Bypass airline credit card charge

ArraMusha

As seen in the independent...

http://www.independent.ie/business/personal-finance/bypass-airline-credit-card-booking-charges-1831848.html

mickoneill30

The Indo reporters should read Boards. They'd get these kind of tips months ago.

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=58030251&highlight=entropay#post58030251

MunsterCycling

Wow Indo shocker, they must have read boards about two months ago. Crud paper.

MOH

However, a financial adviser known to this journalist is adamant you can get a Visa Electron card by logging into www.entropay.com.

A financial adviser known to this journalist, hmm? Doesn't go by the name Mr. B. Ordes, does he?

cojomo2

In the article he mentions that he loaded the card with 15 euro and it worked.

I heard that you have to load it with sterling, and that it wont work if you load with euro. I use this service but always load with sterling. Can any1 confirm it works with euro as that would be handier. Thanks

Onikage

cojomo2 wrote: »

In the article he mentions that he loaded the card with 15 euro and it worked.

I heard that you have to load it with sterling, and that it wont work if you load with euro. I use this service but always load with sterling. Can any1 confirm it works with euro as that would be handier. Thanks

Didn't work for this guy: http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?p=893159

Royale with Cheese

Ugh, the less widely reported this is the better.

MunsterCycling

Nope if you load the card with euro then its an ordinary CC but using it with £ (funny money) you can use a Visa Electron.

MC

Ah yes, glad Ireland has high standards of journalism

gerkoff

Anyone know if you would avoid CC charges by using a visa debit card like the halifax one?

dubrov

I used my Halifax Visa Debit Card with Aer Lingus a few months ago and wasn't charged any credit card fees.

I selected Visa Electron (even though it is not a Visa Electron) and entered all the details as normal for a debit card.

MarkR

I used my halifax visa debit and was charged as if it was a standard visa. Used to be cheaper IIRC

ch750536

Check the sig and give the gratitude lads.

dubrov

MarkR wrote: »

I used my halifax visa debit and was charged as if it was a standard visa. Used to be cheaper IIRC

I had to select it as a "Visa Electron" to avoid the charge.
If I selected Debit card, I was still charged.

Maybe they have closed the loophole now as well!

homer911

I've just booked 4 seats to the UK (return) for €8 all in, using the Entropay Card as a Visa Electron Card. Had to put the minimum £10 on it (plus 50p admin charge) but still have £2.99 to spend, so it does still work!

My first bargain with Ryanair - thanks all!

Presumably now, if I wanted to, I could transfer the remaining credit on the Entropay card to my PayPal account, rather than let it languish unused? Anyone tried this? Any problems with credit card names?

Thephantomsmask

It's £1.49 to move cash if iirc so may as well leave it for the future tbh. While the publicity isn't good, I can't see ryanair closing it yet as so other budget companies like easyjet have the same no charge on electron policy and it means they could no longer claim to offer "free fares" when they do the 1c offers. Haven't seen one of those in a while though.

daveyjoe

There's a step by step guide here by the way: http://bargainsireland.wordpress.com/2008/11/21/avoid-the-credit-card-charge-when-booking-with-ryanair/

(and that was blogged in November, making the Indo exactly 8 months late)

daveyjoe

Also, the article is inaccurate:

The Indo wrote:

You can avoid these dirty little charges if you get something called a Visa Electron card.

This is a disposable credit card. You do not physically get a card, instead you get a number much the same as buying credit for your mobile phone

1. It's not specifically disposable, entropay offer it as a disposable card but it's available (albeit no in Ireland) as an ordinary physical card.

2. It's not a credit card, it's a debit card.

undo

daveyjoe wrote: »

1. It's not specifically disposable, entropay offer it as a disposable card but it's available (albeit no in Ireland) as an ordinary physical card.

