I needed to amend a booking for a Ryanair flight online and was prepared to pay the £43.99 price difference. I then checked my bank balance and found the full cost of the two tickets – £478 – had been debited again. That means it will have cost me £910 for two of us to fly to Spain, and it’s left me overdrawn. MC, Birmingham
As many before you have discovered to their cost, Ryanair is not always the budget choice it might appear. If you want to sit with your travelling companions, check in a suitcase or take your hand luggage on board, you have to pay extra. And if you need to amend a booking outside the 24-hour grace period it will cost you £40 per head each way. This, says Ryanair, is what made up that £478 – £160 amendment fee for the two of you there and back, £298 difference between the original flights and the new ones, and £20 for allocated seats at £5-a-head each way.
When you change a booking, the fee you forked out to select a seat is non-transferable. It would probably have been cheaper to have abandoned the original tickets and booked again.
Ryanair points out that costs would have been displayed on screen before you entered your payment details. It’s these inflated extras that allow Ryanair to charge such tempting headline rates, and your experience shows the importance of checking the small print.
If you need help email Anna Tims at your.problems@observer.co.uk or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number.
