Ryanair travel by air - subtle scams to be wary of

I have been using Ryanair for a number of years, however just recently i have booked some flights and they have new and improved methods of extracting money from you under false pretenses. Seeing as Ryanair is probably the most busy airline in Poland i thought it important to list some of the scams they pull and get away with.

Ryan air Guaranteed exchange rate: I actually fell for this one about two weeks ago, if you book a flight over the internet departing from another country the cost is listed in the local currency. At the very last minute before you actually pay you have the option to opt out of the Ryanair Guaranteed Exchange Rate, its very difficlut to find as are all the opt out features throughout the their website. Before you select to opt out it tries to scare you by saying YOUR BANK WILL NOT GUARANTEE THE EXCHANGE RATE, this is obviously scare mongering tactics as the Ryanair rate is indeed guaranteed but guaranteed at a much higher rate than any bank. It roughly works out at about 7% extra.

What i also found scandalous was the way they try to brainwash you into pre booking seats....... at extra cost of course.

and the web check in, if you book that but dont check in its a £60 fine per booking, if you make a mistake its a £60 fine per booking.

administration fees are another con, and they never give you these prices till right at the very end - its about 5%.

Anybody noticed that the opt out of travel insurance is quite tricky too, it defies the alphabetical order, which is the norm throughout the site.... I wonder how many extra millions Ryanair makes out of this alone. What is really funny is that once you manage to opt out of travel insurance the next page tries to scare monger you back in, by having two large options, one says something like "Ohh yes i want travel insurance" and the other "No i will take the risk".

Then of course we have baggage fees, priority boarding passes, EU levy, taxes and fees, a friggen ETS (what ever the fcuk that is) and more.

So be aware

It's not a fine, it's a fee for printing the boarding pass at the airport. Given that they send countless e-mails saying YOU MUST CHECK IN AND PRINT YOUR BOARDING PASS, there's really no excuse for not doing it.

Ryanair are fantastic for short trips to random places that you'd never consider visiting. Not so great if you have to bring along loads of baby stuff, large suitcases, etc etc.

Easyjet is not any better.. They are very quick at debiting your card a soon as a booking is done but use all sorts of fall pretences (they call this "security") not to reimburse monies owed.. I have been fighting with them for more than a month to get a refund for Air Passenter duty following a flight I did not use..

I booked a wizz air flight last year and it was similar but Ryanair get the medal for subtle little money making tricks throughout the booking process.

They basically do what ever the hell they want and get away with it.


Its a fine.... If for example you printed two boarding passes on one A4 sheet you would be fined, I wonder what would happen if the calibration on your printer was out a little bit and their scanner couldnt read the bar code.

How many is countless emails? i think you get two, you can have text message alerts too but that's an extra 7 PLN.

I usually book flights for other people, so im not there to hold their hands.

Oh my favourite topic.... join the group "I hate Ryanair" on facebook. :-)

I think the society (all of us a bit) created companies like Ryanair. Everyone just wants cheap cheap cheap... this is the result. Ryanair is actually struggling financially and therefore they have to trick people into paying those little hidden things.

Flying from Stansted airport is particually annoying.... it used to be that at the security check the airport staff would check the weight of your hand luggage... that only happens occasionally now... at that point you might still be able to give someone the exess load. But they have now changed it, so be careful what you buy in the duty free area. It ALL has to go into your one bag and it must not be heavier than 10kg. They now have another check at the gates and you will have to pay something like 45€ to get a little tag onto your bag and drop it off at the bottom of the steps on the roll field. Love it... not!

I would much rather pay that little bit more and still be treated like a human, but sadly Ryanair flies to the required destinations.

The scary thing is (and this obviously carries on throughout the big business world) is that they know what people think about them, they will have teams of analysts studying the data with or without the little subtle scams - but its still more profitable to have them regardless of what people think.

Struggling financially? I wonder where you read that...

The last full year results, reported on May 21st and dated 31st March saw the following figures -

25% increase in profits to 503m Euro.
19% increase in revenue to 4,325m Euro
5% increase in passengers

Ryanair are doing exceptionally well when many other airlines are indeed struggling financially. I mean - unless you think that 503m Euro profit on 4,325m revenue is "struggling financially".

They've also got (as of 31st March) - 2,708.3m Euro in CASH in the bank.


It's what keeps the flights cheap, turnarounds fast and Ryanair profitable.

Ok... I'll take it back regarding the "struggling financially"... I just heard something somewhere but haven't got the source. Apologies... Gosh! Harsh...

