Ryanair – when every page is a dark pattern

https://hallofshame.design/ryanair-when-every-page-is-a-dark-pattern/

by popcalc • 2 years ago

312 296 2 years ago

ssl2322• 2 years ago

I recall a pattern they used to use, probably illegal, when paying for a flight quoted in a foreign currency. Ryanair would "helpfully" offer for you to pay in your own currency with their awful exchange rate, with the option to instead pay in the advertised foreign currency (thus making use of your credit card's exchange rate - typically the market rate) on a pop-up only visible if you click the tiny "more information" link made to look like terms and conditions. The opt-out was not even on the same page, invisible to anyone but those most alert to these tricks. That probably netted them a good 10% extra margin on 95% of sales through deception. Disgraceful behaviour.

crypt1d• 2 years ago

Paypal does this as well.

They'll convert to your card's currency automatically and the option to revert is hidden behind an inconspicuous "See other currency options" prompt

reddalo• 2 years ago

So, if you buy a ticket (in a foreign currency) with RyanAir and you pay via PayPal, you'll need to choose NOT to use the currency converter twice!

mahoho• 2 years ago

IIRC they even use multiple different wordings and layouts for this dialogue, depending on what "mode" of Paypal you're using (e.g. if it's a pop-up or if it's a full page redirect; I dunno how to describe it technically). I have to use it a lot and even I've been tricked a few times. It's literally theft and I can't believe they get away with it

myaccountonhn3• 2 years ago

Damn, I didn't know this, that's insane. I've been paying with the converted currency for ages. Thanks for sharing.

attendant34468• 2 years ago

PayPal once quietly added my European card (EUR zone) as USD. And when I paid for a product in EUR, it "thoughtfully" (for them) converted the amount twice using their special currency exchange rate.

You can't do without airports and airlines, but why PayPal still exists in 2024 - I don't understand.

danielfoster• 2 years ago

This infuriates me because it’s automatic if a merchant has “fast checkout” enabled.

coopierez• 2 years ago

Also seen on Booking.com.

switch00712• 2 years ago

Part of the broader Dynamic Currency Conversion scam, also found in person etc. Not as common as it used to be but when travelling I had to be quite forceful in stating I want to pay in $LocalCurrency . I've had many establishments ignore my request, select GBP, then hand me the terminal asking for my pin, then feigning ignorance when I explain that they are trying to cheat me

VBprogrammer2• 2 years ago

The differences involved make money if you are talking about the whole population but for an individual payment it's a relatively small difference. I'm not sure what would motivate someone handing you a card reader to try to cheat you - they can't possibly be making any money out of it.

np-• 2 years ago

I can’t imagine the merchant gets that extra currency conversion money, nor why they’d care, they are still getting the exact same amount in their local currency while it’s their bank who profits on the arbitrage.

throw__away73913• 2 years ago

This is becoming more and more common. Originally I saw it only at sketchy ATMs but it is now nearly ubiquitous in many places. Sites like Amazon and even POS systems at restaurants and grocery stores now try the same trick.

It ought to be illegal, in fact it ought to be retroactively illegal and these companies should be forced to refund any money they've made this way. It's just a pure money grab from confused customers.

lajosbacs• 2 years ago

This is every other ATM in Prague (euronet is the name I think), they helpfully convert it for you with like 30% markup. These people (and the lawmarkers that permit this) should be publicly flogged.

CaptainZapp5• 2 years ago

Virtually all banks in Prague offer this (extremely expensive) convenience.

What pisses me even more off is that most ATMs charge an additional fee for their usage. The exception being KB (Societe Generale) and Raiffeisenbank.

jwr• 2 years ago

I see this all over the place and I've by now learned to always answer "no" if anybody offers currency conversion. It's sometimes difficult, because some terminals will only show you a choice of currencies, and you have to remember to pick the local currency (local to the store you are paying in) and let your bank do the conversion at their (terrible) rates, rather than pay a 10% markup.

usr11062• 2 years ago

Same here. I often write down the converted sum and then reject conversion. Later I compare my notes with the the conversion done my bank issue the credit card.

It was always so that my bank was cheaper, until very recently when it would have been to opposite way for the first time. Both my banks have recently raised their conversion fees, I think they are now 2.3% - 2.5%.

That still sounds better than the exorbitant fees some dodgy businesses are charging. I don't know whether it was a rare exception that the bank was more expensive or whether it becomes more common.

throwaway7ahgb2• 2 years ago

How is this any different than banks that charge outrageous fees for converting currencies, or heck even currency retail brokers in high traffic tourist destinations.

eapressoandcats2• 2 years ago

Most banks charge a lot less for their customers. In this era of debit/credit cards that convert automatically, offering to do a currency conversion at a higher fee than basically any bank, and relying on customers to be not savvy enough to know that is scammy.

lippihom3• 2 years ago

Unfortunately common practice across a few industries. Ryanair has been doing this for a while (and still do).

surfingdino9• 2 years ago

yandex? Are Yandex employees free to travel around Europe? Interesting.

rasdbiouqwb-1233• 2 years ago

Of course. The denial rate for schengen visa for Russians hasn't even become lower

throwaway3306a2• 2 years ago

Weird, considering there are entire countries that stopped giving them out.

MissTake2• 2 years ago

IIRC @yandex.com is the free email domain they offer.

grishka2• 2 years ago

It is. The employee work emails are @yandex-team.ru

nicbou2• 2 years ago

I use "Ryanair check-in experience" to describe naggy interfaces because everyone understands exactly what it means. With my last easyJet flight, I counted the number of times I had to say "no" before I could get the ticket I wanted at the price I was given. It was something like a dozen.

The internet feels like that. Our devices feel like that. Everything feels like that. It's as if the entire world is turning into a Marrakech bazaar with aggressive kiosk owners. We normalised treating users like marks for aggressive sales tactics.

As a teenager I worked at a box store, and I had to keep pushing extended warranties on threat of creative dismissal. I saw how disingenuous pitches changed the relationship with customers from trust-based to adversarial. If this upsell is bullshit, how trustworthy is the actual service?

When I went freelance, I practiced radical honesty, and it worked great. Once people accept that you're honest and on their side, they'll sign blank cheques. Trust is incredibly valuable in an increasingly trustless society.

surfingdino9• 2 years ago

British Gas no longer prints their bank acc details on the invoices. They want you to create an online account and force you to set up a direct debit, so they can take money directly from their account. Disgraceful behaviour.

