Beating some Ryanair charges with Fairfx

[Ret400]

A few weeks ago Ryanair decided to chage one of their sneeky little charges.

Previously you did not pay a card fee if you used a Visa Electron card. Now they are charging you, heavily, if you do use a Visa Electron card (At least £10 if not £10 each way). So thast about £40 or even £80 per family of 4.

But there is a new way around it!. They are now allowing you not to pay a fee if you have a Pre-Paid Stirling Mastercard (Suprisingly they have just launched one). But5 others exist.

However, the better news is that Fairfx (often recommended on forum) have just launched a Stirling pre-paid Mastercard. They normally charge £9.95 if you load on less than £500 to open account, but until Jan 31st NO charge. So you could open one with a pound and only top up when/if needed. http://www.fairfx.com/

When you use it their is a 1.50% fee but this is, in most cases going to be way below what Ryanair will sting you for. So you can now have you airfares booking open on one window, find out the price, log on to your currency card site and load, instantly with debit card, the money you need and then pay for your flights saving a fair amount.

Sorry if this sounds a bit like advertising but I read some of the details on Martin Lewis site and knew that many people use Ryanair and get caught with these charges. The site recommended Fairfx as the best buy to get around this.

Anything that keeps the money away from a company that was described this week in a BBC article as follows:

"Budget airline Ryanair has been accused of being "puerile and childish" over its payment policy by business watchdog the Office of Fair Trading (OFT)."

[Andtiggercametoo]

We despise Ryanair & after having a huge problem with them last summer swore never to use them again, not only are their charges ludicrous but the planes aren't tiptop either & they are even talking of charging you a quid to go for a wee!!
With us having a villa in Spain & going in nearly all the kids schools hols we use the low cost airlines but from now on we will stick to Jet2, ok ,they aren't Virgin but they don't have a charge for this that & the other & the seats seem to have more space for those of us women blessed with a bigger behind!!

[Ret400]

I have to agree with you. I have so far managed to avoid them and really hope to be able to keep doing so. However, for some they are the only choice and with luck this will just mean a few quid less. I would be interested to see one day when the rules (for spurious charging) are tightened, how efficient they really are hwen all is equal.

[LeonieM]

The crazy thing is, yes up front they may have the cheapest fares, but by the time you've added this that and the other, they can't possibly still be the cheapest come 'check out and pay'!

But, while people are prepared to put up with their, frankly, disgraceful attitudes towards their paying customers, they will continue to provide shoddy, expensive service.