You’re very right to worry about all the fine print now! The first time that I’d flown Ryan Air, I’d bought a ticket that began by looking like the bargain of the century from Dublin to Paris… well, Ok, to Beauvais.
As I went through the booking process, fees were added for taxes and, well, fees, including one for using a credit card for the booking! Finally, I bought my ticket, which turned out to be much more expensive than I’d expected, but still reasonable.
As I sat in my cousin’s house on the day of my departure from Dublin, I read an article in that morning’s paper to the effect that Ryan Air were starting new charges that very day for excess luggage (over 15kg). I think that my luggage weighed 17 kg, but what I’m certain about was that the excess luggage fee exceeded my ticket fee, including all the various additional fees that were added during booking, so that I was charged more to transport 2kg excess luggage than I was charged to transport little ol’ me (90Kg) plus 15 kg allowed baggage!
I flew Ryan Air again later, and had no real complaints because I’d read the fine print and had prepared according to the rules.

OUCH. But so does all that need to be paid online beforehand?
 
And that is FUCKING BULLSHIT they charge that much for a credit card tansaction, that is just pure greed on their part. The banks charge a little bit for the conversion, but it ain’t that much. [:@]

Yes, read the fine print []

In fact, Ryanair luggage fees are less then excess luggage fees of traditional airlines (or so I remember), but they make those 1 Euro tickets feel way more expensive.

One way you can beat their weight limits is this: before you check-in for your flight put on your rain jacket and move some of the most heavy items from your carry-on to your pockets. As you waste your time in the departure lounge pack the stuff back.

Other thing. You can pay for any bags you check-in (put in the hold) either when you book or at the counter. They charge less if you pay in advance, but if you pay for more bags then you actually need to check-in you won’t get any money back.

Ah right, that makes sense. So when I book online, I hit the thing that says “zero” bags?

Yep!

Cool deal. What’s up with the bag dimensions too? The ones they give seem kinda…. small…. is a backpacker bag going to fit? I’ve never taken any of these cheesy flights before, but I did take a little pissant plane from Providence to Cleveland before, and they let me in with my bag only to throw a fit on the plane when they saw it. I’d hate for this to happen in like… Germany…

Well, AFAIK all Ryanair aircraft are Boeing 737-800 with pretty sizable overhead bins. The only reason for size restriction is to make more money on “oversize luggage” fees. It’s pretty much up to check-in agents to decide to weigh/measure your bag. If they give their OK nobody else will bother.

Typo corrected!

Ah, okay, cool. I think when I come from Bremen to Dublin I will have a tent and a sleeping bag with me though…shouldn’t way too much but I bet they’ll make us pay more to put it in the hold. Rarrrrr

Ryanair fly all 737s. In my experience, they have been very strict with all rules.

Such as?

os=HEAD” title=“http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/faqs.php?culture=GB&ampos=HEAD”>http://www.ryanair.c…

 
Har har [8D]
 
I just meant in your experience, what has happened.

2 immediately come to mind: I’ve witnessed them shutting the line at exactly 40 minutes (or whatever the current cutoff is) before departure—those still in line be damned, no matter how long they’d been there waiting. I’ve also witnessed irate customers when presented with overweight baggage charges (as if they didn’t read the rules).

Just to reitierate—as someone already suggested—read the fine print and be prepared, and if you’ve not already booked, then shop around because sometimes the larger and less-restrictive airlines have competitive (total) fares. Sounds like you have, but for the benefit of others reading your question and considering Ryanair or other low-cost airlines, hopefully this thread will be helpful to them.

Ryanair are terrable with the weight restriction’s myself and a freind were traveing on a ryanair flight. His bag was 2Kg over. Cost him aver £14 if i remember correct. So make sure you weigh the bag 1st yourself to get an idea.

So just need to be carefull with all flight’s but ryanair in particular.

Jesus…

I flew from Milan, Italy to Barcelona, Spain last Summer on RyanAir. Although our plane had a 2.5 hour delay, everything else went smoothly. You get what you pay for. Obviously, if you’re paying 30 Euros for a flight that would have otherwise been 100+ Euros, you’re going to get some downsides like delays, baggage charges, inadequate service…

Speaking of RyanAir, I just read today that they are planning on making trans-Atlantic flights sometime in the future (Probably under another name though):

http://www.iht.com/a…

Well I finally bought my first (of three) airline tickets I’ll need while in Europe, from Ryanair. I have to say, I’m not sure if I’m going to get the other 2 from them or not… there’s so many extra fees and whatnot they tacked on, I’m really worried now about ending up with my bag one centimeter too wide or 1 gram too heavy or some shit.
 
