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

theguardian.com

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

#51

Post by throw9023093209 »

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…

Ryanair was fastest airline when refunding tickets at start of pandemic. Lufthansa just ghosted me.

OTAs were blocked because they just run scam, and Ryanair customer supports had many problems with dealing with them.

Some example from Kiwi:

- if flight gets cancelled and refunded, OTA pockets the refund, does not give anything to custemer

- OTA does not provide customer with email used to make booking. Makes any changes like extra luggage or seat difficult

- If flight gets rescheduled, OTA may not inform customer

- Not possible to add extra child etc...

I would only use OTA like Kiwi when booking flight in very exotic country, and I have no idea how to checkin in chinese.

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

#52

Post by justincormack »

embedding-shape wrote: post #27
nottorp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Have seen this in EU sites too. It seems to be a grey area at present.

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

#54

Post by Gormanu »

kristianc wrote: post #35
Gormanu wrote: post #32

[flagged]

And who cleans up the mess when OTAs miss emails, get passenger details wrong, display outdated prices or add markup through algorithmic pricing? Ludicrously one sided take.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen an airline take responsibility for a TA’s mistakes. Usually they just send you back to wherever you bought the ticket. And there are other ways to influence the quality of how aggregators and travel agencies operate, instead of just bluntly trying to block or restrict them.

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

#55

Post by amiga386 »

quokwok wrote: post #39
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…

It's easy to book a Ryanair ticket without being upsold. You select the ticket, probably add a bag for about £40, skip the car rental and hotels screens etc, then book. What's the problem?

So you're using Ryanair's own-issued payment card, to avoid the mandatory fees it charges for every other payment option?

You forgot to mention picking the "No I don't need travel insurance" option shoved in the middle of the list of travel insurance prices, which defaults to you buying travel insurance from Ryanair.

Do you already have their spyware app installed and tracking you on your phone, to avoid being charged £50 for a plain boarding pass which you print yourself?

You're describing some other airline's website, surely. If you'd used Ryanair's site you would not be unaware of its fuckery.

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

#56

Post by Gormanu »

scottydelta wrote: post #48
Gormanu wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think I am an AI slop? If you don't like my opinion , it doesn't mean I am AI.

The issue is not about liking your opinion. It's about use of AI to produce an opinion.

I might be behind on modern tech, but what exactly gives me away as AI? I’m genuinely curious.

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

#57

Post by hs586 »

I have found myself to be the only person in many conversations defending Ryanair. People complain about legroom, everything being a paid add-ons, you name it. The key is to treat it like a bus that takes you from A to B, sometimes cheaper than a bus, not some sort of luxury experience. The times when flying was luxury is over. And I benefitted from it greatly as a student, so have many shown by Ryanair's passenger numbers.

And I am also always confused about the non-transparency that people mention about their fees. When you do the checkout, you select the services you want and pay for those. There used to be a time when other airlines would have a lot of things included in the basic ticket price, but that's not the case anymore, so it's not different. And I think this was an inevitable in an industry with small profit margins where price differentiation would bring gains.

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

#58

Post by nottorp »

embedding-shape wrote: post #50
nottorp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... or no one bothers to enforce them any more? UK gov is too busy enforcing the death of anonymity online anyway.

> ... or no one bothers to enforce them any more? I know it happens in other countries, but can you actually get away with this in a civilized and non-authoritarian country today? Eventually you're gonna have to do/say something about it, if people keep opening up new cases about it.

Who's going to open a case and where? Is there any point in complaining to a local authority in an EU country about an UK web site? Esp since the guardian probably has zero business presence on the continent...

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

#59

Post by quokwok »

amiga386 wrote: post #55
quokwok wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to book a Ryanair ticket without being upsold. You select the ticket, probably add a bag for about £40, skip the car rental and hotels screens etc, then book. What's the problem?

So you're using Ryanair's own-issued payment card, to avoid the mandatory fees it charges for every other payment option? You forgot to mention picking the "No I don't need travel insurance" option shoved in the middle of the list of travel insurance prices, which defaults to you buying travel insurance from Ryanair. Do you already have their spyware app installed and tracking you on your phone, to avoid being charge…

You're a few years out of date. You don't get charged extra for using any credit card.

And clicking "I don't need insurance" is easy.

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

#60

Post by embedding-shape »

justincormack wrote: post #52
embedding-shape wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Have seen this in EU sites too. It seems to be a grey area at present.

Well, I think Meta was the first to give it a try, and given that they had to revise it to not be like that (these changes incoming in January it seems https://www.euractiv.com/news/meta-to-tweak-its-pay-or-conse...), it seems to not be much of a gray area anymore, otherwise Facebook would continue offering that choice to users.

> The social media giant was fined €200 million in April for breaching the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) over the binary choice it gives EU users to either pay to access ad-free versions of the platforms or agree to being tracked and profiled for Meta’s ads.

> In a press statement, the Commission said the revised offer would give users an “effective choice” between consenting to their personal data being used to show them fully personalised ads or handing over less personal data and seeing “more limited personalised advertising”.

Seems like there will be a more nuanced choice available in January, than "pay us or we'll track you"

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