I understand their strategy and totally see the point. BUT I still don't like it how they treat you... especially certain things are not working/back firing:

- Parents with children don't go on first unless they pay priority boarding. BUT parents really should sit with their toddler, so they are making people move in order to have parents sit with their children. Why not let them go on first?!

- They are encouraging people to just take hand luggage BUT their plans can actually not handle the load. If every passenger would take one bag within their allowed measurements, it would not fit into the overhead compartments. That's just physics. :-)

Anyway... I am out.. too many rather strong communicators here. O.o.

They shouldn't be making people move. Still, it's a good profit maker - parents panic that they can't sit with their children, so they pay for priority boarding. Very sensible business move.


Normal practice in such situations is to put some bags in the hold.

O'Leary has tried, tried and tried to find a way to get people to take the luggage to the plane themselves. Unfortunately, his plans didn't work out - which is why we now have the "hand luggage' strategy.


The rise in profits does suggest otherwise.

Whats your excuse for the Ryanair's guaranteed exchange rate?


guardian.co.uk/money/2010/feb/15/ryanair-costs-currency-conversion

Seriously i dropped £300 this morning on Ryanair flights and considering i booked a flight two weeks ago and got stung on the exchange rate i googled it this morning, and thats how i was able to avoid it this time. I didnt remember having the option last time to opt out of the Ryanair exchange rate and when i found it this morning i couldnt believe how sneaky they are.

Having to research a company to avoid their charges is just madness.

While I overall agree with your post, it is factually incorrect on 2 points


In fact, Ryanair's value (market cap) is larger than that of most "traditional" airlines


That isn't specific to low cost airlines. In fact, despite my dislike of Easyjet (see my earlier post), I have to recognize that they don't do it, whereas Swiss imposes a maximum (8 kg fgs!!)

There's no excuse - DCC is a well known scam used by many retailers. But it does depend on the bank - I was speaking with one Spanish guy who was telling me that his bank stings him for 35 Euro on every non-Euro transaction (except cash withdrawals) - so DCC makes perfect sense for a guy like him.


It's madness, but at the same time, it means you can fly quite cheaply.

For every person like you that bothers to research it, there will be ten others that subsidise your flights.

youtube.com/watch?v=ZAg0lUYHHFc

I've always wondered if Ryan air limits the number of these that they sell, cos theoretically everyone can buy priority boarding, then it doesnt't make sense.

You are shocked that a company tries to siphon off as much cash as possible from gullible and naive people?

admit it RN, you are O'Leary....
But you are right...obviously a company offering ten pound flights is not doing it for charity.
Ryanair have always been terrible. I heard they were going to install pay loos on board? Did that ever happen?
There is one answer of course..........don't fly.
Take the bus from Victoria. No luggage restrictions, no hidden charges....that is if you can face 24 hours surrounded by vodka and kielbasa fumes. Not to mention when everybody takes off their shoes for the night...mmmm.

Just a good old fashioned O'Leary publicity stunt. He brings it up every so often and people howl.


What's with this ultra annoying habit in Poland? I took the train today and it was full of bloody old people returning from the seaside on their free NFZ-funded jaunt - all with their shoes off!

Damn right, I havent actually flown to or from Poland since 2008, i drive where possible, the flights ive been booking over the past few weeks have been for other people, just a kind of sit down and get through it as quickly as possible scneario.

I generally dont like flying anyway.

I've only flown with three low-cost airlines; none of them were particularly good experiences, and I won't do it again. One missed a landing (never heard so many screams), another kept us on board for 3 hours (to fill the seats with an incoming flight), and of course there is Ryanair's in-your face advertising (although this was in the days when you really could fly WRO-STN for £30, so it was worth it). I fly quite a lot, and I always manage to find good prices with LOT/BA/bmi etc. I have to take checked baggage, so full-service carriers work out better for me. Slightly off-topic: anyone know why I keep having this recurring nightmare... BA OneWorld 747 crashes vertically (nose up) soon after take-off, flying east-west from the "north" runway at LHR? :(

either it's a prophecy or you ate too much cheese.

I'd sure like to see that cabinet. Don't be a fool and believe that there is actually "cash" in a bank. We all know that "cash in the bank" is nothing more than numbers on a computer screen. If banks actually HAD that "cash" then there would be no excuse for having to take bailouts.

Are you really that naive to believe that there is that much "cash" in one companies account?

Microsoft and Apple must have caverns filled up below the earth then.

How much "cash" do you have in your account? My guess is none.

