Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 70 posts

Re: Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

#61

Post by anonzzzies »

Detrytus wrote: post #50
dzhiurgis wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ryanair doesn’t allow you to login online for printing tickets with just PNR - they require email for 2fa. Which you don’t get when booking via third party. Got caught by this while travelling with a party of 6. €120 down the drain. Third party sheds any responsibility.

Ryanair is basically a criminal operation, they should be wiped out from the face of Earth.

For more than this; their prices make no sense; way too low. Somewhere corners are cut which probably makes it an illegal operation when they look closer. Which will happen by EU countries or the EU itself.

But yeah, I never fly with them; uncomfortable, annoying, only Boeings etc. I’ll pay more, it’s fine.

Re: Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

#62

Post by anonzzzies »

Tenoke wrote: post #41
cpncrunch wrote: post #2

I agree that the 20E charge to print a paper ticket seems excessive, but I'm not sure about the bag fees. I know it's a bit annoying to get nickle and dimed for everything, but on the other hand it makes sense to only charge passengers for the services they need.

Just checkin for free on your phone and use your phone as a ticket. I fly with Ryanair often enough and honestly wasn't even aware there's still a fee like that.

As other said here; if you book via a 3rd party and you have very little experience (you are a holiday traveller), you don’t know that you have to or how to login to the Ryanair site as they don’t tell you. So when you arrive at the airport you have a nice expensive surprise for the family.

Re: Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

#63

Post by gpm »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #24
gpm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100€ for a... piece of paper!?

> 100€ for a... piece of paper!? For having a person who could be helping someone with real issues print a piece of paper instead, yes.

How much do you have to pay to get to the point where 100€ would be anything remotely close to the actual costs? If your support person is literally doing nothing 59/60ths of the time (because they're waiting around for someone to help), and it takes a whole minute to print a ticket... you're still at 100€/hour.

This doesn't seem like it can be anything but ripping people off for making a mistake, or as charitably as I can possibly get making people who made a mistake subsidize flights for the more meticulous people in an attempt to make tickets (appear to) cost less to get more business.

Re: Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

#64

Post by lkdfjlkdfjlg »

FireBeyond wrote: post #17
lkdfjlkdfjlg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to hear more about this. It's always been unpleasant interacting with them, but I haven't seen anything abusive. Usually I'm told I either have to leave a huge deposit or buy insurance. Is this what the abuse is supposed to be? I don't love it, but I can't say it's a crazy notion.

Even in Alaska, if you go to Anchorage you’d be well advised to take an Uber to a car rental place at least a couple of miles from the airport. All sorts of BS, like “we have to phone your insurance company to verify your coverages” (at 11pm), or same with credit card, etc, to be “allowed” to waive their insurance. Oh, and the regular car you reserved, and several of them you can see on the lot? They’re unavailable.…

Sorry I don't understand what any of this means. I guess I'm not that familiar with renting cars.

Re: Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

#66

Post by zeagle »

oliwarner wrote: post #55
Xenoamorphous wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m curious, how are those scammy? I always rent the car in advance and never had any issue, I’ve done that in Spain several times but only in the islands (Canary and Balearic).

They're thieves, hiding behind walls of small print. We booked one in France through Avis. Rocked up and they wanted either a €2000 refundable deposit or a €350 non-refundable waiver. We were deep into a home renovation, couldn't afford the refundable option if we also wanted food on holiday, had to take the hit. That's over the top of a €950 10 day rental for a 3 year old Seat, its gearbox nearing the end of its sho…

I never understood why these companies aren't politely taken out back by the local business association. The biggest rental scam I've ever seen was in Costa Rica with their mandatory insurance that doubles the cost. I expected it but saw them working the others waiting in line and thinking of taking my tourist dollars elsewhere in future on principle. Plus the traffic cops take the plates if you park like the locals adding to a fee dance.