MissTake2• 2 years ago

Not convinced that that, in and of itself, is a dark pattern.

Now using that to essentially get customers to overpay over the year, feels like it might be. Guess it depends on how much you save with them in the first loads using DD.

arethuza4• 2 years ago

My experiences with British Gas are infinitely worse than anything Ryanair has done....

Did you know that suppliers like British Gas can randomly assign you to another supplier, without you asking or even being told? And the other supplier has to requirement to ask if you want to be a new customer of theirs?

graemep• 2 years ago

I pay them quarterly online with a credit card.

Semaphor2• 2 years ago

Amazon (at least in Germany) does this if you don’t have prime. 2 clicks are required during the order process just to deny getting prime, and then they still have advertisement for it all over, including on the final page.

They had already pushed me away from prime because of their lack of customer service, but this has made sure I’ll never get it again.

nprateem• 2 years ago

Then when you try to cancel they play word games to say you want to "lose your benefits" not cancel, etc.

0x26res• 2 years ago

They do something very pernicious when displaying the price of extra options for return flights.

Instead of showing you the total price for the return flight, they show you the price of the option on the cheapest leg of the flight. So for example, if an option cost $10 on the outbound flight, $15 inbound flight, instead of displaying $25 total or $12.5 on average, they display "From $10 per flight". You'd expect to pay $20 but end up paying $25.

umanwizard• 2 years ago

Legacy airlines do this too. “Upgrade to business class from $100!” Turns out it’s $100 for your random short connecting flight, and $2000 for your main flight.

mhh__3• 2 years ago

Meanwhile: the Ryanair app actually works, unlike many others.

EasyJet App is slop, the BA app is total shite.

brnt• 2 years ago

Maybe it works, because through the app they are clable to collect much more data about you?

I'll never let companies like Ryanair execute code on my devices. I don't care how well it works.

mhh__3• 2 years ago

how much data are they supposed to be collecting from inside an android app that basically takes a credit card payment and displays a QR code?

Ryanair at one point at least had their margins such that every penny a passenger spends other than the ticket was profit, so they actually have less incentive to do this than some of the other carriers.

switch00712• 2 years ago

I'm no Ryanair fanboy but they do have the best tech, no denying. Everything just works. EasyJet website/tech seems stuck in the year 2005

NoboruWataya2• 2 years ago

Another rather minor thing is that if you look at the source of their confirmation emails, they include a lot of reservation data in XML tags according to the schema.org specification (https://schema.org/FlightReservation). I was looking for a way to parse flight details out of confirmation emails before, and with Ryanair it is trivially easy to do because of this whereas with most other airlines you have to resort to parsing the plaintext or (awful) HTML.

Again, not a big thing but I was surprised that Ryanair seemed to be the only ones who took a standards-based approach to these emails.

lesuorac• 2 years ago

I'm always kind of surprised when things don't just work.

Like having customers seamlessly interact with a computer is one of the cheapest ways of getting money.

daemin4• 2 years ago

I don't use Ryanair specifically but these patterns are commonly found on all other discount airlines, and even some regular airlines as well.

One particularily devious example is when you log into WizzAir's website, the check box under the login (which takes your email and password) is not "Remember me", but rather "Subscribe me to marketing emails".

Always takes me a moment not to select it.

jen729w3• 2 years ago

Oh, Australia's Kogan -- a wannabe Amazon -- has you beat there.

When you buy anything, you're back on the list. No questions. No option. No chance of not being. You just are.

And it's a really aggressive list. An email a day, minimum.

I've switched to Amazon, and it's nicer. What does that tell you.

daemin4• 2 years ago

Thanks for the warning for when I return to Australia.

n1b0m• 2 years ago

Is this not illegal in Australia?

brabel• 2 years ago

Is Amazon bad? I bought a headphone from Amazon, which has just arrived in Sweden. Before that, I used almost every service for delivery here and they were ALWAYS terrible. They said 3 to 5 business days for delivery, and it took 6 business days. Every time. When they had the 1 to 2 days option (which was rare, and when they did it was expensive), it would never come within that timeframe either. I checked some Terms and Conditions and apparently they were within the law because they're allowed a few extra days due to unforeseen circumstances.

That's why I tried Amazon this time. For a small fee, they had "next day delivery". I tried it. God damn it worked! The very next morning my item was ready for pick up at the nearby grocer.

Signing up was extremely easy and to my amusement, they had the lowest price as well. I don't know, but so far I am thinking Amazon is very much the best in the business. I am extremely surprised they managed to be so efficient even in Sweden, despite every workplace regulation making efficiency a very difficult, if not impossible, goal to achieve.

tgsovlerkhgsel2• 2 years ago

This sounds like it both should and would land them on every anti-spam system's shitlist.

jadyoyster4• 2 years ago

WizzAir is even worse than Ryanair with dark patterns in my experience. Super annoying.

ndsipa_pomu• 2 years ago

Ultimately, I think the answer to this kind of customer abuse is for customers to avoid companies that do this, but as far as I know, all the airlines attempt to trick their customers.

shinycode• 2 years ago

I never booked Ryanair because of that reason

UK-Al05• 2 years ago

Ryanair is stupidly cheap. They probably don't make any money on the basic flight.

switch00712• 2 years ago

Though a lot of people honestly believe every Ryanair flight is £10 and that's not even remotely true

mrdevlar• 2 years ago

This is why we need stronger consumer watchdog groups that can combat this kind of behavior by the corpos.

lentil_soup2• 2 years ago

I always wonder about the people that implement this.

They surely know what they're doing, so, do they literally have meetings openly discussing where to put buttons to trick people? Am I just naive in thinking that's insane?

jan_Inkepa• 2 years ago

It's a cheap airline. Being slightly adversarial can still be worth the price for customers. As a customer I treat booking it a pretty low-stakes adversarial game and try to enjoy the deviousness. Worst case scenario is costs the same as a flight with a more normie airline. (I'm Irish, as is Ryanair, which may be a factor in my fondness ). Anyway, I guess the devs/designers are also playing the same game, just on the other side.

tetris11• 2 years ago

I'm guessing it works. You piss off the younger poorer generation, whilst capitalizing on the confused older generation with far more cash

lentil_soup2• 2 years ago

yeah, I guess it works because it exists, but I want to understand the mindset of the developers. Are they open about what they're doing or is there some cognitive dissonance where they manage to justify it?

sgbeal• 2 years ago

I always wonder about the people that implement this.

