Card Charges

It appears that Ryanair's price for using a debit card to book a flight has gone THROUGH THE ROOF!

These are just copy and paste sections of a confirmation e-mail that was booked recently first of all...........

Date: Fri, Jul 4, 2008 at 2:36 AM
Subject: Travel Itinerary

(So nearly 48 Hours ago!)

This is for 2 passengers for a return flight in August.

*********4.80 GBP Passenger Fee: Debit Card Fee

So, that's £1.20 per person each way, or £2.40 a person.

Today (well I was informed yesterday about this), look at this scale of charges!!!!!!!!! http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/faqs.php?sect=CHARGES

£4 per person, per flight "Handling Charge" for a debit card.

Now I don't want to rant, as I LOVE Ryanair, BUT COME ON...........

In the UK, I KNOW for a fact each Card transaction costs the retailer 68 pence to process automatically, if you use a card in a shop or any other retailer, which I guess they spread across the prices of their products.

Now, THEY don't charge us 68p per item in the shopping basket or for each drink I have in a bar, if anything they "could" charge us 68p for the ONE transaction I make with them, but most choose not to.

So, why this HUGE charge of £4 per person, per one-way flight, or £8 for a return flight for one person, for a card transaction that would only cost Ryanair 68p????

Could this be a way of disguising a "Fuel Surcharge"??? Just seems strange that at 2.36am on the 4th July 2008, 2 people's return flights, card charge was £4.80, yet on Saturday 5th July 2008 (about 3.30pm I was called about it), without any announcement it would cost £16...... seems a bit fishy to me.

Any clues, anyone?

The credit card fee is to be seen on the booking confirmation which first appears on the screen - not on the e-mailed message, where appears only the total of the taxes, fees and charges.
Last year, the credit card fee was 2,5 euros per pax per flight (5 euros per pax for a return trip).
Recently, the credit card fee was raised to 5 euros per pax per flight - I don't remember when exactly, I would say a few months ago ...
http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/faqs.php?sect=CHARGES

Ryanair is not the only carrier that heavily taxes the credit card use :

easyJet is another one :
http://www.easyjet.com/EN/Book/paymentoptions.html

and flybe :
http://www.flybe.com/flightInfo/1book.htm

and many others ...

I would happily forward you the e-mail in full, privately, to show it is from the e-mail, rather than on the screen, but this is the complete breakdown copied from the e-mail, I'm not sure if this is suddenly a new thing of course...

PAYMENT DETAILS
*********0.00 GBP Total Fare
********59.96 GBP Taxes, Fees & Charges
*********4.80 GBP Passenger Fee: Debit Card Fee
********64.76 GBP Total Paid

I realise credit card fees have been high recently, hence my switch to using a Debit Card, which comes straight from my banking account rather than running up a credit card and it has been cheaper. It now looks like all charges have been made the same.

The easy jet link there, shows their difference. Credit card £4.95 and Debit card £1.75.

The flybe link, also shows Credit card charge of £2.99 (with a minimum of £5.50 a booking) and the Debit card of £1.10 (with a minimum of £1.99 a booking).

The Ryanair site is £4 for a Credit card AND a Debit card.

The booking I made and my friend that pointed the difference on Saturday, well all being booked with the DEBIT card system rather than the Credit card system.

I hope that clears up what I'm trying to point out...

You can use the Visa Electron option (this is free of chares by Ryanair)

Just make a account on www.entropay.com
Be sure you use GBP with this virtual card. And this one will be accept as a (Visa Electron card by Ryanair)

I have just booked an another flight for only 0,04 cents incl. creditcard cost and taxes..!!!

That looks like a VERY good idea, will have to look into it

yesterday night I have booked tickets to Salzburg through Ryan air, and they charged me 16 pounds as transaction fee and to my knowledge they make only one transaction to the visa gateway for money and VISA charge one off fee that's it, so what happens to the remaining amount?
I think it is ripoff under the blanket by Ryanair, if VISA charge 4 pounds for a transaction then what happened to remaining 12 pounds? so ryan air is pocketing the money from customers.

guys do know how to claim back the remaining amount?

Its a rip off.. and they say 0.00 pound ticket but at end of the story you will land up paying hunderds of pounds as ticket fare because of their massive taxes.

I don't know how to fight with these guys, any idea would be helpful and also would like to complain to watchdog.

if you want we can jointly complain and get the money back.

Charges for payment by credit card are 4 pounds/5 euros per passenger per flight segment.
These charges are put to defray the administrative costs incurring to Ryanair.
They are clearly explained on www.ryanair.com :
http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/faqs.php?sect=pnr&quest=handlingcharge

Each customer is free to accept or not the Ryanair sale conditions, by buying or not buying a Ryanair ticket.
In my view, it's unfair to protest after having made the purchase. At each step of the booking process, including the last one, the customer may cancel the whole deal without paying anything.

atoutprix wrote:Charges for payment by credit card are 4 pounds/5 euros per passenger per flight segment.
These charges are put to defray the administrative costs incurring to Ryanair.
They are clearly explained on www.ryanair.com :
http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/faqs.php?sect=pnr&quest=handlingcharge

Each customer is free to accept or not the Ryanair sale conditions, by buying or not buying a Ryanair ticket.
In my view, it's unfair to protest after having made the purchase. At each step of the booking process, including the last one, the customer may cancel the whole deal without paying anything.

hmm on one hand you may be right that you can not use their service, but on the other side let's think about this such way:

If FR is the only carrier on specific route than it's called monopoly. In monopoly provider can not cherge unjustified high charges because of consumer protection rules in anti-monopoly regulations. So if customer has got no other choice to reach destination than to fly with FR any unjustified high charges may be called as "ripping off" and may be claimed such way through anti-monopoly national or EU organisations.

I won't argue if on every route there are at least 2 carriers and they compete between each othe not only through fares but through additional costs as well, but in monopoly scenario unjustified high charges are ripping off customers

BTW - do you know what is the value of airports charges which airports charge airline??? its another example when airlines are making additional profits... sometimes they charge pax 3-5 times more than airport charged them...

We all know how FR can give 1p fares

they earn 500% on credit card fees, 200-300% on airport fees, they commission on insurance etc

Just think - 50 MM pax x 10 E profit on non flight related services - what it gives???

You can go and lay the subject before the appropriate authority if you want.
As for me, I won't argue about it, and I'll even say it doesn't interest me.When I see a Ryanair ticket whose price is good for me, I buy it, and that is it.
I don't care about the exact distribution of taxes, fees, charges and others that go into it - what I consider is the total price as will be drawn from my credit card account. If I deem it a good deal, I take it; if not, I leave it.