Question: Why Do Ryanair Charge Multiple Credit Card Fees for a Single Transaction?

My question to Ryanair in full:

Why do you charge a credit card fee for each journey - adding eight credit card fees to return flights for a family of four - when the fee shows up as a single transaction on one's credit card statement? To charge more than once for a product or service in this way is, according to Consumer Direct, is 'probably' illegal (Consumer Direct made this comment to a Ryanair customer enquiring about the legality of Ryanair's fee).


Answer:

Stephen McNamara, Ryanair's Head of Communications, was kind enough to provide this response:

Ryanair allows all passengers the facility to avoid credit card fees altogether by opting to pay for their flights with Visa Electron, which is widely available throughout Europe. Approximately 25% of passenger now pay by Visa Electron and the usage number are increasing all the time.

My Response

Ryanair's definition of 'avoiding' fees is a novel interpretation of the word (see their response to my question about Ryanair's Web Check-In Fee).

Whether visiting your bank and requesting a whole new card just to avoid Ryanair's fees means the fee is avoidable is a debatable point in the first place. It also appears that many banks don't issue Visa Electron Cards - in the UK Nationwide and Lloyds have stopped issuing them and Barclay's only offers them to teenagers. So the idea that the average consumer can easily avoid these credit card fees is at best dubious, at worst plain wrong.

Since this exchange with Mr McNamara took place, a Berlin court has ruled on these charges and appears to have agreed with me.

Read more about this here: Ryanair Fees Challenged in Court. http://gospain.D106/b/2009/07/13/ryanair-fees-court-case.htm

Find out where you can get an Electron Card for Ryanair Flights in the UK, Ireland, Spain and Germany.

Mr McNamara has made no effort to counter the claims that such a fee breaks laws on how a product or service is charged.

Nor does he justify the policy in the first place. His attitude appear to be "you're agreeing to pay it so you can't complain".

Read the next question, on Why Ryanair Says it Flies to Barcelona When it Does Not, or see all of my Questions to Ryanair.