Item — HN Reader

"O’Leary accused the travel agent industry of scamming and ripping off unsuspecting consumers by charging extra fees and markups on ticket prices."

That is ... pretty rich.

A couple of years ago I was going to go see my brother in the UK who lived near Stansted. As such Ryanair would have been the most convenient airline. The shere number of dark patterns I encountered trying to book the ticket was such that when I got to the payment page and they tried to coax me into using my local currency instead of GBP and hid a £20 spread in the exchange rate I rage quit. I should have known better even then, but now I will only use them if I have literally no other choice. With luck that means "never."

I'm always happy to see the various EU competition authorities pushing back on this kind of thing.

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Ryanair used to do some things that were quite remarkably devious - the option to not by travel insurance was in the middle of drop-down list of countries!

To make sure I had remembered that correctly I looked it up and here is a description of it:

https://www.insurancetimes.co.uk/ryanair-to-change-hidden-tr...

NB I've travelled with Ryanair quite a lot and actually don't mind the actual flights but it is wise to manage expectations about the kind of company you are actually dealing with.

I have this example archived. Screenshots and explanation here: https://old.deceptive.design/trick_questions/

Conference video showing this example from 2010: https://youtu.be/zaubGV2OG5U?si=8PkLWhxHFSGQWuWw&t=597

It's not quite as bad as I expected (still bad), since it does at least clearly tell you how to not buy it, in normal size type even. Except then they decided to make it out of place alphabetically (and it seems to have moved at least once, since the other article says it was "between Denmark and Finland" because it was sorted under "don't").

Cool website. It’s a pity it’s no longer a wiki. Perhaps if you used the extension RequestAccount with a restriction of editing to only confirmed users you would be able to keep it a wiki.

Yea quite devious, in a weird way I suppose the dark patterns also serve as an IQ test that favors younger tech-literates who are familiar with web patterns and are also on a budget (though not all).

I used Ryanair a lot while studying abroad in Europe and the €20 flights were real if you jumped through the hoops, which was quite magical.

I once had a flight booked to Paris, but it landed in an airport 2 hours outside of Paris and the train/bus would’ve been 2x the flight cost, so being short of money I just didn’t take the trip and lost €20 :)

The dark patterns favor the patient readers who are able to think through and make informed choices. That wouldn’t be most of the younger tech literates.

> However he disagreed that the ‘don’t insure me’ option was hidden, and said that 98% of Ryanair’s passengers could “find a way to decline insurance”.

I'm not surprised, but still a bit impressed by the ability to lie like this. Somehow I doubt even 9% of their passengers would know it was between Denmark and Finland.

Even in that quote 2% of people are possibly scammed out of their money, which is probably tens or hundreds of thousands of people.

You can use keyboard to navigate a dropdown box by typing initial letters.

I remember when they were seeking approval to provide blow jobs on flights (free in business class iirc.) The only thing that they won’t up charge. They even tried to get approval to charge for bathroom access.

Wild company, but they are entirely on brand.

To be fair, consumers have driven airlines this way. They’ve shown that they’ll buy based almost entirely on price and suffer any amount of agony in exchange.

I just don’t find basic economy or early flights or shitty airlines worth the bad stress.

The advantage of Ryanair and a lot of the other low cost carriers is that they do a lot of point to point flights between regional hubs - for example we flew Edinburgh to Marrakesh with them a few years back which was fine and I think they were the only airline offering direct flights. Going via Heathrow, Gatwick or CDG would have been a nightmare and we were only going for a few days.

I assumed you were making some poorly executed joke, but no!

https://www.smh.com.au/national/ryanair-ceo-talks-free-sex-o...

> He then asked the translator the German word for oral sex. After being told there wasn't one, he remarked "terrible sex life in Germany".

I Will always be grateful to Ryanair for having allowed young me to travel cheaply, and I accepted most dark patterns, but I draw the line at the fact they appear to force you to book near seats when traveling with minors, even tho, by law, they have to allocate seats to you like that.

I’ve told people this before as I distinctly remember it being a thing and no one ever believes me!

> they tried to coax me into using my local currency instead of GBP and hid a £20 spread

I’m finding this more and more. Uber does it, and even Walgreens does it when I’m in the US and tap my card it suggests that I pay in my home currency. This seems to be a new vector companies have found for ripping off their customers.