I’ve been using Farecompare.com to look at other airlines, but is there any guarantee that any of them won’t have the crazy rules like ryanair?

Most booking web sites will let you see the total fare fairly early, but when you purchase direct from an airline you should be prepared for new fees showing up on every next booking screen.

By the way I’ve noticed Ryanair has made 180 degree turn as far as the online check-in policy goes. In the past you’d have to pay extra to check-in online. Now online check-in is free, but there is a fee to check-in at the counter. So if you are checking any luggage you have to pay the luggage fee and the counter check-in fee! [:@]

I tried to do the online check in option, but apparently you can only do that if you’re an EU citizen? I think? I’m thinking we’ll just try to pack light as hell when we go over, not buy anything heavy in Dublin and then we might be ok for the first Ryanair flight to London. 4 or 5 days later we’ll be goign from London to Berlin, but I’m thinking about maybe trying Easyjet now that I have a bad aftertaste from Ryanair. Any feedback on them?

I’ve flown with both Easyjet and Ryanair. I seem to remember liking Easyjet a bit more, just because the interior of the plane wasn’t the colour of a highlighter… But other than that nothing really sticks as out ridiculously good or bad with either airline.
I think both are good for those short little trips across Europe. You obviously aren’t going to be getting lots of luxury with either. But yeah, give Easyjet a shot. I don’t have anything bad to say about that one!

I guess I’m more concerned about their baggage rules, but I can’t find any while perusing their site…

What are you going to be taking, and how much will it weigh (approximately)?
 
http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/conditions.php
 
Every bag you check will cost you. Your checked luggage, no matter how much there is, cannot weigh more than 15 kg in total, combined.
 
There’s a size, but not weight, restriction to hand luggage, and it’s quite possible the agent will be strict about it.
 
For 99% of budget travelers/backpackers, these rules are unlikely to cause any problem at all.

Why do you think so? My reading is that you must either have a passport (from any country) or an EU id.
Flying sucks. No joke. On a recent trip (within US) I had both my outbound and inbound trips delayed by one day. My tickets were rebooked 3 times(!) and instead of NW I ended up flying DL both ways. (Can’t wait for those two to merge!) Two out of four flights I ended up on were late by several hours. Compared to that everything Ryanair does to its passengers is minor inconvenience.

Forgot to add: this simple open-jaw cost was $400. How much round-trips on Ryanair would that buy, even with all their add-on fees?

My understanding is that you have to be a EU citizen or resident to do online check-in as well. However, you are theoretically entitled to a refund of the extra charge for in-person check-in once it’s established that you were unable to do online check-in, but it’s a lot of hassle to get a few Euros back.
 
I should add, above, that you can have more than 15 kg of checked luggage, but it will cost you dearly for every additional kilogram, although I don’t remember the exact prices now.
 
And if you think Ryanair is bad, be happy you weren’t flying BA when Terminal 5 opened. It’s not too exciting to be able to check bags for free if you never see them again afterwards.

Actually I was asking about the baggage stipulations for Easyjet… I’ve already gone through the bs with Ryanair.
 
 

For EasyJet, it’s very similar, except 20 kg instead of 15 kg.

Ah okay, thanks []
 
Do they have all the extra hidden fees too?

IMHO you are both mistaken. The wording on the Ryanair website is this:
While the wording is somewhat ambiguous, I believe that they mean the following:
– if passport is you travel document, you may check-in either online or at the counter;
– if EU/EEA id card is you travel document, you may check-in either online or at the counter;
– if driver’s license is you travel document (as is allowed on some routes) you must check-in at the counter.

 
That’s the part that made me think “EU Only”. But whatever, what’s done is done.

I read it the same as Feicht. I see the phrase “issued by the government of an EU/ European Economic Area (EEA) country” as referring to both the ID document or the passport. But we need to find an actual non-EU person who has managed to check in online.

Agree, we won’t know for sure until someone with non-EU passport tries to check-in online, and ether succeeds or fails. But I just can’t come up with any logical reason why online check-in option would be restricted to EU nationals only.

Me either, but as primitive as their website is, I didn’t feel confident enough to try to do the online check in thing. Too afraid they wouldn’t have some kind of verification, then I’d get there and be screwed.

Goddamnit… okay… so I bought those Ryanair tickets the other day, and when you do so, they say you should get an email shortly as a receipt. Well it’s been a few days and I haven’t gotten anything. These people are really pissing me off. I half expect to get there and see them call a radio flyer wagon pulled by a team of geese an “airplane”.
 