In my experience behind that curtain, it's not the developers, it's the marketing and sales people. Yes, they have such meetings, then they spend an inordinate amount of time trying to explain to the developers why that particular approach is "necessary," while the developers try to explain that jumping through three hoops cannot possibly be simpler (to implement or use) than jumping through a single hoop.

i literally had one such person come to me one afternoon and say, "we need you to add such-and-such to the website, but do it in such a way that we can remove it quickly if needed because it's not entirely kosher and our competitors will report it as soon as one of them sees it." When i asked why they bother to do it the answer was (i kid you not), "because we expect to make more money through this than we will have to pay in the resulting fines."

No joke.

i told him no, i wouldn't knowingly participate in that (and i knew that my boss would back me up, so wasn't concerned about my job), so he went to some other guy who wasn't as stubborn and talked him into it.

ryandrake• 2 years ago

i told him no, i wouldn't knowingly participate in that (and i knew that my boss would back me up, so wasn't concerned about my job), so he went to some other guy who wasn't as stubborn and talked him into it.

This is the big problem with standing your ethical ground in software: They'll just find someone else who has no ethical standard to do it. One of my first programming jobs was writing graphics card drivers, and I was asked to write code to cheat a benchmark (basically detect the benchmark was running and send the code into an alternate faster path). I was a junior developer at the time, but I worked up the courage to refuse to do it, thinking I'll probably be fired. Boss said "Hey, no problem, we'll give you other tickets to work on. Bob, over there said he has no problem writing the benchmark-cheating code!" So a lone voice of ethics is never going to change things when the company itself is unethical.

jounker2• 2 years ago

Ryanair is not an airline. It is a byzantine bureaucratic game that rewards successful completion with a cheap airline ticket.

septic-liqueur5• 2 years ago

Correct. And that game only ends when you step foot at the plane.

I've been on a Ryanair flight where I was first fined for not printing the ticket beforehand (of course printing it at the airport was already too late). Later, during onboarding, all passengers had to measure their trolley at the entrance to the plane in a very slim trolley frame that would not fit any regular trolley, only briefcases. My regularly sized trolley was too big to fit so I was fined again.

all in all, fines cost around twice the price of the ticket.

This was my first (and last) time flying Ryanair. Other passengers on that flight told me that they always get you once, but second time you know how to play the game...

inglor_cz• 2 years ago

Flying Ryanair definitely requires advanced preparations. That said, their traps are predictable and don't change much year-to-year. If you are aware of them and can prepare yourself, you can get really great bargains when flying around Europe.

closewith4• 2 years ago

Ryanair is the world's safest airline and revolutionised travel within the EU.

The majority of complaints are always like yours, not following the instructions and expecting flag carrier service from a discount airline.

alexanderchr• 2 years ago

When you book the ticket they make it quite clear that normal sized trolley bags are not included in the cheapest fare. Most LCCs in Europe do something like this nowadays, even some legacies…

Closing online checkin 2 hours before departure and then charging lots for airport checkin is crazy though.

daemin4• 2 years ago

I heard/read somewhere from some Stewardesses on those budget airlines that even though people get angry about being charged those additional costs, that they claim they will never fly again, that they actually continue flying repeatedly with the same budget airline. I think the term used was "hate flying", that you hate the extra charges you get but continue to fly because it is the cheapest.

arethuza4• 2 years ago

I actually don't think they are that bad - you just have to appreciate that when they have a maximum bag size (or some other arbitrary limit) they are entirely serious about it. And if you do break their rules they will try and charge you - but it's pretty easy to work within their rules so not a huge problem if you do some basic preparation.

golol• 2 years ago

Sorry but you just didn't inform yourself. The dimensions for the luggage are very clearly stated. Nowadays I would expect it to be common knowledge that when flying with a budget airline you have to pay attention to your luggage size and should have the boarding ticket QR code ready. For a small effort you get a small price.

c16• 2 years ago

The trick here is soft bags, or weekend bags. Hard bags with wheels always get checked, but soft weekend bags usually can get pushed in no problem. My partner had to pay because her bag fit "correctly" but the wheels did not. So - fair game to them - it didn't fit. Funnily enough, the charge was less than the online advertised price, so we still came out better off.

ssl2322• 2 years ago

And that game only ends when you step foot at the plane.

Actually, it ends only when you're off the plane at the destination. They continue to try to rinse you of your money on board with scratch cards (gambling), overpriced food and drink and duty free shopping, even making cabin announcements so you remove your headphones to listen thinking it's important.

Tenoke• 2 years ago

This is such an exaggeration. I fly with them, wizzair, easyjet etc. at least once a year each and I never have issues - I just press skip on every page that upsells me, same as I do on any other site including Amazon.

troupo• 2 years ago

Fascinating Aida, "No Such Thing as Flights for 50p" https://youtu.be/ZAg0lUYHHFc?si=KG2Y0r36d6X9bFBE

nolok• 2 years ago

Speaking of dark pattern, I recently resigned my dropbox sub and they have one of the most user hostile flow I've seen in quite a while, at least on a "legitimate" website. Given that they aim mostly for business and big business now, keeping this thing clearly meant to scare or confuse Random Joe felt very surprising to me.

I'm sure they have lots of numbers showing it's worth it, but I can't help notice that companies who know they are good and you need them tend to have a much easier unsub path, frictionless for many. It doesn't inspire huge confidence and very much confirmed my wish to unsubscribe.

robinsonb5• 2 years ago

I used to use DropBox quite a bit for file sharing directories of photos. I used to be able to upload them, create a shared link for the directory and just email that link - no need to invite specific people as collaborators, and the space used by the folder wouldn't be deducted from the recipient's quota.

They've since employed every dark pattern in the book to make that flow next-to-impossible, without having technically withdrawn it.

Yesterday they emailed me to say "We've noticed you're not using your DropBox account..."

myaccountonhn3• 2 years ago

Unsubscription options can just be awful. I remember being subscription to hbr and to unsubscribe the experience was just so awful, I just never want to subscribe to another news paper ever again.

