 30 seconds, over a 2.5 hour flight. I hardly noticed as I was listening to my Spanish lessons. We took our own Pepsi and sandwiches on board and bought nothing. As usual, I experienced nothing different to what I do on Easyjet or Jet 2.
Ryanair clearly states maximum cabin baggage dimensions, these are clearly and repeatedly displayed on their website and are not ambiguous, not for personal interpretation.
AFAIK all airlines charge for ticket alterations, for those who have trouble spelling their own names.
For those who forget to print boarding cards and are charged at the airport, they deserve it, Ryanair always send t.w.o email reminders to do so. If you still don't think that's enough, you can be sent a text reminder.
£49.76 Total cost Leeds to Barcelona (El Prat)
Excellent.
It's certainly worked for O'Leary, Stelios and Branson who have all done remarkably well from their Airline Businesses.
I've flown Ryanair a good few times and as their "extras" have increased I have a very simple policy with them. I will only go somewhere where hold luggage isn't needed. The main thing is to know what to expect before you book.
We've only ever had one problem and that was on a return flight home from Salzburg (last flight of the day) that got cancelled leaving us to stay overnight. The Ryanair staff disappeared leaving the airport staff to sort out a very frustrated bunch of passengers. Then when my wife tried to sort out compensation for the cancellation they wanted to charge us for faxing over our details to them!!!
What I find hard to understand about O'Leary's attitude to customer service is that it's not rocket science to realise that happy customers are repeat customers. He clearly doesn't care a jot about customer service. That said I do find him very entertaining when he's being interviewed. It's hard not to have a small admiration for his chutzpa!
But then the airports are no better these days, charging for passenger drop off (or leaving your relatives a 10 minute park and ride journey away if you won't pay!) etc.
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