Best Mastercard prepaid debit cards to avoid Ryanair fee

i've done quite a bit of research into the best Mastercard prepaid debit card to avoid the Ryanair £5 per person per flight admin fee. Unforunately no overall best, it depends on your average Ryanair transaction total and the frequency of booking with Ryanair:
http://www.europealacarte.co.uk/blog/2009/12/06/get-mastercard-prepaid-debit-card-avoid-ryanair-admin-fees-from-1-january-2010/

Hello, and welcome to the site.

Like yourself, I did a bit of research, before too, opting for the FAIRFX ANYWHERE MASTERCARD when my trusty VISA ELECTRON card was no longer any use for booking Ryanair flights.

One or two points I'd like to add here:-

There is no charge for applying for the card but on application you must load it with a minimum of £10. Then of course you are able to book flights to this value.

Once the application has been made, it will take around 7 to 10 days for the card and pin to arrive by post separately.

Once this is done you are up and running.

ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES

1.With a Visa Electron card you could literally log on to Ryanair's website at any time and book a flight, whereas with the Fairfx Mastercard you must make sure that you have money already loaded on to the card first. For example no point of logging in to Ryanair at 2200 hrs. on the last day of their £1 seats sale with 0.43p in your account! It won't work and more importantly it can often take a good FEW HOURS for money to be transferred from your bank account to your Fairfx card, so the moral of the story here is to make sure you have enough money loaded on your card first before contemplating booking your flights.

2. With Visa Electron when booking a flight from UK to any destination there were no extra fees but if booking a single flight from say Dublin, Norway or anywhere outside the UK there was a £1.50 service charge per flight booked.
With the Fairfx card there is NO Charge whatsoever for booking flights from either UK or abroad.

3. Finally with Visa Electron there was no commission but with Fairfx there is - but to be fair here it is minimal - for example I booked a Ryanair £10.00 flight and was charged £0.15 commission and on a £5.00 flight I was charged £0.08 commission.
Worth mentioning here though that the commission goes to FAIRFX and not to RYANAIR.

To sum up, for myself anyway, in the UK, Fairfx Anywhere Mastercard is probably the best alternative around to the Visa Electron card.

Yes I came to same conclusion too and recommend FairFX for Ryanair passengers who tend to book very cheap flights. Yes it was easier and cheaper to use a Visa Electron

Those cards are in pounds sterling, thus only for UK residents.
For the Ryanair customers of Euro-Europ, it's more convenient to take a card with euros at the start.

I thought I'd found a good UK option with Cashplus. Today I found out they've stung me with a £5 hidden MONTHLY fee. After a lengthy call they agreed to refund it but now I have to pay a £1 fee every time I use it. Is there a truely fee free card out there cos I dont believe Cashplus is the good option it promised to be.
Why have Ryanair got to make it so bloody hard??

You have to be really careful to read all small print and terms and conditions when selecting a Mastercard debit card as there are all sorts of fees and charges e.g. purchase fee, loading fee, ATM fees, monthly fees, transaction fees, inactivity fees. The previous option for fee free Ryanair payment, the Visa Electron was much simpler and had no charges but with the Ryanair admin fee at £5 per person per flight it's still worth looking into the best Mastercard prepaid debit card to avoid the Ryanair admin fees.

Here in Portugal is easy if you have an account in Caixa Geral de Depósitos, which is the biggest bank here in Portugal.

They have two pre-paid mastercards: LOL, that costs 3€/year for 3 years, to people with less than 25 years, and PRO that costs 7€/year for those who are older than 25. I'm using the LOL card, and I don't have any problems.

italy: postepay prepaid gift (advanced) 7 euro emission, 1 euro for top up 1 euro, 1,80 for cash advance in euroland, 5 for outside. No fees. Just make sure you have a codice fiscale, almost free of charge in every "agenzia delle entrate".
Else there are intesa flash for something of 10 euro year and you have also a unique iban number to top up
and a prepaid unicredit bank mastercard for almost the same
these are the sites (put the url in google translate)
http://www.poste.it/bancoposta/cartedipagamento/postepay_gift/

http://www.vogliosuperflash.com/carta_superflash/superflash/superflash_home.jsp


http://www.unicreditbanca.it/it/privati/carte/genius/?idc=15057

All of them need a document and a CF COdice fiscale a code that is given by the tax office as identity code.

Just be sure you get a well smooth pen: you should sign a lot of paper...

I think the `Escape` prepaid Mastercard from Phones 4 U is pretty good.

It`s a one of £10 fee for the card.

You can then top it up in store at Phones 4 U or via internet banking for free or at the Post Office for a small fee (I think it`s 1%).

There are then no charges for transactions made or monthly fees as with some other cards.

It`s certainly a pain to find a decent card, it made finding an Electron card seem easy.

I wonder which card it`ll be next time?