Similarly I was also giving monthly to the mozilla foundation, and when I wanted to leave they had a bunch of patterns in place to try to stop me, it was just awful.

tyho• 2 years ago

This is like a very regressive tax policy. If you are high capability individual, you will sail through these screens and avoid adding extra charges, if you are a ... low capability individual, you won't be able to do that, and you end up subsidising the travel of those smarter than you.

nicbou2• 2 years ago

It's not a matter of intelligence, but it's definitely a modern form of "street smarts".

Obscurity4340• 2 years ago

"Series of tubes" smarts

exe342• 2 years ago

Or for me, a tax for ADHD.

pydry• 2 years ago

This is why I have started booking flights for my less tech savvy parents. Theyre terrified of the dark patterns.

As I understand it American medical care is quite similar.

Late stage capitalism isnt much fun. Far too many forms.

zeroCalories• 2 years ago

I find myself reluctant to go to the doctor, dentist, etc. because I always feel like they're trying to upsell me on some bullshit, or doctors that split treatment into multiple 15 minute visits to squeeze me as much as possible.

rpastuszak• 2 years ago

those smarter than you.

That’s such a terrible and unfair take.

Less tech savvy or more busy/tired people are not less smart than you. I can’t believe I actually have to put that in words.

bruce343434• 2 years ago

Just wait until GP is retired and old, they will finally garner some sympathy because by then they will themselves be "a ... low capability individual".

hiAndrewQuinn• 2 years ago

That's a fascinating take. Dark patterns as regressive tax, or equivalently, tech savviness as regressive credit.

Reminds me a bit of this old post: https://putanumonit.com/2018/08/09/jobs-inside-the-api/

jounker2• 2 years ago

This is after all the airline which inspired following musical number: https://youtu.be/FLoHL2O04aI?si=eNqNBRrbSQ_INQYy

Laaas• 2 years ago

The funny thing is I think they’d have more business if they just made it one (temporarily reversible) click.

lifestyleguru• 2 years ago

At least it's still possible to book over website. Wizzair disabled searching and booking over web browser with permanent "System maintenance". You're forced to use their mobile app, and always update the app to the latest version, and of course today their app shat itself.

aswerty• 2 years ago

The best of Ryanair dark patterns, that is now gone, was on the travel insurance. They forced you to select your country as if insurance was mandatory but you had to go and find the "No insurance" country so you could continue without insurance.

idk1• 2 years ago

Yes! I was suprised not to see this on the site, but I haven't used Ryanair for years so that explains it's gone.

If anyone is curious, "Don't Insure Me" was located alphabetically in the countries list between Denmark and Finland.

alinoe_• 2 years ago

Tip: Decline when they first prompt you about choosing luggage options. They will ask again later in the booking flow, and it will be cheaper. I only ever book cabin luggage with Ryanair and it worked every single time so far.

jadyoyster4• 2 years ago

IIRC the difference with the first option is that you get seat selection too, but in reality, only amongst the cheapest seats.

thn-gap• 2 years ago

Are there any examples of white hat hackers or similar fighting against stuff like this? Too much cyber harm is done to benign businesses and people already, so I wonder if there's ever some "for a good cause".

netsharc• 2 years ago

Some sort of browser extension that make users aware of the dark patterns would be interesting. As I write this I remember reading about one that removes them from booking.com:

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/bookingcalm/lihgcic...

If I had the anger, starting such a project would be interesting. If they start applying counter-measures (like randomizing CSS classes, like Zuckbook does), one can smile in glee that they're spending money paying some developer to fight you.

bux93• 2 years ago

This website doesn't even touch on the worst dark patterns. Ryanair will e-mail you and complain that you booked using a travel agent (like trip.com). Well yes, Ryanair itself put their flights on Amadeus! If you only want people to book directly using your site, then make a business decision to lose the outside business and don't complain to your customer like a toddler.

They then charge you to use an app to scan your ID, some ridiculously low amount like 60 cents. The transactions costs and the software maintenance on this integration must dwarf the actual revenue generated. But you need to do this for reasons, one of which apparently is that not doing it will add an even higher fee. This is nickel and diming by instinct rather than out of any rational thinking.

One side effect of all of these tacked-on fees and dark patterns is that the supposed perks lose any meaning. Everyone ends up paying for 'speedy boarding', so that the 'speedy boarding' actually takes longer than the people who board last. And even the 'speedy boarding' passengers won't be able to fit their bags on board.

I actively avoid (and told my SO to never book) Ryanair. None of the other low cost airlines are this bad. Literally Easyjet are easier to deal with. Easyjet also have dark patterns (literally, always look for the grey text..) but they don't go out of their way to make you suffer.

Also, how degrading is it for flight attendents to have to go around selling scratch cards? I'm sure Ryanair would have them go around selling fentanyl if it were up to corporate.

adalacelove2• 2 years ago

Boarding planes is the proof of our failure as a species. Something so easy made so complicated.

switch00712• 2 years ago

It's highly studied and highly optimised

Any appearance of complication just means the airline cares more about revenue

So, we're back to the age old debate and wonders of greed and capitalism

arethuza4• 2 years ago

"Everyone ends up paying for 'speedy boarding'"

That has never happened on any Ryanair flight I've been on.

fhd23• 2 years ago

I never understood why you'd want to be on the plane early. I don't really find it more comfortable on the plane than at the gate, and it's not like you're gonna take off faster than the last people to board. Almost feels like a trap to get people who don't fly often to pay a little more.

switch00712• 2 years ago

Because they limit it to 100 people. Because it's actually about guaranteed on board baggage in the lockers (in as much as Ryanair guarantee anything)

rsynnott5• 2 years ago

It very much depends on the route. If it's, say, Dublin/London (which is mostly business travel, over and back in a day or so), then you won't see much of this, but if it's to a holiday destination, you see it a lot because it allows you to bring on a 10kg bag instead of checking it.

robk• 2 years ago

Yet I can't ever think of a Ryanair flight I've seen go out with a single spare seat. There are plenty enough people who don't mind abuse of the save a few cents. Good luck to them. Keeps them off my flights.

BartjeD• 2 years ago

I think that for the average person, not represented on this website, it's actually very important to save money, and just suffer the cheapest option available.

oarsinsync4• 2 years ago

I've taken maybe 16 ryanair flights this year (it's the only airline that does the city combination I want), and more than half of those flights have gone mostly empty. Those flights were also the cheapest. The ones that went full were the most expensive.