Re: Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

#67

Post by oliwarner »

fy20 wrote: post #58
oliwarner wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're thieves, hiding behind walls of small print. We booked one in France through Avis. Rocked up and they wanted either a €2000 refundable deposit or a €350 non-refundable waiver. We were deep into a home renovation, couldn't afford the refundable option if we also wanted food on holiday, had to take the hit. That's over the top of a €950 10 day rental for a 3 year old Seat, its gearbox nearing the end of its sho…

A deposit for car rental is normal. If you provide a credit card they reserve the amount without actually charging you. But if you only have a debit card or your credit limit is too low, they cannot do that. So you have to pay upfront, and they will refund you after the rental. I'm guessing the 'waiver' is for their enhanced insurance, which means you don't pay anything extra if there are any damages. I've rented hun…

A deposit is normal, and yes, if we had the money (pre-approved or real) we'd be €350 better off.

What made it feel like thievery was we knew nothing about it until we were in France with two kids who had just had enough of travel, and we were already an eye-watering sum on that we wouldn't get back if we tried to shop elsewhere.

Again, the direct customers didn't have this. They had been asked these questions, made these choices as part of the initial order, where they had time to prepare financially, or shop around.

It's in this way very similar to how some airlines feel they can double your flight cost as you are literally stepping onto the plane. You have no choice.

Re: Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

#68

Post by bsder »

hammock wrote: post #23
FireBeyond wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even in Alaska, if you go to Anchorage you’d be well advised to take an Uber to a car rental place at least a couple of miles from the airport. All sorts of BS, like “we have to phone your insurance company to verify your coverages” (at 11pm), or same with credit card, etc, to be “allowed” to waive their insurance. Oh, and the regular car you reserved, and several of them you can see on the lot? They’re unavailable.…

Lol they do that at Denver too. You have to be an assertive kind of personality to get thru that. Or just don’t book with one of the discount desks and stick to hertz/alamo

Avis. Never use Hertz.

The difference in customer service has always been gigantic for at least the last 2 decades.

I don't know if it still holds as I have been driving between places since the pandemic given the eye watering prices of rentals.

Re: Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

#69

Post by MichaelZuo »

oliwarner wrote: post #67
fy20 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A deposit for car rental is normal. If you provide a credit card they reserve the amount without actually charging you. But if you only have a debit card or your credit limit is too low, they cannot do that. So you have to pay upfront, and they will refund you after the rental. I'm guessing the 'waiver' is for their enhanced insurance, which means you don't pay anything extra if there are any damages. I've rented hun…

A deposit is normal, and yes, if we had the money (pre-approved or real) we'd be €350 better off. What made it feel like thievery was we knew nothing about it until we were in France with two kids who had just had enough of travel, and we were already an eye-watering sum on that we wouldn't get back if we tried to shop elsewhere. Again, the direct customers didn't have this. They had been asked these questions, made…

By definition a reseller is adding at least an extra layer of legal paperwork.

Especially for car rentals where even a single paperwork error can cause a huge problem if an accident occurs.

Re: Spain fines budget airlines €150M over 'abusive' cabin bag and seat charges

#70

Post by padf »

The taxes are 'abusive' because they are sometimes very carefully "hidden". Ryan Air is wonderful compared to the nightmare called WizzAir.

The issues with WizzAir:

-Administrative fees of 9 Euro on each flight, for each passenger.

-Trolley bag (10 kg) an extra of around 60 Euros.

-Want have the same fare for 48 hours? Pay an extra 12 Euros.

-After that, checked in bag, is around 40 Euros per flight.

-Check in at the airport costs around 40 Euros.

-Online check in costs 5 Euros, and the say they mail you the tickets two days before.

-They don't mail you the tickets and they don't say anywhere you can only print the tickets on the same day of the flight (atrocious if the flight is at 6 am).

-You can get a refund for a cancelled flight, but the refund link cannot be found on their site. You have a post on Trip Advisor that points to that site.

-If you have paid for a small check in bag (10 kg) but bring that bag to the plane that's an extra 58 Euros (I can live with that).

-The boarding queue may stop for around 15 minutes, because a client needs to pay 58+58 Euros and the boarding attendant is unable to calculate such a complicated mathematical operation, needing the intervention of another boarding attendant (busy). That is a big no NO!

-Of course the web site has "bugs" and you may encounter "issues" that may force you to restart your session, specifically when asking for a refund...

-The "bugs" do not depend on the browser, or the OS (tested on Windows, OSX and Linux).

Post reply on HN