Joe Bloggs

Some more infos here :
https://ryanair.forumotion.com/questions-about-flights-and-ryanair-f8/what-card-do-you-use-to-avoid-the-visa-mastercard-fees-t1284.htm

I am very satisfied with my virtual "wirecard" (1 euro fee each time you feed your account).
I have already saved 90 euros (18 flights booked) since the beginning of this year, as against 4 euros spent in fees.

Neteller and myWirecard seems like the best options if you don't want to pay any welcome fee or annual fee. Neteller is 100% free if you don't convert any currency, and if you load money by bank transfer. Wirecard always cost at least 1 euro to load, while foreign exchange fee is just 1.5%. Both these cards are available also to non-UK persons.

Neteller has a horrific routine where you have to send them scanned ID documents, while Wirecard just verifies your accounts electronically without so much hassle. If you know of other cards with no annual or welcome fees, great if anyone can post the name of these cards online.

if you live in the uk i would recomend the global travellers card, pay £10.00 one you load it up you get the £10.00 back,i used it to book 8adults and 4 children for dec31st and got charged £1.50 saved £118.50 plus when you use the atm machine in europe there is NO CHARGE and you get a better euro rate than you do with high street exchange burea,

The caxtonfxcard (global travellers card website) appears to demand £100 load and charges £1.50 for UK domestic transactions, but if Ryanair is an Irish transaction I guess the card is ok for its purpose

I have an Escape prepaid Mastercard which is recommended above. I work in the travel industry and I use it regularly on the Ryanair site, spending £1,000's per year and it has always worked fine...until last week. Ryanair call centre staff insist that I am typing in the card details incorrectly, which is not the case. I am simply typing in the same details I always have, and my card provider tells me that there is no problem or block on the card. The card continues to work on other sites. As a poster in another thread suggested, I fear that Ryanair has somehow blocked my card to force me to use another type of card involving a fee. I cannot think of any other explanation. Can anybody at Ryanair help as call centre staff are useless. Thank you.

Neteller - customer service is very poor and they really are almost uncontactable. Been waiting for several weeks now for any sort of progress on a EURO prepaid mastercard - hopeless.

I'm from UK and have been successfully using the prepaid card from Moneybookers for more than a year now. However for me at least it's obsolete now with the stupid new card policy for UK citizens. If you're not a UK resident tho I highly recommend moneybookers, definitely better than neteller.
moneybookers card site

I sent for a Ryanair prepaid Master car I got it last week loaded it with £1400 to pay for some flights over the next few months but when I tryed to book a flight on Saturday when I got to the payment section it declined my card.When I talk to the card people they say the card is fime when I talk to Ryanair all I get is a very unhelpfull person.Has anyone else had this

Last year i booked flights using CAXTON FX global card (sterling payer) and this year came to use it and was declined as the card had to be registered in Ireland.

This is where Ryanair get a bad name. There was a small concession, now the rug has been pulled. £48 for a family of four makes a difference. Especially when i now realise i've messed up on my dates and will have to change flights !

I also have tried to buy the Ryanair passport card to avoid paying credit card fees from my Escape pre paid Mastercard debit card but Ryanair's site keeps telling me that the correct numbers on the card that I am giving them are invalid! I have used this card on many occasions with no problems and the card provider tell me that the card is good to use,and that they have not received a "card declined" message from Ryanair which they should get if the card has been declined. Anyone help?

I have just had a reply from cardservces who are doing the passport card and the porblem is that some debit cards are being read as credit cards and thats why you get the "Invalid number" message. They say that they are aware of the problem and are working to fix it. Hope this saves anyone spending a hour on the phone to your card provider as I did !!!

stuart from barnsley wrote:I have just had a reply from cardservces who are doing the passport card and the porblem is that some debit cards are being read as credit cards and thats why you get the "Invalid number" message. They say that they are aware of the problem and are working to fix it. Hope this saves anyone spending a hour on the phone to your card provider as I did !!!

thanks for the information stuart.

I have tried my Escape pre paid Mastercard again today and still get the same message as before so I looks like after about a month the fault is still not fixed! Whats with the "Security Words" that you now have to fill in before you can look for flights? They are not really making it easy to buy flights of Ryanair at the moment are they, and I have had to book my last eight flights with EasyJet. On another point does anyone else find that the Airbus 320 of Easyjet is quieter, warmer and abit more comfortable than Ryanairs Boeings 727 especially on A row?

Sorry I know should have been 737.

Hello all,

My Wirecard (German Prepaid Mastercard) worked properly for years but now it seems not to work anymore!
Has somebody information about this issue? Alternatives?

By the way, I even don't understand this stupid security question neither!

Thx a lot,
oern

So the differance between a pre-paid card and a debit card is that anyone can just walk into a Phones4u e.g. and buy a pre-paid mastercard but a debit card has to have your address and bank details verified.Thats probably why you can't pay for a Ryanair passport card with a pre-paid debit card.