Furthermore, the disposable card is useless for Ryanair as it's Mastercard based, not Visa.

pissed

Just about to open an account. Its asking for account currency. So do I have to state GB £ as I see in some posts people saying it has to be funded with sterling or it wont work for the likes of Ryanair? Also I take it there is no problems with funding an account with an Irish credit card (Visa).???

snowdaze

open it ias a GBP account
no problem funding it with an Irish Visa a/c

okidoki987

Only works using GBP.
Use an ordinary Irish cc to fund it and they will convert it from your Euro cc to the Electron in GBP.

pissed

Thanks for the replies

daveyjoe

For what it's worth people are reporting that you can now use Euro as the base currency and the card will still work as an electron (I have not verified this myself though): http://bargainsireland.wordpress.com/2008/11/21/avoid-the-credit-card-charge-when-booking-with-ryanair/

snowdaze

the euro entropay did not work a few weeks ago for me when I tried....
if you have a GBP one it will start with the numbers 4101 and then it will work:D

I can't imagine Ryanair changing this...not their style:D

Jeanious

Royale with Cheese wrote: »

Ugh, the less widely reported this is the better.

+1000, that's why ive told fcuk all people about it!

The moaning of people who get ripped-off by Ryanair is like music to my ears, cos every one of them that pays over the odds means that one smart person who doesn't check-in bags/doesn't lose their boarding card/doesn't buy any of the absolute rubbish that they sell etc. can get a flight for next to nothing.

And the beauty of it all is that the Visa Electron is the only way they can say they have free flights, and for just that reason i doubt they'll close this loophole for a long time to come (famous last words!)

Rowley Birkin QC

Just got myself an entropay there, looking to pay for a flight that's costing €98.20 (before the €10 CC charge). Two questions, is it still worthwhile paying using it for flights like this, i.e. non free or .99c ones? If it is, how much GB£ do I need to deposit to my entropay to cover the cost of the flight?

Cheers.

ch750536

bigkev49 wrote: »

Just got myself an entropay there, looking to pay for a flight that's costing €98.20 (before the €10 CC charge). Two questions, is it still worthwhile paying using it for flights like this, i.e. non free or .99c ones? If it is, how much GB£ do I need to deposit to my entropay to cover the cost of the flight?

Cheers.

See the sig for more details of this, not straightforward.

Rowley Birkin QC

ch750536 wrote: »

See the sig for more details of this, not straightforward.

Cheers for that. Still though the head is not the best this morning

Am I better off taking the hit on the CC, as in paying the total cost of €108.20, two way flight for 1 person, on the ryanair site or depositing money to Entropay and paying that way?

I just can't make sense of that table this morning, apologies.

walshki

ch750536 wrote: »

See the sig for more details of this, not straightforward.

Howdy ch750536,

I've used entropay a couple of times now (ryanair and aerlingus) and it's working great. One thing I'm concerned about is the exchange rates involved. Namely you have to do two currency exchanges, one euro to sterling to load the entropay card and another sterling to euro to actually pay ryanair. I must look at the actual charges on my credit card but in your experience how much is this taking off the saving? Has anyone looked at this. It won't make a difference for the cheaper end flights but it might change the threshold at which its worthwhile.

homer911

bigkev49 wrote: »

Just got myself an entropay there, looking to pay for a flight that's costing €98.20 (before the €10 CC charge). Two questions, is it still worthwhile paying using it for flights like this, i.e. non free or .99c ones? If it is, how much GB£ do I need to deposit to my entropay to cover the cost of the flight?

Cheers.

€98.2 is about £88 at the moment - that means putting at least £90 on a virtual card which will cost you £94.46 (4.95% comm.) or approx €106

Rowley Birkin QC

homer911 wrote: »

€98.2 is about £88 at the moment - that means putting at least £90 on a virtual card which will cost you £94.46 (4.95% comm.) or approx €106

Cheers for that, I just booked on the Ryanair site, didn't seem worth the hassle for €2.

I'm gonna throw maybe £20 into the card though, just to take advantage of any future sales.

Thanks again.