So feel free to add my anecdote to yours, and derive nothing statistically significant besides that I fly a route that is only intermittently popular.

..I'm also flexible on dates so I deliberately book cheaper days, which may make for self selection in this way.

dangus2• 2 years ago

I find that the best way to avoid abuse is to fly first class. Plus, it includes free checked bags, champagne, and a nice curtain to hide the view of the peasants.

GJim5• 2 years ago

'speedy boarding'

More like speedy boarding (i.e. first to board) the bus that takes all passengers from the terminal to the aircraft!

lewispollard2• 2 years ago

At least the airports I frequently fly from, that's rare - you're walking from the gate down a bunch of stairs and then across the tarmac directly to the door.

thesimon• 2 years ago

Well yes, Ryanair itself put their flights on Amadeus

Pretty sure 99% of OTAs don't book Ryanair flights through Amadeus, but through screen scraping.

gruez• 2 years ago

Why?

dzhiurgis2• 2 years ago

Annoying way I've caught myself between Ryanair and agent. I didn't want to book layover flights myself (painful using Ryanair website) so I've used one of the agent sites.

If you wanna do online checking you need to login using email and not PNR+last_name like most sites. Of course agent used their email and flight was early enough that agent wasn't reachable by phone when my flight commenced. I had to pay 6x20 euro fee at airport for printing a boarding pass, which is a dark pattern by itself.

76SlashDolphin10• 2 years ago

The thing is you can't do proper layovers with budget airlines. Those third-party sites that try to make it happen are incredibly dodgy and if something goes wrong they have no legal obligation to offer proper rebooking since they are not required (and usually don't) have any sort of partnership with any of the airlines.

If I wanted to make a connection with a budget airline I would always allocate at least one night at the intermediary stop since you need to leave the duty-free area anyways, just in case something goes wrong. It's just not worth the risk.

bdjsiqoocwk• 2 years ago

I'm sure Ryanair would have them go around selling fentanyl if it were up to corporate.

Ryanair boss said that he'd buy all the 737 MAX he could get because for the right price people are still gonna fly. So yes, I'm sure they would sell fentanyl if they thought they could get away with it.

ramenbytes• 2 years ago

Door plugs are an up-charge.

throwaway7ahgb2• 2 years ago

>They then charge you to use an app to scan your ID, some ridiculously low amount like 60 cents.

They are probably not doing the IDV themselves, they are using a another service that charges per ID.

Now, it maybe ridiculous that they are passing the cost through, but it's actually interesting that it is a option that people can choose or not.

If they didn't do this, they would just increase the costs by 60c for everyone.

sbarre• 2 years ago

they would just increase the costs by 60c for everyone.

Which would be a better customer experience for everyone in the end and probably save time and money for Ryanair.

attendant34468• 2 years ago

They email you even if you book on their official website. And it happens all the time, every single booking I made last year. Their support says there's nothing they can do about it, you just have to keep verifying your identity.

sva_3• 2 years ago

They then charge you to use an app to scan your ID, some ridiculously low amount like 60 cents.

Where is this? I never had to scan an ID, just enter my details.

CaptainZapp5• 2 years ago

They then charge you to use an app to scan your ID, some ridiculously low amount like 60 cents

Huh? never had to scan my ID upon booking a flight. On rare occasions I had to submit my passport details. Usually for flights to the UK.

Within Schengen, I don't even have to show my ID to get into the transit area or to board the flight.

I never booked Ryan Air and I don't think I ever will. The whole experience sounds just too frustrating.

Ygor2• 2 years ago

Funny story on this hidden paid verification Ryanair does.

This is the thing: https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/lp/explore/verification-hub

Basically, you have to download a random third party app and provide some very sensitive data, including filming yourself.

I was once caught by this, even though I actually used Ryanair's site directly. My assumption is that it was due to a Cloudflare/VPN IP, so I might have looked like a bot.

I was pissed, more due to random third party app, vs 50 cents charge, so I decided to bluff and ping their support and start complaining.

I asked them to tell me exactly what caused my purchase to be tagged with this. I demanded I have the right to that data, and quoted things like GDPR and other consumer protection laws (e.g. hidden fees protections). After several layers of random agents sending me around, I got forwarded to some managers and folks with non-support titles (based on LinkedIn), as I kept pushing to get logs and details.

I wanted all data associated with this request, and all third parties that got access to my purchase details, quoting the part of ToS where I allowed for this...

Eventually, they admitted it's a vendor, they don't have details, and use a third party for detection. They said they have a whitelist and added my email to that whitelist so I never get miss-tagged as a bot.

I caved/sold out and didn't push further. I am still pretty annoyed that we are OK with companies doing this. (I understand I'm part of the problem as I ended up flying and only adding a bit of support load to their queue in the end)...

stogot• 2 years ago

So you only need to do this if you book third party right? If you book direct do you need to do this?

shever73• 2 years ago

And Ryanair’s “Priority” boarding service just means you get the privilege of standing around on the tarmac in the rain and cold for longer than non-Priority customers.

Other added Priority perks include being stared at disinterestedly from inside the warm, dry aircraft by the cabin crew, and being allowed to bring a bag that every other airline allows you to bring for free.

dabeeeenster2• 2 years ago

I can never understand why people pay for Priority boarding! Would you rather stand on a runway/in a gangway tunnel/sit in a plane seat as opposed to sitting in an airport waiting lounge? It absolutely blows my mind.

Most people with priority boarding also queue, standing, at the desk the moment they get to the boarding gate. WHY?! You have a seat already?!

xenocratus• 2 years ago

None of the other low cost airlines are this bad.

Have you heard of WizzAir? They're the only airline that have a flight landing close to my parent's city, so I have to fly with them to avoid an extra car ride that's as long as the flight.

They have this thing where, if they detect you searching for flights repeatedly from the same account / device, they impose an "administrative fee" for each passanger, for each flight, because presumably you're a robot. There is no way to get rid of said fee, unless you call them (for £1.5 per minute or so), and even that might take ages. And this isn't like £0.5, it's £8 per person, per flight.

I can only hope they go bankrupt and someone else takes that flight slot.

lippihom3• 2 years ago

I actually appreciate Ryanair for being transparently money grabbing because you consistently know what you're getting every time. They're very reliable and you can mentally budget in what you'll have to deal with.

