Ryanair Refund

Shigsy

I booked some flights on Ryanair about an hour ago and only realised i had made a mistake on the confirmation page, so at that stage the flight was already booked (i picked tuesday as the flying out day instead of thursday). So i straight away went to the 'change flight' section and changed the departure day to the thursday. I couldn't believe there was a €140 change fee considering i had changed my flight about 5 minutes after i booked it!. I tried ring Ryanair customer support but it had closed at 7pm.
Is there any hope of me getting this €140 back, considering the extremely short time between the change?

Ruu_Old

I doubt it, even though it seems very unfair because it was a mistake and such a short time as you said, saying that I don't think you'll get it back.

Sarsfield

You're sure it was €140 change fee? It's €35 per person per flight to make a change so that means you booked 4 seats? Otherwise it was a €35 change fee and a €105 difference in the cost of flying between Tuesday & Thursday?

I doubt very much you'll get your money back. Harsh maybe but there's ample opportunity to correct your mistake before hittint the final confirmation (I probably won't see it that way when I eventually do the same thing!)

RoundyMooney

No, a flat fee of 140 notes applies, and the alteration applies to all persons on the original booking.

A further increase may be enforced if the new fare is greater than the old, to the amount of the discrepancy, if any.

I know this because I booked my sister on a flight recently, rather, she did, on my credit card, but managed to bugger up the spelling of her own name.

Don't ask.

Anyway, RYR sorted it for free, which was unusual for them, presumably as the booking itself did not require alteration.

Pay the money, or book elsewhere and forget it, if you can do that for less...

sgarvan

if this happens again, dont bother changing the booking details, just book another flight and not get on the original flight. will cost you less in the long run

abetarrush

Its stupid, there should be laws about these kind of charges

I booked aflight to romania, and needed to change the times, so called eBookers

ended up paying €80 to the Airline, €45 to eBookers, and the fare difference, and this took the sales rep a whole 6 minutes

its rediculous

rondjon

abetarrush wrote:

Its stupid, there should be laws about these kind of charges

I booked aflight to romania, and needed to change the times, so called eBookers

ended up paying €80 to the Airline, €45 to eBookers, and the fare difference, and this took the sales rep a whole 6 minutes

its rediculous

If they tell you about the possible charges up front, then there's no problem. As a consumer, parting with your hard earned cash, it's up to you to be careful and check what you're paying for.

You don't go into a shop looking for a tv and come out with a dvd player thinking it's a cheap tv after all.

Shigsy

I've been trying to ring them since this morning but their phone lines are closed, even though the opening hours are 9am to 7pm on their site! There is no email support (that i can find) so i have no way at all to contact them about this. The longer this goes on, the less chance i have of any comeback. It's not as if those 5 minutes between both bookings cost Ryanair anything at all so I don't see why i should be charged 140 euro (35 euro per passenger, theres 4 of us). I could understand the charge for people changing flights a day or so after a booking but there should at least be 30 mins grace after a booking to allow for simple mistake. Im going to be really annoyed if I don't at least get some of this back, its a very unfair charge.

eth0_

Maybe you think it's unfair, but you agreed to their terms and conditions when you booked the flight!

You're not going to get this money back, just live with your mistake.

Shigsy

Reading the terms and conditions does not result in a superhuman ability to make no mistakes! I am well aware that they charge people for changing flights and i don't need to read any terms and conditions to know that. That doesnt change the fact that is was a very simple and easy mistake to make (there is nothing in ther terms and conditions about mistakes) and so i dont think it is unreasonable to expect a bit of common sense and understanding on Ryanairs part when it comes to dealing with such a small mistake like this. As i said before, there should be at least 30mins grace to allow for this very situation. The complete lack of flexablity would suggest this is a money making scam rather than cover for any actual costs incured.

HelterSkelter

You don't have a snowballs change in hell of getting any money back. I know it is not fair but that is life when flying with low cost airlines. They make a lot of their money from name/flight changes. The other airlines are the same, it's not only O'Leary who is at this.

parsi

eth0_ wrote:

Maybe you think it's unfair, but you agreed to their terms and conditions when you booked the flight!