How about citing your findings.

Learn how the banking system works before making asinine comments like that.


That's just the way delphiandomine is. Abrasive and condescending to all those of whom he feels intellectually superior to. He is a bitter ex-pat who lives in Poznan and spends waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time here criticizing others opinions when in turn he has been known to speak out of his arse.

Do you have the faintest idea about client money and accounting rules?


That applies first and foremost to you, my good friend

The main problem people have with Ryanair is their expectations in my experience. They expect to get the same treatment as with bigger and more expensive airlines. They want free food, they want a personal masseuse rubbing their feet during flight and so on. Ryanair is more of stepping on to a bus, rather than your classical flight, I like it. My only problem is the small/remote airports you have to go to. But you get what you pay for, and with Ryanair you get a "bus" ticket.

There's always a lot, crazy amount of complaining about Ryanair, but nobody is forcing people to fly with them. They can always pay the triple amount of money and go with some other airline. But they never do. In the end, people want a cheap bus ticket.

But I still agree that they have dodgy ways of charging people for small mistakes. But if you know what you are doing, you will be fine. I have never ever had one single problem with Ryanair, and I have used them a lot. But that's because I don't forget to check in, I don't forget to print the boardingpass, I weigh all my bags at home before arrival to the airport and so on.

Edit*

There's one more thing, the only thing that has ever truly irritated me about Ryanair. It's their measurements for the handluggage allowed in the plane, they have it lower than the standards of all other airlines (and therefore, below all standard handluggage bags), which forces you to buy a new one. Practically enough, they sell a special Ryanair bag from Samsonite, offered to everyone bying a ticket....

Glad you managed to get that off your chest, the evidence is now here. I used to thik that if you tell somebody then it wouldnt happen. experinece has proven me wrong.

I have flown Easyjet and it had a leak fuel, we had to rebook to another airlines- were too scared with fly with the easyjet back;(.

Who said it's all in one bank account? It would be exceptionally strange if Ryanair (or any company) kept all their cash in one place!

And don't forget that there are plenty of banks that didn't need bailouts.


The shareholders believe so. How many shares do you own?


I fail to see how this is in any way connected with the topic.


Let's see...where would one get Ryanair's financial figures from? Oh, that's right...Ryanair!


I suggest you learn some manners.


Yes yes. And you're the one online at 4am. :)

(bitter? Ah, I'll remember that comment when I'm sunning myself on the beach next month...)

I booked a ticket with Wizzair in March - Warsaw-Eindhoven - (actually flying in July). Flight price 250 PLN. Total price 480 PLN....
(Luggage fee, booking fee, airport taxes, credit card fee...). But I do not complain. With LOT going home to Belgium would have costed me around 1000 PLN and with Wizzair I have a luggage allowance of 32 kg.

If you book now for October (i.e. pretty much the same number of months ahead you booked), LOT flights to Brussels start at 362.61zl A month and a bit ago I booked four return tickets from Warsaw to Heathrow for a shade under 1,600zl.

Ryanair is not just the creative and opportunistic in the way of catching unaware and uninformed passengers, they also treat their cabin crew badly. I often wondered why some of the cabin crews treated the passengers with utter contempt ( beyond rudeness). And what was with this rushing to get everyone in the aircraft. Until I was told that the new cabin crews will only be paid when they are on air, not when helping everyone board the aircraft, not when plane diverted to other airport. They have to pay 600 Euro for registration, 2400 Euro for training, rent of uniform, transport to and fro the airport and only to be fired before the one year contract ends! No other airlines as far as I know ( I am not pretending I am an expert here) treated their employees this way!!

I have a WIZZ account as I need to fly to the Luton maybe once or twice a month and the price is always around the 600zl area give or take 100zl.

Never had an issue with them and you get what you pay for really and it is perfect for myself as the hotel I stay at is only twenty mins away by taxi.

I once travelled from Prague to Warsaw with LOT on a little ATR-42 and before we took off, as there were only 12 of us on the plane, we were made to sit in areas to balance the plane out - one poor guy who must have been over 150 kgs was made to sit opposite three other guys, couldn't help but laugh.

Anyway, half way through the flight there was a bang on the L/H engine and we thought nothing of it. When we landed in Warsaw and started to disembark the plane, I looked over to my R/H side as I was walking down the steps and a load of mechanics were opening up the bottom of the engine cover - when they got it open, oil just poured out of the bottom of the cowling followed by what looked like tiny mangled bits of engine, needless to say I have never travelled on LOT since.