Airlines like Lufthansa, United, etc for me are much worse.

JohnBooty• 2 years ago

I love that it's so unreliably trustworthy that it winds up being, in a way, trustworthy.

lippihom3• 2 years ago

Also Ryanair is the only thing keeping all the nationally subsidized airlines even somewhat honest when it comes to pricing. If they didn't exist, flying would be significantly more expensive. Glad they're here.

Tepix• 2 years ago

Is that like saying the Nazis are preferable over the Soviets because they are more consistently evil?

Fwiw, i disagree 100%.

throw__away73913• 2 years ago

I once bought the "fast track" option mentioned in the article for a Ryanair flight. The airport did not have fast track. When I asked for a refund, customer service told me that "it is the customer's responsibility to ensure that fast track is available at the airport they are flying from before purchasing".

GJim5• 2 years ago

Ummmm

They charged you for a service that was not provided. An online small claims court application will sort that out for you in a few minutes. (Presumably they assume you won't bother?)

In Blighty: https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome

throw__away73913• 2 years ago

Yeah, it was a matter of principle at that point, but fortunately my credit card resolved it for me in less than a day, but the belligerence of Ryanair was stunning.

Neil44• 2 years ago

When dealing with Ryanair you just have to consider them hostile and duplicitous and set your expectations accordingly in advance.

physicsguy2• 2 years ago

Ryanair are what they are. The reason every flight is so cheap in Europe is because of them. They've never pretended to be anything else other than a budget airline where any extras or conveniences will cost you extra. I've literally just checked in with an EasyJet flight and it's exactly the same patterns everywhere. Every other airline copied RyanAir because most passengers are highly price sensitive. The problem is that they're still not as cheap.

The 'not printing a boarding ticket' before you travel and being charged for it at the airport has been around since 2009: https://theguardian.com/money/2009/may/14/ryanair-online-che... so it's hard for people to feign ignorance of it.

GJim5• 2 years ago

The 'not printing a boarding ticket' before you travel and being charged for it at the airport has been around since 2009

That does not mean it is acceptable.

Treating passengers in a respectable civilised manner should be a given. Quite why we have sunk to thinking such shenanigans are acceptable will continue to puzzle me. If any other business tried this, you would tell them to swivel.

sva_3• 2 years ago

What's so difficult about checking in with the app? I found the situation pretty painless and you can go straight to security that way, if you don't have to check in any luggage.

76SlashDolphin10• 2 years ago

The old-school airlines never swindle you and they're still around. I'd much rather avoid a few dark patterns and save a significant cost of my ticket, and it seems like most of Europe agrees.

arp2422• 2 years ago

Treating passengers in a respectable civilised manner should be a given

Then pay more for an airline that provides that.

The RyanAir deal is pretty straight-forward: you will be treated like subhuman cattle, and in exchange you will have very low prices. They optimize many things to save costs, including having less staff for things like printing boarding tickets. They're fairly up-front about it and in general it's a fair deal. Whether you personally like that deal is a different matter.

eapressoandcats2• 2 years ago

People are very (and possibly irrationally) price sensitive to airline costs, so they are willing to put up with a lot compared with many other goods/services.

jajko4• 2 years ago

Strong disagree, there are other low cost airliners that have massively better user experience, not because they are stellar, its just that ryanair is rock bottom slump of shite and they often make you feel it when using them.

These days, even ie Swiss airlines often offer comparable prices for same routes. No free food or drinks, yet you are still treated like a human being with a speck of respect.

76SlashDolphin10• 2 years ago

The difference though is that Swiss' coverage is only from Switzerland, a very wealthy and well-managed country, to other major business and tourist destinations and can arguably run at a loss since it's a national carrier. Not every country can afford that - the only flights I can get from my small hometown of ~350000 are with budget airlines because the national carrier simply isn't competitive enough to be able to run profitable flights from there. Before they showed up the airport was effectively dysfunctional. Budget airlines have tremendously improved connectivity for less popular and less wealthy of the continent.

switch00712• 2 years ago

The reason is because the EU deregulated in 1992. Ryanair didn't invent low cost (that South West airline from 1949 can claim that I believe) and they also had serious competition from EasyJet, a low cost competitor, amongst others. If the EU didn't deregulate they would not have got very far.

Yes Ryanair are victors these days but let's not rewrite history

Lio3• 2 years ago

Ryanair is not straight forward, it's tricksy and only cheap if you hit the magic set of conditions that let you get the cheap deals at the cheap times.

What people object to is not the no frills concept but the

"ahaha you didn't opt for <insert obscured choice> so now you have to pay an extra €20 would you like to pay in GBP? That will £40 please or you're not getting on the flight home.

p.s. Our cabin bags are ever so slightly smaller than the standard every other airline uses and if yours don't fit it will another €50 surcharge."

situation.

usr11062• 2 years ago

I am lucky not having to fly with them since 2006 or so. I would only ever visit their web site if I am completely desperate and there is absolutely no other alternative transportation and I must travel

sparsely• 2 years ago

They've never pretended to be anything else other than a budget airline where any extras or conveniences will cost you extra

This part is not objectionable - it's the lack of transparency and attempts to trick you into paying additional fees that are worse than normal. Take booking.com as a comparison. They are very up front about costs and your expected costs for a stay booked via them will normally match up with what you see on the checkout costs and your actual final costs. That isn't the case for Ryanair

The 'not printing a boarding ticket' before you travel and being charged for it at the airport has been around since 2009: https://theguardian.com/money/2009/may/14/ryanair-online-che... so it's hard for people to feign ignorance of it.

Everyone has a first time travelling with Ryanair and some number of them will fall into this trap because they didn't know. This would be fine if people were intentionally making the choice to trade off the inconvenience (?) of checking in online vs at the airport but what % of people paying that fee did that? It would be easy for Ryanair to provide a more transparent customer experience here.

deanc• 2 years ago

I have to say having used Ryanair a couple of times in the last year - it’s not all that bad. In fact I’d say the booking experience and UX of the site is a lot better than many of their competitors.

As long as you pay attention and read the information given to you - and check in via the app - then it’s smooth sailing. The flights (on my route) are so cheap, that upgrading everything (best seats, priority boarding, fast track etc) is still about a third of the price sometimes of flying with other operators without any hand luggage.

