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Comment by som | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

> In Australia most of this kind of borderline deceptive selling has been stepped on, to the point that you hardly see it any more.

Yeah most of the EU steps on this but Ireland is deep in the pockets of big tech. Their privacy regulator is really weak for example, on purpose. That's why all the big techs have their HQs there.

I guess this attitude extends to Ryanair too. We have this thing in the EU where companies need to be legislated in only one member state but some like Ireland abuse this privilege for national gain. It's not just Ireland though. Holland facilitates EU tax dodging with them, Malta sells EU passports to rich foreigners etc.

Spain does sometimes still manage to put the thumbscrews on them though. Like banning charging for hand luggage.

Booked one a few months ago. Triple read everything before clicking anything and managed to get through it without adding anything extra, only needed carry-on that was included. Hard to tell if some things are required or not, usually well hidden free option somewhere. Then if you try to check in to early you must pay, but if you do it just 24h before it's free.

Last time I had close call with a slightly oversized backpack (but not overly full so could easily fit) and they pointed out that some straps we're sticking out through the openings in their thing which I had to push back in...

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