Ryanair, the World’s most hated airline, have discovered a fabulous new way of parting you with your hard earned cash after introducing their own currency conversion for travellers booking single flights from other countries back to the UK.
The practice, known in the trade as dynamic currency conversion (DCC), can add as much as £6-£7 to each £100 booking according to the Guardian.co.uk.
They state that British travellers who book journeys starting in Europe have long seen their fares on the Ryanair website quoted and charged in euros. As a result they have incurred the foreign exchange costs associated with buying goods abroad using a UK credit card.
However, Ryanair has quietly introduced DCC in a bid to further increase its revenues. As the buyer goes through the payment process, the price quoted is automatically recalculated into a “guaranteed” price, which the Guardian found is several pounds higher than that quoted by a leading credit card.
When Guardian Money puchased a single flight from Ancona in Italy to London Stansted, the price quoted was €65.50. They were then offered a guaranteed price of £60.92. Having declined this, they were still implored to accept it, accompanied with a warning “you will not receive a guaranteed rate from your bank”.
Some buyers would simply agree to the guarantee at this point. But the rate being offered was poor value: Nationwide were asked how much it would have charged in sterling that day to someone buying the flight at €65.50, and they replied it would cost just £57.16. Ryanair was charging £3.76 more.
It might not sound much but someone booking return flights for a family at a cost of £400 would pay an extra £24 by opting for Ryanair’s “guaranteed” exchange rate.
This latest fee comes on top of other controversial charges such as the £5 per person each way credit card charges. Ryanair recently started charging those using Visa Electron cards. Now the only way to avoid credit card charges is to use a pre-paid Mastercard. Read more here about one of them, the FairFX pre paid master card that will allow you to book your flights with no credit card charges with Ryanair.