JimWestergren• 2 years ago

Ryanair ... just recently I went with my 3 kids with them. I did a mistake in paying an adult ticket for my oldest son instead of teenager ticket. This small mistake made it impossible to do the checkin online. It was impossible to correct this mistake online, they referred to customer support which I was not able to reach at all despite many attempts. So I decided to do the checkin at the airport instead. After waiting around 30 minutes in the line I explained them why I was not able to do the checkin online. They then spent 25 MINUTES trying to solve the mistake, she had to make 3 phone calls and get help from her manager to try to change the ticket from adult to teenager. Of course I had to pay €30 per person for doing the checkin at the counter instead of online. I made it in time but the line at the checkin grew a lot as everyone was waiting to solve the issue. So stupid.

recroad• 2 years ago

I feel like this is the first time the author has booked a flight. These patterns are everywhere from car rental agencies to flights to hotel bookings.

tim333• 2 years ago

On the plus side if you are good at navigating the patterns Ryanair can be very cheap and the flights usually get you from A to B reasonably efficiently and on time.

I've used them loads of times and it's usually fine. Occasionally I get stung by something and extra charges like not checking in on time or misreading the baggage regs. Or changing my return date which is not really a dark pattern but often expensive. (sort of a dark pattern - the flights can be like £10 if you book ahead but if you need to delay your flight a day at the last minute you'll find they've gone to £200)

blackhaj7• 2 years ago

You certainly can’t be booking a flight through their site with your guard down.

The only positive of their site is that it actually works. I am always shocked that so many airline sites globally break, making it difficult to give them your money

koolba2• 2 years ago

Here’s the “table of fees”: https://www.ryanair.com/us/en/useful-info/help-centre/fees

One interesting ones that I was curious about ua the “infant fee”. Though I can’t see what exactly that is for.

Is that only if you want to put the infant in the overhead bin?

jajko4• 2 years ago

You don't pay for the ticket for infant, just a flat fee since infant doesn't take an extra seat but sits on parent's lap and uses special seat belt clipped into parent's one.

Which can end up being more expensive than regular ticket on rock bottom prices. Every airline has this up to 2 years, some actually charge more so that situation above becomes quite frequent.

koolba2• 2 years ago

I’ve never flown on any airline that charges for a lap infant. I don’t think the concept exists yet in the USA, even on budget carriers.

Who says Europe doesn’t innovate?

sva_3• 2 years ago

Pro tip: if you want a nice seat on a Ryanair flight, wait with the check-in until shortly before the deadline. Their 'random' seat assignment algorithm gives out the 'bad' seats first, in the hopes of being able to sell the 'better' ones. Only works if the flight is fully booked of course.

x11n• 2 years ago

Don't wait too long, though. I used to apply the same tactic, but once I missed the deadline by 5 minutes and had to pay €55 per person for check-in at the counter.

arp2422• 2 years ago

Just yesterday:

Collection of Dark Patterns and Unethical Design - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40993389 - Jul 2024 (70 comments)

pscanf• 2 years ago

I hate dark patterns like everybody else, but I have to say that - despite those - the Ryanair website still seems to me one of the best ones for booking a flight.

It might be because I got accustomed to it, but - while you indeed need to decline extra after extra - the overall process seems sufficiently clear and straightforward, and most of all both the website and the app are quick and bug-free (in my experience).

Other airline websites I've used in comparison are much much worse. Finnair, SAS, Swiss (Lufthansa), EasyJet, AirBaltic, LOT... much slower, clunkier, and buggier. (Again, in my experience.)

As for the actual experience of flying with them, of course it's not luxurious, and you need to accept that strictly enforcing their rules is how they can keep their prices down. So I'll go against the grain and say that I have no sympathy for the people that show up at the gate with two oversized bags and make a scene because they're asked to pay for them.

begueradj• 2 years ago

I agree 100%.

The first time I used it, I paid in the airport for the boarding pass. When I complained that I never paid for in other airline companies, I was told I did not have to pay for it if I read the email they sent me to print it 2 hours in advance.

But I received tons of emails from Ryanair every week before the flight. Advertisement emails which, at some point, I got tired of and stopped reading them: that's how I missed the email in which they asked me to print the boarding pass.

Not to mention that the paragraph in which they mentioned the boarding pass was itself a small portion of a larger advertisement email I still keep in my email inbox.

nicoco• 2 years ago

Recently I booked a ticket on Ryanair. To validate my account I had to turn on my camera, hold my ID card, then do a bunch of things the machine asked me, like spin my head to the left, etc. Next-level reverse-Turing test there. It really felt like my computer-master was making fun of me by giving me silly instructions. Computers were a mistake, I guess.

HumblyTossed• 2 years ago

It's pretty sad that there are developers willing to work on crap like this. Ethics much?

bunabhucan• 2 years ago

I just flew aer lingus and ryanair and both charged you to pick seats - but we didn't pay. Both flights were almost empty. Aer lingus algorithm gave our party an empty row each. Ryanair algorithim put us sitting next to strangers, surrounded by empty rows/seats.

dangus2• 2 years ago

I think that the customers who regularly fly low cost airlines understand the game being played here.

In the US we have the same situation with Spirit and Frontier.

If you’re well-informed you can fly for an incredibly low price on low cost airlines.

These low cost airlines punish customers who cost the airline in their biggest costs like labor and fuel. And, yes, they upsell on unnecessary upgrades.

One person’s dark pattern is another person’s opportunity to save.

I once met a guy on a Spirit flight who was taking his first flight ever to visit family where he’d normally drive an incredibly long distance to get there, but because the flight was so affordable he could cut his travel time. I don’t think he cared that the website had dark patterns because he couldn’t fly on a traditional airline as it was cost-prohibitive.

patall• 2 years ago

Interesting thread, with half of the complaints different from my experience. But I also put my bag in the overhead without paying for anything but the most basic ticket, so who knows.

Funny dark pattern that I found: When checking in on the app, they have copy&paste disabled. Hence, I need to enter booking code and email address manually. I next expect them to make the booking code longer (its only 6 characters), or reset when leaving the app, so that even more people fail at this task.

macromaniac• 2 years ago

Frontier airlines literally wouldn't let me check in to my flight back without paying 25$, I would just get a loading bar if I didn't select a seat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIw5WlBZ-ds

I tried every trick in the book, but in the end only dev console could save the day. It was a null reference exception on not buying a bundle...

rob74• 2 years ago

This screenshot is a real eye opener: https://hallofshame.design/content/images/size/w1000/2022/07...

