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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

#101

Post by GordonS »

throw9023093209 wrote: post #51
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 cha…

Wow, not my experience of Ryanair at all! I was only able to get a refund by calling my bank and opening a section 75 dispute.

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

#102

Post by clan »

andy99 wrote: post #17
monerozcash wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Been like that for the last 15 years at least Charging significantly more to accept foreign currencies goes back thousands of years.

This isn’t that. I understand if you came to a US store with Canadian dollars, they’d be unlikely to give you the posted exchange rate for them, if the took them at all. Here we’re talking about paying with a credit card that will automatically pay in the local currency, and having the POS terminal, on whoever’s behalf, try and intermediate that to charge a higher rate than the credit card would have, under the false…

Almost. To such a degree I would call it a very dark pattern.

There is however one very good argument for. Currencies with very high volatility. Think extreme inflation. If you accept their conversion you know what you pay in your own currency. You have then mitigated a risk. If your own currency is volatile then you might gamble and win. If the foreign currency is volatile you will usually win by paying in the foreign currency. If both are volatile then it is a blind gamble.

The important part here are the settlement dates. Your bank usually do not calculate the exchange rate of the eaxct purchase time.

That is the excuse for the "service". But it is still not wanted and I consider it evil.

When traveling places with rampant inflation you will notice that sellers always negotiate 2 prices. One in the local currency and one in what is considered an easy to use hard currency such as USD or Euros. Forgeries and less cash flowing around has made it harder to use other less know but otherwise hard currencies.

So sellers never care what currency you choose to settle in as very close to zero sellers have multiple accounts on the same terminal. And those who really need it will always negotiate in different currencies.

You might have experienced something like this at times when visiting Argentina or Turkey.

So the "service" is only there for those who want to understand what they pay in their own currency or mitigate a settlement date. And will pay for it!

Local terminal holders rarely care. But the ATM mafias (such as EuroNet) do very much so. Because they actively are playing the mitigation game and are allowed to add fees.

I strongly feel this field should be very heavily regulated. But too much money is involved. And if you look at where VISA and MasterCard are located you will understand that is not a regulation happy corner of the planet.

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

#103

Post by alibarber »

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.

It's absolutely the shop.

Their payment processor (the people they rent the machine off of) offers them this oppurtunity to 'unlock hidden revenue for merchants'[1][2][3] and they are happy to do this.

Visa in fact tried to ban it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_currency_conversion

Of course, there are regulations and agreements with various institutions that should be followed - but it's free money for the shop, nothing else.

[1] https://www.shift4.com/blog/dynamic-currency-conversion-unlo...

[2] https://www.fexco.com/payments-and-fx/currency-conversion-so...

[3] https://docs.adyen.com/point-of-sale/currency-conversion/

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

#104

Post by wouldbecouldbe »

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 does lots of shitty things, but I dont see why an airline should be forced to resell to shitty agencies taking a an unecessary cut instead of consumers buying directly with the Airline.

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

#105

Post by tacker2000 »

potatototoo99 wrote: post #46
rjsw wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't they be allowed to do it? You have the choice of not viewing the website.

That's non-compliant with GDPR. When shown to EU readers, they cannot block access based on accepting a privacy policy. Only essential cookies that really are needed for it to function are required.

Facebook also does this.

But the EU posted a press release last year that they are investigating this, as it could breach the DMA. [1]

The Guardian doesn't fall under the DMA though.

[1] https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_24_...

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

#106

Post by robrenaud »

BunsanSpace wrote: post #95
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.

The big scam is some terminals are configured with 17% forex fees (looking at your shady restaurants in Budapest), really funny when it's paired with tips in an EU country. But this is why Revolut and WISE cards are a god send when travelling, just load them up with the local currency and these issues disappear.

Paying the local currency with your own cards seems simple and works?

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

#107

Post by davnicwil »

amiga386 wrote: post #43
onli wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

On the other hand, almost every merchant and waiter in Spain told me, when handing me the card terminal, to select "local currency" (decline the first swindle attempt) then "don't convert" (decline the second swindle attempt). There's obviously some required workflow where they must pass the terminal to the customer, but they are wise to the payment gateway's trick to extract additional value from the transaction. Th…

I just think they genuinely don't know. I was years into travelling before I learned about this 'trick'.

For my part, I'd just always assumed the charge would be ultimately converted by my bank in any case. Seems obvious now I look back, but I honestly just didn't think about the trick.

Just as an example that gives evidence for this, sometimes you'll go to the same place multiple times and the norm is they ask but occasionally someone won't. So it's not a policy.

I presume the people who don't just don't know about it, don't want to bother me and aren't aware it will make a difference.

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

#108

Post by dcminter »

rantallion wrote: post #84
dcminter wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point of sale terminals also do this when travelling - it wasn't especially surprising, just one straw too many. Of course foreign exchange offices have been doing this scam since forever ("no fees!")... --- Edit - note that with a bureau d'exchange my objection is not that they charge for the exchange; clearly that is the exact business that they are in. It's the "no fees" etc. marketing that hides from the less ast…

> direct costs of the exchange up front Isn't that fairly easy to estimate? If they're showing you a buy rate and a sell rate, you know the interbank rate is going to be pretty much halfway between the two. I don't think anyone's changing money and thinking the bureau isn't profiting.

I beg to differ. All their verbiage about not charging fees is absolutely intended to create that impression in less educated customers.

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

#109

Post by eru »

hs586 wrote: post #57

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 n…

> The times when flying was luxury is over.

No, the times are now. You just have to pay.

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

#110

Post by albumen »

robrenaud wrote: post #106
BunsanSpace wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big scam is some terminals are configured with 17% forex fees (looking at your shady restaurants in Budapest), really funny when it's paired with tips in an EU country. But this is why Revolut and WISE cards are a god send when travelling, just load them up with the local currency and these issues disappear.

Paying the local currency with your own cards seems simple and works?

If “your own cards” are with non-neobanks, they tend to offer poor exchange rates, and add commission on top.
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