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

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 4:20 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #99

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 used to do some things that were quite remarkably devious - the option to not by travel insurance was in the middle of drop-down list of countries! To make sure I had remembered that correctly I looked it up and here is a description of it: https://www.insurancetimes.co.uk/ryanair-to-change-hidden-tr... NB I've travelled with Ryanair quite a lot and actually don't mind the actual flights but it is wise to man…

Post by jeffwass » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 4:22 PM UTC

andy99 wrote: post #8

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…

> 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.

Post by chrisjj » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 4:25 PM UTC

dwood_dev wrote: post #23

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…

Post by amrocha » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 4:29 PM UTC

hexbin010 wrote: post #68

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…

Ryanair weren't just a bystander in this race to the bottom, they were primary drivers of creating it, along with Easyjet, undercutting competition and forcing everyone else to become a low cost carrier. They're a total success commercially you can't deny it, but my god what a horrible experience for everyone involved, passengers and staff alike

Post by Jap2-0 » Tue, Dec 23, 2025, 4:32 PM UTC

bgbntty2 wrote: post #88

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.

Years ago when paying with PayPal, there were 2 choices - for them to convert currencies or to rely on my bank to convert them. There was a warning that if I chose the second option, it could cost a lot. Turns out, with my bank the conversion was good and with PayPal's conversion I'd lose like 10%. Stuff like that is what I say "years ago" - I haven't used PayPal for a while now, and I won't use it again.