What really pisses me off is that this stuff is annoying and sometimes fools us, tech savvy people on a hacker forum. I can't imagine how many elderly/non-techie people are being fleeced out of their money because of these kind of dark patterns.

Yup. Reminds me of how my dad would do his taxes at H&R Block, and then every year take out their “refund anticipation loan” (despite not having some big urgent expense). They deduct their overpriced tax prep fee and a healthy 150%APR interest payment from the proceeds but you get the money same day. You could just not do that and still have your refund in like a week. The APR is unconscionable given they did the taxes — they can be nearly certain your refund will arrive. But they just gloss over those details, probably by saying “Do you want your refund today, or wait on the IRS? With the Today option you can also just deduct your tax prep fee from the refund and not pay out of pocket.” I have a feeling they get a LOT of people with that scam.

This isn't anything new though. Been like that for the last 15 years at least. Always pay in the local currency (your bank/visa/mastercard will give you a better rate then the merchant)

When O'Leary accuses others of "scamming and ripping off unsuspecting consumers", what he really means is that only Ryanair should have the right to scam and rip off Ryanair passengers...

Years ago when paying with PayPal, there were 2 choices - for them to convert currencies or to rely on my bank to convert them. There was a warning that if I chose the second option, it could cost a lot. Turns out, with my bank the conversion was good and with PayPal's conversion I'd lose like 10%.

Stuff like that is what I say "years ago" - I haven't used PayPal for a while now, and I won't use it again.

Point of sale terminals also do this when travelling - it wasn't especially surprising, just one straw too many.

Of course foreign exchange offices have been doing this scam since forever ("no fees!")...

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Edit - note that with a bureau d'exchange my objection is not that they charge for the exchange; clearly that is the exact business that they are in. It's the "no fees" etc. marketing that hides from the less astute punters exactly how (and how much) they are paying for the service. I'd like to see that outlawed and direct costs of the exchange up front (e.g. "Exchange £100 for $121.5 at a cost of £10 compared to the base rate")

I see the opposite quote a lot.

Advertised “No Fee” currency conversions, but a HUGE spread built into the conversion rate that comes out to a massive fee.

ATMs all over are like this. Very annoying. I have to decline conversation all the time. The ATM conversation rate is usually 15-25% markup. No thanks, my bank charges nothing, just passes on the Visa 1% fee for fx.

The big scam is some terminals are configured with 17% forex fees (looking at your shady restaurants in Budapest), really funny when it's paired with tips in an EU country.

But this is why Revolut and WISE cards are a god send when travelling, just load them up with the local currency and these issues disappear.

This is pretty much everytime in Europe, not sure if the local terminals or the chase chip card always prompts me to pay with 1) USD 2) EURO

Do they suggest that you pay in your home currency, or do they give you the choice to select on the ATM? Only once a cashier made a suggestion and it was to warn me of the spread and that generally it'd be better to do it in USD and let my bank do conversion.

The funny thing is that, at least for American consumers, there’s a good chance you’ll get mildly scammed by using your card in a foreign currency due to a 3%—4% junk fee that is common (I’d estimate 80% of non-premium cards have it). So the discovery of the “let us, the merchant, convert for you” scam has allowed merchants/payment networks to in some cases “steal” the scam from the card issuer (the card issuer then won’t take a fee if it’s in USD, but someone takes a fat margin on the currency). They’re all scumbags, all looking for ways to grift.

It’s been like that when visiting Europe for years now.

I mean American companies have done the "$1000, well that's also £1000 then!" bullshit for ages.

I’m not defending this behaviour with Ryanair, but this is not unique to them at all. It’s an industry “standard”. I’m Irish but live in the UK - when we make card transactions it asks what currency we want to pay in, and hides the exchange rate spread.

> I will only use them if I have literally no other choice

Even with the £20 increase they were likely cheaper than the alternative, if it exists. If this is going to push you into not using them, basically every other airline will be ruled out for you. EasyJet are exactly the same. BA/KLM/Air France/Aer Lingus are all the same on their short hop flights (I’ve actually never flown Lufthansa so I can’t comment on them). The short haul European routes are a race to the bottom.

To be clear, the currency scam was a last straw, not the major dark pattern.

When you compare list prices for flights with them versus almost any other airline you are comparing apples with oranges. The only way to figure out exactly what you'll pay is to go through the entirety of their checkout procedure. My experiences with those other airlines for short haul flights are quite different.

