Ryanair 'priority boarding' charges tricky to avoid

We've got mailCheck-in charges at Ryanair have angered a number of readers. Emma from Dublin contacted us to say she has always defended Ryanair as the airline has served her well with its "you get what you pay for" attitude.

But now she feels she's being asked to pay for something and getting nothing in return. "Their latest charge structure has left me fuming," she writes. "If I choose to check in a bag it will cost me €9. That's fine. If, however, I have no bags to check in they will charge me €6 for 'online check-in/priority boarding'. I take issue with this on a number of points."

She points out that if she is not using its check-in facilities there is no personnel expense to be borne by the airline before she boards the aircraft. "The paper I print my boarding card out on is my own. My fiancé has to check in a bag, so it serves me no purpose to use the priority system, as we are hardly going to queue separately to get on the plane." She has "a real problem" paying for a service she neither needs nor wants, "so as the effective luggage-handling charge is now just €3 a piece, I paid €9 to check in a second bag and at least have them work for their money rather than pay €6 for nothing. Has anyone else noticed this?"

She is not alone. Lee in Kerry also contacted us to complain about the charges. "In the name of the odd exceptionally cheap flight, we all seem to accept Ryanair's arrogant policies and zero customer services, but this latest trick of theirs is just so disgusting I feel the need to shout and scream and make sure everyone is aware of it," she writes.

Business travellers, she says, often take day trips armed with only a skinny briefcase. "In other words, we have no baggage. What is the charge for having no baggage? It's €6 each way. And you have no choice. You can't proceed with the booking unless you select this option." She says that by paying €6 you are entitled to something called "priority boarding" - "whether you want it or not". She also bemoans the lack of details on the site about what priority boarding is.

We contacted Ryanair and a spokeswoman rejected the charge that it was not giving its passengers a choice. We were told that the priority boarding at €6 a person is in fact optional and that the airline provides a facility to allow passengers travelling without baggage to check in at no cost.

It is easy to see how confusion may arise, however. When booking a flight on the Ryanair website, the default booking option for people travelling without any luggage is automatically set to offer priority boarding with the €6 booking fee. Once that option is selected, an easy-to-miss sentence appears underneath the booking form that reads: "You have selected our online check-in/priority boarding service, passengers who qualify for this service can avoid check-in queues and be priority boarded onto the aircraft . . Click to remove this service and just travel with no bags." If you follow that link a warning box pops up asking you if you are sure you want to remove the priority booking. And only when you confirm that you are sure you don't want to be hit with the extra charge does Ryanair allow you to proceed with the booking process.

No kids' prices on NCH site

Orlaith Quinn has been in touch with a complaint about the National Concert Hall's website. She bought four tickets for A Christmas Festivalat a cost of €22 per ticket. Cheaper seats were at €18. "Then I discover in the adverts in The Irish Timesthat child tickets are €10, but there is no option to buy child tickets on the website."

She rang the NCH to explain that two of the tickets she had purchased were for children "and it was extraordinary that I wasn't given the cheaper price option on the website". She says she was told that the NCH does not give concessions on the website for any of its concerts (including pensioners), as the system does not allow it.

"The system does allow for different seat prices. They wouldn't accept that this was sharp practice to charge me €88 for four tickets that I could have bought for €64 if I had known and called into or rang the booking office." Eventually, she writes, "following a row the concert hall agreed to give me a refund if I called into the box office in advance. This defeats the whole purpose of being able to book online. Given that this show is specifically aimed at families/children I wonder how many people have paid more than twice the price for their children's tickets?" she asks.

When we contacted the NCH, a spokeswoman said that there is a note on the online booking page advising people that concession tickets can only be booked at the box office. She said that when people book online they collect their tickets from machines in the NCH foyer and it is difficult for staff to establish that children's tickets are being used by children, leaving the system open to misuse. She also said the box office system and website are to be revamped by February and "hopefully we will be able to make concession tickets available at that point".