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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

#141

Post by fn-mote »

clan wrote: post #102
andy99 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 forei…

I don’t agree with this.

If you’re in a place that wants dollars or euros because their currency is “bad” (volatile or unable to freely exchange for dollars), they prefer dollars. You can tell because you get a better than official exchange rate.

I have to say I’ve never been somewhere that the currency was so volatile the settlement date mattered. Carrying local currency would be part of your risk? This could only come up in the almost-all-digital-currency modern world.

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

#142

Post by dabeeeenster »

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…

I’ve told people this before as I distinctly remember it being a thing and no one ever believes me!

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

#143

Post by ghaff »

testing22321 wrote: post #134
hexbin010 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firstly Ryanair don't fly the routes Qantas and Emirates do, so you have no idea what you're on about comparing them Second, Ryanair et al have dragged all the previous decent airlines down with them into the gutter and even paying more doesn't really get you service of years gone by. The only way they could compete was by slashing costs and prices to appear near the same ranking in the search results. You don't real…

Yes, you are 100% correct. The routes that Ryanair flies are only serviced by the ultra budget airlines. The expensive airlines can’t make it work. So again, if you don’t want to fly with ultra budget service, don’t. Train, drive, bus.

Within Europe, I'm usually not in a big hurry or tight on budget within reason. But I understand that many are and it encourages race to the bottom budget airlines. Personally, I mostly do train within Europe even when it involves an overnight sleeper where they exist.

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

#144

Post by Beijinger »

latexr wrote: post #139
Beijinger wrote: post #135

Well, theirs scammy sales interface is similar to GoDaddy. But I had never problems flying Ryanair. For flight hacks wiht Ryanair, try kiwi.com As far as I understand they also cover the financial risk should there be a problem with the connection.

> As far as I understand they also cover the financial risk should there be a problem with the connection. You have to pay for the service, though, and if you’re already flying Ryan Air, cost is probably a factor. The service used to be free, and while it was a bit frustrating to go through it, it did save me once. On the other hand I have a friend who, upon me telling my positive story with Kiwi support, told me her…

"It’s still a good first site to check to get a general idea of what’s available where, though."

Depending on what you are looking for, Wiki Airport pages and this can be good: https://www.flightconnections.com/

But then we are talking about serious travelers and airports, where flights are scare.... ;-)

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

#145

Post by latexr »

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…

To me, their general attitude and invasiveness is what puts me off.

https://noyb.eu/en/want-book-ryanair-flight-prepare-face-sca...

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

#146

Post by tehjoker »

gs17 wrote: post #114
arethuza wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> However he disagreed that the ‘don’t insure me’ option was hidden, and said that 98% of Ryanair’s passengers could “find a way to decline insurance”. I'm not surprised, but still a bit impressed by the ability to lie like this. Somehow I doubt even 9% of their passengers would know it was between Denmark and Finland.

Even in that quote 2% of people are possibly scammed out of their money, which is probably tens or hundreds of thousands of people.

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

#147

Post by harrybr »

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…

I have this example archived. Screenshots and explanation here: https://old.deceptive.design/trick_questions/

Conference video showing this example from 2010: https://youtu.be/zaubGV2OG5U?si=8PkLWhxHFSGQWuWw&t=597

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

#148

Post by vosper »

blell wrote: post #131
Stevvo wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bus is generally a far more pleasant experience. When taking bus you are not herded like cattle into pens based on priority queue status. When a bus has technical issue, they don't hold you hostage on-board for hours to avoid paying compensation. in Europe, a long-distance bus has the comfort of a business class airplane seat.

Just the fact that people can’t talk on the phone whilst on a plane makes it infinitely better than a bus.

Starlink on flights could put an end to this

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

#149

Post by latexr »

Beijinger wrote: post #144
latexr wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As far as I understand they also cover the financial risk should there be a problem with the connection. You have to pay for the service, though, and if you’re already flying Ryan Air, cost is probably a factor. The service used to be free, and while it was a bit frustrating to go through it, it did save me once. On the other hand I have a friend who, upon me telling my positive story with Kiwi support, told me her…

"It’s still a good first site to check to get a general idea of what’s available where, though." Depending on what you are looking for, Wiki Airport pages and this can be good: https://www.flightconnections.com/ But then we are talking about serious travelers and airports, where flights are scare.... ;-)

I wasn’t familiar with that one, will check it out. Thank you.

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

#150

Post by mixu »

Good! If you are wondering what this looks like in practice, I booked 3 flights this year with Ryanair and EVERY single time my tickets (directly purchased from their site) were flagged as "made through a third-party travel agent".

The "verification" workflow is super obtrusive: either pay them to use facial recognition technology or do slower verification (which I assume would be too slow if you saw this last minute). If you missed the email, you'd end up having to pay 55 eur to fix the issue. I was able to complain to customer service but it was definitely incredibly user hostile, intrusive and just ridiculous given that I booked directly via their site.

> Dear AAA this booking, AABBCC, appears to have been made through a third-party travel agent who has no commercial relationship with Ryanair to sell our flights. Therefore, Ryanair has blocked this booking.

> As third-party travel agents often do not provide Ryanair with the correct passenger email address and payment details, we need to verify a passenger's identity before they can manage their booking and check-in online.

> Ryanair needs to carry out this verification process in order to ensure we can comply with safety and security requirements.

> Once a passenger on the bookings has completed Ryanair's verification process, we will provide full access to the booking, including to the ability to make changes to the booking, add additional services, and complete online check-in.

> Express Verification is available at a cost of EUR 0.59c per booking.

> This fee covers the cost of the verification. Ryanair does not benefit commercially from this. There is no charge for Standard Verification.

> Passengers who do not avail of online verification (Express Verification or Standard Verification) to verify their bookings can verify at the Ryanair ticket desk in the airport, however they will be charged an airport check-in fee of up to €/£55.

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