So, if you want a check-in bag, you pay almost 50% more than the "value" price, and if you want the same level of service as with "legacy" airlines (except "fast track through security"), you pay almost double?

walthamstow4• 2 years ago

You can buy a check-in bag as a seperate, standalone purchase. You don't have to buy their 'plus' ticket tier.

casenmgreen• 2 years ago

Yes. I stopped flying RA after a problematic experience booking.

I find all airline bookings never work first time - usually three, four or five attempts are required.

RA bury deeply the option for automatic currency conversion at their extremely high rates, which is active by default.

On a third or so attempt to book, I managed to miss turning that off, and was accordingly ripped off, despite my explicit wish not for it happen.

If a company is actively, knowingly and willingly harming you, it's time to walk away.

FormFollowsFunc• 2 years ago

I think it's related to the business culture in Ireland. Interacting with local businesses here, they don't seem to have any problems with ripping you off. Irish people don't complain enough. Also there's no enforcement of the law. Ryanair gets brought to account by the British CAA (civil aviation authority) now and again because of it's dodgy practices never by the Irish one. Government has told it's regulators to have a soft touch on businesses so that the country is attractive to foreign companies.

th3w3bmast3r• 2 years ago

I swear it's only getting worse everywhere.

Ldorigo• 2 years ago

I got so angry with Ryanair's website experience that I'm now routinely paying >100% premium with other airlines to avoid having to deal with it. Off the top of my head:

- They make it sound as if you _have_ to choose a seat (and pay for that choice), to avoid this you must find a tiny text link (not button) somewhere hidden on the page

- All the worst/most expensive options pre-selected for you

- Randomly changing the saliency of the options that give you choice between premium (additional fee) choices and free choices; so that you'll almost certainly accidentally include an add-on you didn't want

- Dynamic pricing that changes depending on whether you've seen the page before etc.

- Ridiculous baggage policies/completely opaque costs for additional luggage depending on where and when you decide to add it to your booking

- At the checkout page, the currency/payment UI is so broken that I regularly had to go into browser devtools and send requests by hand just so I could complete a booking. Also currency exchange scam.

- Clicking on "search" (or was it "book"?) automatically accepts their shitty terms and conditions for you even if you don't click on the checkbox, which is probably illegal

I'm sure there were much more.

mizzao• 2 years ago

Is it bad that all these patterns seem pretty normal to me?

Though I think that last one was pretty ingenious — when they listed the price of the cheapest option as $78.76 but compared it to the markup of the other pricier options as $28.21, $37.81 etc.

tschumacher• 2 years ago

Unfortunately Ryanair left Frankfurt Airport. They consistently offered flights an order of magnitude cheaper than other airlines and I could reach Frankfurt airport directly by bus for free with my student ticket. This was the ideal way to go on vacation for me. I don't mind clicking "no thanks" a few times when it saves me 500 euros.

walthamstow4• 2 years ago

Funnily enough the buses/taxis/trains page in the checkout does actually hold a brilliant deal. You can get a National Express coach return to/from Stansted for about half the price that they sell it for on their own website, and it's needed too because Stansted Express trains are a ridiculously expensive monopoly.

childintime• 2 years ago

My major complaints are different:

- their country selector fails if it's not already set to the correct country. It is totally broken, as you might select something, and the result is another, or none at all. So sometimes it doesn't change the selection, at all, not until you've selected another random country first, after that it suddenly does respond to the needed country. This is enough to sometimes just give up.

But in fairness I always blame the folks from this site, and the sorry state of our profession! That's you folks, who have been corrupted to work for the highest bidder only, and never take out the trash! So we stand on an ever increasing pile of trash. Because as a collective we waste our time building, for example, linux, while it is an anachronistic piece of software, irrelevant. Shitware. We are quite autistic, as we place ourselves outside of society. We act like victims instead of citizens that work and wish for their environment to improve. Inevitably it doesn't appreciate us. It pushes the imposter syndrome.

- The seat becomes very uncomfortable over time. It seems the foam has degraded and lost its elasticity due to overuse. Bone on metal.

- There is no head rest for people that are above the median. So you see many, many people just giving up and resting their head on the seat in front of them.

But I like certain other things: no magazines, no security leaflets, no mess, the no nonsense execution.

The website is something I can solve myself, as they have not started to randomize the answers and the colors yet ;-)

All airlines have the same problems: the security theater, the over-crowding, the waiting, the air conditioning, the on-boarding, the lack of liquidity of the tickets (please let me sell the ticket or swap it). It's crap and Ryanair does at least as well as others. In fact I may even prefer dark patterns when the site works well otherwise.

smokel• 2 years ago

Ryanair is a great example of the ideology starting in the 1990s that individuals would want to spend every waking moment optimizing the most mundane purchases to save a fraction of a penny.

I hope we will soon get over this nonsense and enjoy a shared understanding that people are terrible at making decisions.

I'm not expecting the UX designers to lead the way here. Education perhaps? Better role models?

grishka2• 2 years ago

Reminds me of how Aeroflot, the Russian national airline, would sneak an insurance into your booking at the very last step, even if you skip right past all the additional steps (hotels, car rental, other bullshit) in the sidebar. They would "accidentally" add it to your order and you have to actively click "remove" to not throw several hundred rubles away. It's almost like they know that no person in their right mind would buy their "insurance for the duration of flight" so they have to push it like that because someone worked hard for that partnership.

cal85• 2 years ago

Ryanair is a prime example of a company that employs various manipulative techniques, known as "dark patterns," to increase its profits.

You can say "to increase its profits" about anything a company does. The problem with using dark patterns isn't the profit motive. The problem is it's coercing people through deception.

mcfedr• 2 years ago

Is this site generated by ai? Repeating the same words and making zero points

rldjbpin• 2 years ago

with budget airlines failing in NA, it is interesting to still hear about european ones still thriving because of geographical advantages.

it is a miracle that they are able to cope with high fuel prices and major airports feeling they are owed dollars for every dime made. but in the end it is just an illusion of low-cost. when the ticket's lowest far is 40 and you charge 46 for a cabin bag, might as well make the base fare 80 and call it a day?

Ryanair – when every page is a dark pattern

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