I also hate that it continues through the whole flight. I don't want to find out I have to pay to have my boarding pass printed, or that I need to pay for a glass of water on the plane. The other carrier might be more, but the things that come in the bundled fare make the trip easier with less friction points.

> Even with the £20 increase they were likely cheaper than the alternative, if it exists.

Honestly, on many routes, I think this is true far less often than it used to be.

The one I found most devious was the ATMs in Stansted that offers to pay out Euro. I was going to Spain and knew I would need some cash on arrival, so I thought I could save a bit of time. They had cleverly swapped the exchange rate so in big letters they showed a reasonable figure, like 0.85 and then in smaller type in the corner showed that actually it was in favour of Euros, so you would pay over 350 pounds for 300 euros. I luckily realised in time, but I expect a lot of people don't. Also it's drilled in from the bad old days that you need to take out cash before going on holiday to avoid being scammed. A whole exploitive service industry seems to exist solely on that misconception.

The only place in I've had any troubles paying with card (or easily find a cashmachine) in recent time have been Turkey outside the big cities.

Ryanair was fastest airline when refunding tickets at start of pandemic. Lufthansa just ghosted me.

OTAs were blocked because they just run scam, and Ryanair customer supports had many problems with dealing with them.

Some example from Kiwi:

- if flight gets cancelled and refunded, OTA pockets the refund, does not give anything to custemer

- OTA does not provide customer with email used to make booking. Makes any changes like extra luggage or seat difficult

- If flight gets rescheduled, OTA may not inform customer

- Not possible to add extra child etc...

I would only use OTA like Kiwi when booking flight in very exotic country, and I have no idea how to checkin in chinese.

Wow, not my experience of Ryanair at all! I was only able to get a refund by calling my bank and opening a section 75 dispute.

In fact i find Ryanair booking page the most smooth in user experience out of all major airlines. I am mostly tied to Aegean because i have a top loyalty level, and it is incredibly frustrating to go through extremely slow loading pages, page after page, to do every trivial task, and having to enter SMS OTP on every step. With Ryanair is't one and done, i barely remember it. And every action is blazing fast, pages load in a blink, no spinners.

> coax me into using my local currency instead of GBP and hid a £20 spread in the exchange rate

BoFA does this for international wires as well. And I suspect a lot of companies do this to their international customers too. Unfortunately, it’s become pretty standard

It's easy to book a Ryanair ticket without being upsold. You select the ticket, probably add a bag for about £40, skip the car rental and hotels screens etc, then book. What's the problem?

So you're using Ryanair's own-issued payment card, to avoid the mandatory fees it charges for every other payment option?

You forgot to mention picking the "No I don't need travel insurance" option shoved in the middle of the list of travel insurance prices, which defaults to you buying travel insurance from Ryanair.

Do you already have their spyware app installed and tracking you on your phone, to avoid being charged £50 for a plain boarding pass which you print yourself?

You're describing some other airline's website, surely. If you'd used Ryanair's site you would not be unaware of its fuckery.

It's during the "etc" that I start to get pissed off personally. YMMV

(The number of upsells is such that it made a song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id-zzOGnN6A )

Scamming is, sadly, a common practice now for many services. I think the first time I saw it was on Expedia, before the pandemic, when prices started going up at each step.

I still don’t know why all these dark patterns are simply not illegal. What happened to consumer rights? It be a such a widespread practice, I think we will look back at this at one point and will say things akin “how did we let people smoke in planes”. One of those things utterly ridiculous in hindsight

I mean, it does seem relevant that this thread is for an article about them being fined a quarter-billion Euros, so they very much did break the law and the law very much does have teeth.

Right. O'Leary is an antihero at best and a villain at worst.

He's very good at marketing his airline (often with outrage inspiring press releases) and very good at finding ways to squeeze more blood out of the stone of budget travellers. I don't really care whether he's "good" or "bad" but I would like to see the regulators shut down more of these aggressive tactics as they emerge.

Ryanair does lots of shitty things, but I dont see why an airline should be forced to resell to shitty agencies taking a an unecessary cut instead of consumers buying directly with the Airline.

I actually wonder how much traffic they lose this way. My employer doesn't allow me to book with them because the agent doesn't list them. Even though I want to go to Cambridge, quite annoying.