You're not going to get this money back, just live with your mistake.

How sympathetic. I'm sure you'd have loved that response to your Macbook query....

It is in human nature to ascertain if there is a method of getting around the rules.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

Unfortunately, you won't get your money back. Know this is harsh, but that is their terms of trade. Same thing happened to me last Christmas and i had to make drastic cuts to my levels of Christmas present purchases.

Ryanair are perfect if you follow their rules exactly, but otherwise they are very strict.

Sorry for your troubles over this though, bit of a kick in the teeth to have to fork out this extra money for a simple mistake.

Oryx

The lesson to learn here, is when booking anything online, read the final booking page, read it again, make sure your happy and then, only then, confirm it. Once its done, its done. If airlines didnt take this hard stance, they would be inundated with people who rush thru a booking and then changed their mind or went 'oops!' Im sorry its an expensive lesson on you, I dont think Ryanair will entertain your plea for a second. There was an article in the Indo on sunday (I think) where it was maintained that Ryanairs attitude to refunds is 'Fcuk off' If I can find it Ill link to it!

Shigsy

It would be simple to implement an automated fix for this. After someone makes a booking, the booking itself does not actually go through for 10 mins (even though the user sees the usual confirmation page saying 'thanks for booking..etc). The booking would simply hold thoses flights for you for 10 minutes, then after the 10 minutes it goes through and actually books the seats. During this 10 min waiting period, any changes made to the flights are free. This would be 100% automated, very simple to implement and would stop people getting screwed like me

themole

That would be harder to implement than you think.

I might sound good for you, but what about the person who cannot get the flight they wanted because someone else was prinking around and made a mistake, meaning that in that 10min grace period the flight you wanted was not available.

10 mins is a lot of time in a large online system with 1000's of bookings a day.

The reason they charge so much for changes is because it costs them money. Having people to answer phones costs a lot of money.

They are cheap for a reason. Its like anything you buy. If you go for the rorkbottom cheapest it falls down in other areas. thats why they are the cheapest.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

themole wrote:

10 mins is a lot of time in a large online system with 1000's of bookings a day.

just did a quick calculation that it is about 75,000 bookings a day

jimmycrackcorm

Shigsy wrote:

It would be simple to implement an automated fix for this. After someone makes a booking, the booking itself does not actually go through for 10 mins (even though the user sees the usual confirmation page saying 'thanks for booking..etc). The booking would simply hold thoses flights for you for 10 minutes, then after the 10 minutes it goes through and actually books the seats. During this 10 min waiting period, any changes made to the flights are free. This would be 100% automated, very simple to implement and would stop people getting screwed like me

Don't you mean stop people screwing themselves?

Perhaps for people like you they should have several additional pages with "Are you really sure about this?" questions. Perhaps one with a "Press me" button to confirm again but where the button moves itself aroud the screen every time you go near it.

I have to admit though that I do similar things with Ebay where I committo auctions that I don't really want and pray that someone else bids higher...

ArphaRima

I doubt very much you'll get your money back.

But DO try your absolute best. From my experience (an insurance issue) they are bloodsucking bitches on the customer services hotline, but you are welcome to try.

honru

Yep, the lesson here is to move through the Ryanair booking process at a snail's pace. Assure every tiny little detail is correct.

Having ta pay the fee sucks, but that's life.

Sarsfield

And if you choose to check in online be bloody careful again when it comes to entering your passport number/issue country/expiry date. They actually have a close look at the printed boarding cards! It slows down the boarding process considerably. They seem to be looking for typing errors! :mad:

parsi

Sarsfield wrote:

And if you choose to check in online be bloody careful again when it comes to entering your passport number/issue country/expiry date. They actually have a close look at the printed boarding cards! It slows down the boarding process considerably. They seem to be looking for typing errors! :mad:

Seeing as they ask you to double-check what you type I expect they imagine that what some people think are typing errors may in fact be people trying to slip through using the old "similar name" trick...

