That “Don’t Insure Me” option hidden in the middle of a country list is pure evil. I’m used to seeing dark patterns everywhere but that’s a first for me.
From where I stand, it’s not fair to charge the hell out of people who fall for these tricks while giving steep discounts to the ones who don’t. Maybe there’s a “fool me once” aspect to Ryanair’s shenanigans, so at least their impact might be limited somehow.
To be fair, that is described as an 8 year old example. Their current UX is much more clear.
Their current pattern is more about playing into the fear of what happens without insurance, without selecting your seat, when you don't pay for early check in and forget to do it online on the day before the flight, or what happens if you show up with more or larger luggage than what you booked. Fears they themselves create with high fees for showing up with too much luggage or for checking in at the airport
There is still a bit of praying on people who are in a hurry or are impatient, don't read the screens and just click the most prominent button. The most obvious is the seat selection. But it's no longer the most prominent way they get you
It's funny, I booked a flight with Ryanair only about an hour ago - out of pure desperation - first time in 15 years.
I remember them being crafty, but I have to admit I was surprised by the level of tactics ... that is to say, what they are still allowed to get away with given European / UK consumer law.
Not to mention that a 20kg bag and hand luggage cost me significantly more than the fare itself. They even had upfront "package deals" that would have actually worked out more expensive - bundles of nonsense benefits.
In Australia most of this kind of borderline deceptive selling has been stepped on, to the point that you hardly see it any more.
My story wasn't with Ryanair, but I used to use Skyscanner to find the cheapest ticket, which is usually from a reseller agent instead of the airline (and whatever savings one made was wasted with time reading the 1-star reviews of how shit they are and then convincing oneself "Oh it'll be fine.").
One of these sites offered the ticket for dozens of Euros cheaper, and allowed me to go through the booking process until the end: I entered my CC, hit "Buy", and the next page was "Oops, the flight is no longer available at this price. The price now is: [the same price as booking with the airline]. Would you like to complete the purchase with this new price anyway?".
Fucking hell, it pissed me off so much that I said no and booked it with the airline after all.
I spent most of my professional life working in various roles in aviation, which included several years in a customer facing position at an airport.
I'd recommend never ever using reseller agents. They frequently mess up tickets, they sell tickets that don't exist at all, and most of them won't forward your contact info to the airline's system, so if there's a problem or delay you'll never receive the notification from the airline. (Including coupons, hotel room offers in case of cancellation and other stuff)
The airlines may be bad but the resellers are worse.
In my experience, the reseller agents don't even offer better prices these days.
So I'll typically use a service like Google Flights to find a flight, pick an itinerary, but then go to the airline's web page to book the flight directly.
Same for hotels. Find a hotel on Expedia, then book with the hotel directly.
I've seen too many horror stories of people booking through a reseller, and if something goes wrong, the reseller tells you to talk to the hotel/airline while the hotel/airline tells you to talk to the reseller.
The biggest problem, IMO, is that if you buy from a third party when shit hits the fan you have to rely on that third party. This is still a problem even with reputable travel agents like Amex and Chase. Even in the best case scenario where the agent is actually good, having to get a flight changed via a phone call with some agent who might or might not answer promptly and might or might not be able to work quick enough to win a race of rebooking after a cancelled flight before next best one fills up is just asking for a horrible experience. If you book with the airline directly they have a lot more leeway and power to unfuck your situation promptly.
Save your points and use them on hotels instead, where the experience is just as risky, but at least fails in a less spectacular way when it goes wrong e.g. unless you're booking with an agent in a high demand area where there are NO hotels you usually can leverage a backup plan a lot easier than if you are stuck in an airport.
Yeah, after all these dumb dark patterns of low price on the price comparison site and a different price after passing all the stupid lies and upsell attempts of the reseller websites, I nowadays book with the airlines directly.
I've had similar bad experiences with hotel resellers. You book a hotel with Expedia and roll into a foreign town at 11 pm after changing a flat tire on the way and the hotel says "we never heard of you and we are full."
I've never been stranded when I've contacted the hotel directly, via their website or the phone. Sometimes a glitch does happen, but when it does the hotel will call around on your behalf and find you a room.
They’ve done the same thing in the past year for sure. It’s not simply “8 years old”.
Did we read the same article?
we'll see if regulators get away with saying you must be able to buy a ryan air airfare with an LM was a stupid as opus 4.6 (the last good one). Saying you must be able to buy Ryanair airfare with an immigrant as stupid as, and then give a version number and then say "the last good one" would get the EU regulator excommunicated.
> That “Don’t Insure Me” option hidden in the middle of a country list is pure evil.
I think they may actually have gotten in trouble for that one; they've stopped doing it (as noted in the article it was from eight years ago).
If Ryanair was in the computing world, Oracle's audit department would look like nice guys.
I have no sympathy, and even less respect, for people who choose to fly with Ryanair and then complain about these patterns.
After 32 years of Ryanair in its current incarnation nobody can claim naivety. Dance with the devil and he pipes the tune.
I always think these airline people see passengers as fish and put baits all over the places.
Eh, we might be all better off if a lack of curiosity was more regularly financially excruciating.
I would counter this by saying we might all be better off if consumer protection laws were stronger and actively enforced against this.
I don't really have a problem with offering discounts to members of X program, or if insurance is pre-selected.
But the advertised price should be inclusive of everything (taxes, fees, charges, etc) and the price available to the general product before membership-exclusive pricing.
So if you advertise a product for $100 then any normal person can pay $100 and get it for that.
Want to sell it from cheaper to members of your reward program? Go ahead. But it can't be the most prominent price advertised for it.
You want to sell insurance pre-selected? No problem but again the default advertised price needs to include it. Even if they can opt out for a cheaper price.
There are sure to be edge cases. But the point being is that the price you advertise most prominently needs to be the all-inclusive price any member of the public can get without having to fight to select the correct option.
We don't accept misleading and deceptive practices in other areas, why do we let airlines, hotels and hire car places do it?
"We don't accept misleading and deceptive practices in other areas"
Religion and politics.
I just want to see a price and book a flight, not engage in an online escape room with financial consequences.
Better off by being exhausted on never trusting any purchasing process? No, thank you, I don't need nor want to be curious when I just want to purchase a flight ticket.
Totally disagree. The cost of every single customer doing this for many different purchases is immense, and a completely unproductive use of time. It would be much better if pricing was as clear as possible so people can make make good purchasing decisions and move onto thinking about things that are actually interesting or useful.
Why, you think you're German and Ryanair is Lufthansa?
Yes, let's pit ordinary people against gigantic companies with teams of highly paid experts who spend all day figuring out how to deceive them.
Eh, we might be collectively better of if we just all robbed your house