is ryanairs charging legal?

Z

z106

Guest
When you book with ryanair you are charged €5 for each leg of a trip when you use your credit card for booking.
i.e. €10 for a return journey

I also believe that if someone booked for multiple people on one transaction on one card they would be charged €5* 2 * no. of people travelling.

Obviously in this instance ryanair are not being charged that amount by the credit card company given that it all occurrs over one transaction

However - ryanair advertise this as a credit card charge on their website which is clearly not true.

Is this illegal?
 
In some countries it is not legal to have a surchage for credit card payment but in Irland there is not such customer protection at present.

Ryanair is not the only airline that charges this, so does BMI and so does Ryanair II (commently referrred to as Aer Lingus).

BMI calls the charge out and Aer Lingus hides the "Payment Card handling fee" of 5 € per person in their Taxes and charge summary.

So while I usualy would agree with the statement that if you don't like what Ryanair is offering as part of their "a la carte" service than use a different airline, this is an industry wide problem.

But as the NCA says "competition" will bring down prices and there is no need to regulate....
 
DublinTexas said:
But as the NCA says "competition" will bring down prices and there is no need to regulate....
Click to expand...

Does it really make a difference? If it was scrapped tomorrow, they would just add in a "booking handling charge" or similar.

We have far too much micro-regulation in this country, adding more layers is madness in my opinion. The country is far too expensive as it is. Much of the micro-regulation we have is useless anyway. For example, you could write an essay on how the law permits, and does not permit, the word "sale" to be used in advertisements. One leading electrical retailer bypasses all this by having "clearance events", midnight madness" etc etc. The whole thing is a joke.
 
How cheap do people want flights to be?
okay, a €10 flight could easily add up to €30-€40. Still, €30 or €40 is crazy for flights.
 
A prohibition on credit card handling charges is not by any means a 'consumer protection' measure. It only serves to protect the oligopolistic behaviour of the credit card companies. By charging more for one type of card than for another, Ryanair are effectively promoting competition with the card companies. This is a good thing.

There is some downside for the consumer in that the plethora of little charges takes advantage of your inertia - by the time you get to the final total, you would rather dig your eye out with a spoon than start again - but this is not something for which we require consumer protection legislation.
 
Same with anything these days. You dont seem to get a full price for anything anymore, you get a teaser instead. "from only" "starting at" "one way" "and with VAT that comes to" ..............
 
MOB said:
By charging more for one type of card than for another, Ryanair are effectively promoting competition with the card companies. This is a good thing.
Click to expand...

As has been raised several times here on AAM, Ryanair no longer charge different amounts for different cards. They charge the same €5 per person per flight regardless of the card used.

(There is one exception, the Visa Electron card available through MBNA is free to use. This was a promotional offer so might not apply for long).
 
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