No Credit Card fee á £5 for 25 million passengers in 2009!

[Mic]

BBC Panorama :
[size=12]"We should like to check with you some points of fact, if we may, and also to ask for your
comments, if any, on various points which, we anticipate, will be made in the programme,

which is now scheduled for transmission on Monday week, October 12[/size][size=7]th[/size][size=12].2009"
[/size]
[...]
[size=12]
Q3] The £5 card handling charge. What was this at when it was originally introduced?[/size]

Answer Ryanair:
[...]
A3] The £5 handling charge was introduced in 2003, when Ryanair launched its
partnership with Visa Electron to promote the use of Visa Electron cards which
enables passengers to make free payments on Ryanair.com.
More than 20 million passengers annually now use Visa Electron.


BBC Panorama (08 October 2009 14:04):
Fyi we are aware and shall state that there is no card handling charge if you use Visa
Electron. But fyi the UK Cards Association have told us that this card is only issued
to 8% of UK debit card holders. How do you calculate that 20 million passengers.

(almost a third of your passenger journeys?) use Visa Electron, please?

Ryanair Answer
I can't remember when the handling charge was originally introduced, but as the take up of Visa
Electron cards has increased, we have continued to raise the non Visa Electron handling charge, to
encourage more and more people to switch to using the free of charge Visa Electron.
This year more than 25 million passengers will use Visa Electron and we hope to get the take up above 50% of all
passengers within the next 18 months.

There are currently over 100 million Visa Electron cards in issue across Europe. In the last 12 months
more than 20 million passengers paid for their Ryanair tickets using Visa Electron. This is a factual

number taken form on our bookings system. As I am sure you will appreciate.


Source : Correspondence between Panorama (BBC) and Ryanair, October 2, 2009
http://www.ryanair.com/site/news/releases/2009/docs/Panorama%20Correspond.pdf


http://www.ryanair.com/site/EN/news.php?yr=09&month=oct&story=gen-en-091009

PANORAMA ‘INVESTIGATION’ REFUSES RYANAIR’S INTERVIEW OFFER

Ryanair, the World’s favourite and Britain’s largest airline, today (9^th Oct) accused BBC Panorama of bias and censorship as it purports to ‘investigate’ Ryanair but REFUSES Ryanair’s offer of a live or unedited pre-recorded interview in order to fully reply to Panorama’s false claims.

Ahead of Monday’s so called Panorama ‘investigation’, Ryanair today published all of its correspondence with the BBC programme which exposes Panorama’s false claims and repeated refusals to allow Ryanair an adequate right of reply.

So far Panorama’s two main claims that (a) Ryanair has ‘hidden charges’ (when we don’t) and (b) that Ryanair reached an agreement with Airbus in 2001 (we didn’t), have both been proven to be false. All Panorama are left with is a series of subjective claims from a tiny number of disgruntled former employees and alleged passengers, none of which have been substantiated.

Ryanair’s Stephen McNamara said:

“Ryanair has wasted the last six weeks responding to BBC Panorama’s false claims about Ryanair – which is Britain’s favourite airline carrying 66m passengers this year. Panorama has repeatedly refused Ryanair’s offer of an unedited interview, either live or pre-recorded, because they know that these false claims are rubbish and don’t stand up to scrutiny.

Ryanair calls on the BBC to explain why Panorama refuses to provide balance in its programming and why licence payers are funding such rubbish filled investigations which don’t stand up to scrutiny, which is why Panorama wouldn’t agree to an unedited interview with Ryanair.”

[ruinair]

.. and i asked MOL at the AGM how to get a Visa Electron card in Ireland and he told me it was 'impossible' ..... i have since learnt that Entropay.com offers a virtual card which you can top up online with your normal credit card. The trick is to make sure you request a card in pounds sterling ....

[ryr-nick-fr]

I believe (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that you have to pay around 5% of the amount you upload. So if I wanted to transfer £500 from a MasterCard, it would cost me £25. And as I often travel in a group, there is no saving to be made!

I geuss if there is only one person flying, then the 5% charge to top-up the account is worth it.

Still, I don't see why it can't not be charged for just the one credit card. But hey! It's always been cheapest - even with the annoying charges!

[j2op]

Ok, option extra:
1)book (for the last time paying the fee) a trip to Italy, near a bigger city possibly

2) go to the Ufficio of the AGENZIE DELLE ENTRATE with a i.d./passport and ask for a CODICE FISCALE

3) when you got a CODICE FISCALE, go to a post office and buy a "postepay" a prepaid € visa electron. It cost 10€ with 5€ credit.You can buy credit immediately at the post office (plafond is 3000€) for the sum+1 euro fee
4) link your ordinary bank to your paypal account, and link your postepay to them.
Now you can buy credit from 100€ WITHOUT EVEN PAYING THE FEE!!But it takes a week or so to make the transaction complete.
Of course you can handle in real time your account on poste.it after registering, and you should be aware that bureaucracy in Italy is what it is...But is it worth? Ehm...YES! I stopped paying MOL (and also Stelio's)unfair fee a lot of time ago.
For more info http://www.poste.it/bancoposta/cartedipagamento/postepay.shtml
Just drop the url above in google translate...

[Rich00cap]

Can I just point off that the £5 per person charge PER ONE WAY FLIGHT is SCANDALOUS and does not reflect in anyway the true cost to ryanair of processing credit and debit cards? It probably costs them 50p MAX per booking regardless of the number of passengers. This should be investigated. If you buy 10 dvds in a shop you are not charged a processing fee per dvd!

[j2op]

you're right, but with a simple trick you have a real visa electron card...