Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs • Hacker News Board

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#21

Post by maccard » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 12:07 PM UTC

dcminter wrote: post #4

"O’Leary accused the travel agent industry of scamming and ripping off unsuspecting consumers by charging extra fees and markups on ticket prices." That is ... pretty rich. A couple of years ago I was going to go see my brother in the UK who lived near Stansted. As such Ryanair would have been the most convenient airline. The shere number of dark patterns I encountered trying to book the ticket was such that when I g…

I’m not defending this behaviour with Ryanair, but this is not unique to them at all. It’s an industry “standard”. I’m Irish but live in the UK - when we make card transactions it asks what currency we want to pay in, and hides the exchange rate spread.

> I will only use them if I have literally no other choice

Even with the £20 increase they were likely cheaper than the alternative, if it exists. If this is going to push you into not using them, basically every other airline will be ruled out for you. EasyJet are exactly the same. BA/KLM/Air France/Aer Lingus are all the same on their short hop flights (I’ve actually never flown Lufthansa so I can’t comment on them). The short haul European routes are a race to the bottom.

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#22

Post by maccard » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 12:09 PM UTC

csomar wrote: post #20

andy99 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they tried to coax me into using my local currency instead of GBP and hid a £20 spread I’m finding this more and more. Uber does it, and even Walgreens does it when I’m in the US and tap my card it suggests that I pay in my home currency. This seems to be a new vector companies have found for ripping off their customers.

Do they suggest that you pay in your home currency, or do they give you the choice to select on the ATM? Only once a cashier made a suggestion and it was to warn me of the spread and that generally it'd be better to do it in USD and let my bank do conversion.

You get a prompt on the terminal. I’ve never had a cashier suggest anything to me, and I don’t really want their input. The correct answer is always pay in local currency and let your bank handle it.

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#23

Post by dwood_dev » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 12:10 PM UTC

quokwok wrote: post #5

This is an odd story. Ryanair doesn't pay commission, so these resellers make money by charging extra fees to unsuspecting customers. I don't know why Ryanair wants to stamp out this practice (which doesn't cost them anything and brings extra sales), but I don't see why they should be prevented from stamping it out.

If you had ever purchased a RyanAir ticket you would understand. You get up charged for everything and have to deselect all the up charges at multiple screens. It is their operating model to sell basically free seats, and profit on upsells. Third parties eliminate a large portion of their upsell pipeline.

Ryanair is cheap, they charge extra for everything. But the tradeoff is you get where you are going for cheap if you avoid all the extras, including bottled water.

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#24

Post by dcminter » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 12:11 PM UTC

maccard wrote: post #21

dcminter wrote: post #4

"O’Leary accused the travel agent industry of scamming and ripping off unsuspecting consumers by charging extra fees and markups on ticket prices." That is ... pretty rich. A couple of years ago I was going to go see my brother in the UK who lived near Stansted. As such Ryanair would have been the most convenient airline. The shere number of dark patterns I encountered trying to book the ticket was such that when I g…

I’m not defending this behaviour with Ryanair, but this is not unique to them at all. It’s an industry “standard”. I’m Irish but live in the UK - when we make card transactions it asks what currency we want to pay in, and hides the exchange rate spread. > I will only use them if I have literally no other choice Even with the £20 increase they were likely cheaper than the alternative, if it exists. If this is going to…

To be clear, the currency scam was a last straw, not the major dark pattern.

When you compare list prices for flights with them versus almost any other airline you are comparing apples with oranges. The only way to figure out exactly what you'll pay is to go through the entirety of their checkout procedure. My experiences with those other airlines for short haul flights are quite different.

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#25

Post by dcminter » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 12:13 PM UTC

exasperaited wrote: post #16

dcminter wrote: post #4

"O’Leary accused the travel agent industry of scamming and ripping off unsuspecting consumers by charging extra fees and markups on ticket prices." That is ... pretty rich. A couple of years ago I was going to go see my brother in the UK who lived near Stansted. As such Ryanair would have been the most convenient airline. The shere number of dark patterns I encountered trying to book the ticket was such that when I g…

Right. O'Leary is an antihero at best and a villain at worst.

He's very good at marketing his airline (often with outrage inspiring press releases) and very good at finding ways to squeeze more blood out of the stone of budget travellers. I don't really care whether he's "good" or "bad" but I would like to see the regulators shut down more of these aggressive tactics as they emerge.

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#26

Post by embedding-shape » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 12:14 PM UTC

onli wrote: post #12

doikor wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't anything new though. Been like that for the last 15 years at least. Always pay in the local currency (your bank/visa/mastercard will give you a better rate then the merchant)

It seems to be built into the credit card terminals. So it's a visa thing, not on the shop. I had that with very small shops in non-touristy areas of Mexico where it was absolutely clear to not be a scam attempts by the shops owner. They had no idea what the terminal asked.

I don't think parent is claiming that the shop owner is trying to scam someone. But these prompts have been around for at least 15 years, I'm also sure about that, this isn't new by any measure. And yeah, also came across shop owners who don't know what it is about, and then you have to chose.

Makes sense that shop owners in non-touristy areas haven't seen them before, as you'll only see that when the card has a default currency that differs from the default currency of the terminal.

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#27

Post by embedding-shape » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 12:16 PM UTC

nottorp wrote: post #19

clickety_clack wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t know you were allowed to do that with cookies.

UK site. Not in the EU any more.

Did they really already get rid of all the laws EU enforced upon them before they left? One would think it'd take a decade at least, but I guess things can move fast when the government really wants to.

The way regulation works in the EU is typically EU comes up with regulation for countries to implement, then they implement the laws via their national system, then everything is handled "locally". So just leaving the EU doesn't mean that all of those things just stop being active, you need to go through the process of removing the local laws before.

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#28

Post by rjsw » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 12:17 PM UTC

maccard wrote: post #22

csomar wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they suggest that you pay in your home currency, or do they give you the choice to select on the ATM? Only once a cashier made a suggestion and it was to warn me of the spread and that generally it'd be better to do it in USD and let my bank do conversion.

You get a prompt on the terminal. I’ve never had a cashier suggest anything to me, and I don’t really want their input. The correct answer is always pay in local currency and let your bank handle it.

I once came across a cashier that thought you had to select the foreign currency option. When I tried to pay in the local currency she cancelled the transaction.

Needed to get another member of staff to explain to her that the local currency option would work fine.

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#29

Post by dcminter » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 12:19 PM UTC

nottorp wrote: post #19

clickety_clack wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t know you were allowed to do that with cookies.

UK site. Not in the EU any more.

They're doing business in the EU.

Amusingly my voluntary subscription was just under the cut-off amount and I cancelled it as soon as this came in. I bought a subscription to The Economist instead.

Re: Ryanair fined €256M over ‘abusive strategy’ to limit ticket sales by OTAs

#30

Post by yakkomajuri » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 12:20 PM UTC

It is of course ironic since we're talking about Ryanair here but I'm genuinely curious as to why it's abusive to determine that your product/service must be sold via your platform?

Legitimately welcoming discussion here as I'm keen to hear the other side.