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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

#251

Post by elAhmo »

iberator wrote: post #224
dmaa wrote: post #90

I don't understand this hate on Ryanair. Just treat it for what it is, a super cheap airline if you avoid all the upsells. No one is being forced do fly with them.

Sometimes you ARE forced to fly with them. Some airports have contracts with them etc etc

It is a ridiculous claim. It is always a choice, you are not really forced to fly in any case. If you do want to fly, or have a very strong reason to, there are other means of transports, or flying to different airpots if you really want to avoid Ryanair.

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

#252

Post by hs586 »

xandrius wrote: post #243
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…

Either you got used to their evolved dark patterns or you haven't booked with them recently. I was also Pro-Ryanair: they allowed to see friends and family across Europe with a student budget. Now, it's an 8-step booking process where you try to figure out what is actually optional and avoidable and what's included in the advertised fare. Depending on the airport, they threaten to charge you if you don't print your b…

I used it once since COVID, last year, didn't seem too bad.

Given the mood in the thread, I do indeed think that I may have a high tolerance for such practices and pay careful attention to fine prints. After all, I had all the training while applying for numerous Schengen and other visas, immigration paperwork. After those, dealing with Ryanair that faces at least some competition and scrutiny is not that bad.

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

#253

Post by rkomorn »

scottyah wrote: post #245
rkomorn wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the true advantage of a competitive marketplace No thanks. There can be a world where we don't let companies behave in the most abject ways possible. > Imagine if you had to agree and compromise on a single airline? This is literally a "the bar is in hell" take.

We already live in a world where we don't let companies behave in the most abject ways possible. You just want to force your own values on everyone, and we've already seen that people are at odds with them. You replied to someone who demonstrated their liking to that method, yet you STILL think only your way is right.

No, I think your "true advantage of a competitive marketplace" is the kind of "invisible hand of the free market" stuff I don't care for.

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

#254

Post by jonathantf2 »

beAbU wrote: post #71
jonathantf2 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I booked direct on Ryanair.com and they refused to refund our tickets because the flight technically ran even though we weren’t legally allowed to leave our homes. Lesson learned, I’ve got travel insurance now

Have you tried a credit card charge back?

Did it on debit card, another lesson learned.

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

#255

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

hs586 wrote: post #180
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My one and only experience with Ryanair was that they were rude and hostile even in places where they weren't trying to fleece you. From in-your face rude signs (official, corporate designed ones, not something printed from Word by a random employee), to a UI where you needed to concatenate strings in order to craft a valid input (something like "enter your credit card number, followed by #, followed by the MMYY vali…

When was this? I have zero recollection of ever doing credit card number formatting anywhere.

Over 15 years ago, I think, and I have no idea if it was credit card numbers or something else. It was sufficiently crazy UX to stand out as crazy for a consumer-oriented website even in the much less polished web back then.

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

#256

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #217
andrepd wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 2025 it's decidedly old-fashioned to even think of interfering with the march of the orphan-crushing profit-maximising machine. Each quarter demands a fresh way to rip off people. How quaint even the 90s seem today, and we though that was hyper capitalism!

You don't think people were ripping each other off in the '90s? How old a saying is caveat emptor ?

> How old a saying is caveat emptor?

Old enough to learn that it's a sociopathic stance that has no business in a well-functioning society.

You're arguing in favor of what's essentially a scam.

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

#257

Post by kiwijamo »

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.

Wise cards are still issued in your home country however. My NZ-issued Wise card still triggers the DCC prompt so it's more or less the same as a NZ-issued card from any other provider. A common misconception but understandable given how Wise markets their card products.

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

#258

Post by robocat »

notahacker wrote: post #7
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.

Ryanair (and to an extent other LCCs) generally doesn't like ticket sales through resellers because a substantial part of its profit margin comes from upsell of add-ons and partner services during the booking/reservation process

Customer support would be a nightmare - who's responsible? Communication? Refunds? Scams? Dodgy middle men?

RyanAir would get all the negatives from an unhappy customer and restricted ways to fix it.

Any issues at all and it wouldn't take much to make a sale unprofitable.

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

#259

Post by kiwijamo »

cvakiitho wrote: post #234
matsemann wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The lack of transparency is that it's hard to price compare. Your will almost never pay the ticker price at Ryanair, but at others you might.

I don't follow, I never paid more than ticker price?

The issue is sometimes I want to compare flying with x with bags and flexible fares. These days I have to click++++ multiple times to get to the stage when I can add bags, flexibility, etc to the ticket and then repeat with each alriline I want to compare. In the old days this was the price shown upfront -- nowdays it's hidden behind several layers. Not just Ryanair but many airlines do this.

I do appreciate tho it's a bit of a trade off. These days many airline offer choice so if you don't need the extras you do save some money. But the tradeoff is if you do need those extras it's now more expensive and less transparently priced.

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

#260

Post by im3w1l »

riffraff wrote: post #248
im3w1l wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use keyboard to navigate a dropdown box by typing initial letters.

The problem is you would expect the option for "no insurance" to be separated from the rest or at least not be under the letter "d".

I mean yes it is all very deceptive, but I remember being able to buy cheap ryan air tickets just fine with this trick.
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