At the end of the day folks - you need to be able to spell your name in life...

MOH

Shouldn't you be able to cancel and at least get the tax back anyway? Then book again for a different day?

I remeber this being raised before, can't remember what happened.
But if you cancel the flight, they'll sell the seat to someone else, so there's no way they should be collecting two lots of tax for one seat.

Since the tax is usually half the total, might be cheaper to do it this way if you can.

HelterSkelter

MOH wrote:

Shouldn't you be able to cancel and at least get the tax back anyway? Then book again for a different day?

I remeber this being raised before, can't remember what happened.
But if you cancel the flight, they'll sell the seat to someone else, so there's no way they should be collecting two lots of tax for one seat.

Since the tax is usually half the total, might be cheaper to do it this way if you can.

They charge an admin fee if you claim tax back which all but cancels out any refund you are due. It's a big scam.

RainyDay

HelterSkelter wrote:

They charge an admin fee if you claim tax back which all but cancels out any refund you are due. It's a big scam.

Why a scam? Their policy is clear up front. If you don't like the policy, don't book with Ryanair.

HelterSkelter

RainyDay wrote:

Why a scam? Their policy is clear up front. If you don't like the policy, don't book with Ryanair.

I'm talking about charging an admin fee which is the same as the tax back, that is a scam. How can it cost €30+ to process a tax back? They also charge per person, if there are 4 people on the same booking it should not cost 4 times the admin fee, what a joke

http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/faqs.php?sect=chg&quest=unusedflight

rondjon

HelterSkelter wrote:

I'm talking about charging an admin fee which is the same as the tax back, that is a scam. How can it cost €30+ to process a tax back? They also charge per person, if there are 4 people on the same booking it should not cost 4 times the admin fee, what a joke

http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/faqs.php?sect=chg&quest=unusedflight

Again, as per RainyDay above. This isn't a scam. It's detailed there for you in black & white. If you don't like how they do business, go elsewhere. Simple really!!!

As was said elsewhere, if you follow Ryanair business operations - i.e. play by their rules, since it is their game after all - you'll have no problems at all.

Was in Stanstead yesterday having great fun laughing at people getting all hot and bothered over. Like any "game" you play, you've to get to know the rules. When you do, it's easy.

HelterSkelter

rondjon wrote:

Again, as per RainyDay above. This isn't a scam. It's detailed there for you in black & white. If you don't like how they do business, go elsewhere. Simple really!!!

So that is your attitude to everything in life then is it? Once a company makes a rule it is unquestionable? Do you think honestly think it is fair that a person who books a flight and subsequently decides for whatever reason that they are not going to take the flight should have to pay the landing fees and airport taxes to the airline even though the airport are not going to charge the airline these fees as the passenger is not taking the flight?

ArphaRima

Look people. Cheap flights will not disappear if you support more consumer protection. The fact that Ryanair have a hugely disproportionate number of complaints doesnt seem to faze some.
As many have pointed out, Ryanair make every effort to keep money that is NOT theirs by right, and make it as difficult and expensive as possible to reclaim. I cannot see how the consumer wouldnt benefit by european legislation to stop this from happening.

My sister ordered a flight online 3 months in advance. They rang her after a month and cancelled the flight. She was told she'd get a full refund. They gave her a full refund minus about 15 euro. They said the insurance had already started and therefore couldnt be refunded. I rang the insurance company and they said no such thing. They had no objection to the refund. Ryanair kept the money.
I made several representations, but eventually had to go home to the other side of the world. I do love a worthy fight. It is a worthy one.

This isn't a scam

No but it is downright dirty and dishonest business practice. No honour.

If you don't like how they do business go elsewhere.

-I do-
Or report their practices to your MEP and TD. Get the legislation that allows the consumer more freedoms.

Ruu_Old

Name an airline that can boast of an honest business practice. The airline industry is survival of the fittest right now theres no room for honesty.

ArphaRima

Point taken.
My point still stands. Governmental intervention is required to ensure customer satisfaction when the companies do not value it.