EDIT: lkj;asdfl;jkasdfl;jkdsfljk;l;jkdfsa
 
They’ve already charged my credit card and never bothered to send me a fucking invoice. Awesome. Better yet, there doesn’t seem to be any way to contact them online, you have to call their goddamned “hotline” at like 15$ a minute. This keeps getting better and better.

That sucks! Can’t you call this number +353 1 249 7791? From skype it’s just the usual 2.1 c/min.

I don’t have skype

OK, it’s just a plain regular Irish phone #, it can’t be too expensive to call them. Whether they’ll be willing to help is another question. You haven’t written down your conf #, have you? (If you would, you could just retrieve your reservation on-line.)

Ok, look here is something:
You say they have charged your card, right?
Can you post what EXACTLY what the line in CC statement looks like?
It should start with RYANAIR ….

Yes I know, and NO I didn’t :’(
 
This was back on Monday… I didn’t bother because every other place I’ve ever given my credit card number to online sends an invoice within like five minutes to my email address. And they didn’t. It’s my fault for not writing it down, but what the hell… I haven’t gotten ANYTHING from them in the email, and like I said, this was fucking MONDAY.

I don’t blame you. I’m just trying to be helpful. I did not become old, boring, and wise in only one day either.

But I bet 5 to 1 your reservation code is included in Ryanair charge line on your CC statement. If that’s the case we can puzzle it out and you’ll be able to access your itin just the same.

I booked with both ryanair and easyjet in the last couple weeks.  I have had many friends fly with both and they all had no problems.  One friend had to pay extra for excess baggage but she was on her way back to a her flight home and knew she had way too much.  Both airlines also got me an invoice very soon after paying and I also printed it out right away just to be sure. 

The one thing that did bother me was that I had to pay them to use my credit card, how bogus is that!?

Hopefully you can figure out your problem feicht!

I just don’t know what the fuck to do. I can’t believe I haven’t gotten anything in the email and it’s been like five days. I’m never going to deal with these bastards ever again. I definitely don’t want to just show up there with no printout or anything. Ugh.

Hmm… interesting… I’ll check that out….

And I didn’t mean to come off rude or anything, I know you’re trying to help []
 
EDIT: No dice It sure looks like a confirmation number on my online statement, but I try it on this page https://www.bookryanair.com/SkySales/FRRetrieveBooking.aspx?culture=EN-GB and when I click the “change flights” button, a thing pops up telling me to please enter my confirmation number. UUUGGGHHHH.

Would you mind posting that line from your statement the way it is?

What about this link:
os=MYFLIGHT” class=“bb-url”>https://www.bookryanair.com/SkySales/FRManageBooking.aspx?culture=EN-GB&ampos=MYFLIGHT
Should not make any difference, but who knows…

 
It just says “RYANAIR 0000000N8GJPG0”… I pasted the part without “RYANAIR” in it, and WITH just for the hell of it… no dice.
 
And that link doesn’t work for me.

Too many zeroes. [] Try N8GJPG. That must be your confirmation number.

By the way, we can tell the mods e-mail feature does not work. [] I’ve e-mailed you a while back with instructions, but you, aparently never got my message.

Nope, nothin’
 
And taking the zeroes away didn’t work either.

Now that is very strange… You enter these symbols, your CC# as the password and they still won’t let you in?!

The reason I believe it’s got to work is that my last Ryanair conf # was LWSDCR and on CC it showed up as
RYANAIR 0000000[=”#003399”]LWSDCR[/]0 DUBLIN IRL

SWEET MOTHER OF GOD IT WORKED!!!!!
 
I was just trying to enter my email address and destination cuz I didn’t feel right entering my creditcard number into their shitty site again. For whatever reason, doing THAT worked (option 1).
 
Not sure why it won’t allow option 2… and I’m still disappointed beyond belief that they never sent me a conf email, but whatever, at least I can see it now. That sure takes a load off []
 
THANK YOU SO MUCH SEVA… aka my new best friend [sm=kiss.gif]

Sweet!

[image]local://49882/7C9838602C5340D4B8E66C1D17A4EB3A.jpg[/image]

Actually, my guess (sorry, but that’s the only way to explain all that crap) is that you made a typo when entering your e-mail address. That’s why you neither got a confirmation, nor could log in. 

I was hoping the same thing, actually, but nope… Just looked again, and all of my “contact info” is spot-on.
 
But whatever. At least I have something to print out now [8D]