Be prepared and travel light on budget. Image taken by panS
The cost of additional fees charged by budget airlines have soared recently, so keep this in mind if you are planning to take a ‘budget flight’ this summer.
In particular, fees currently charged by Ryanair include:
- Administration Fee of £5 for each flight leg purchased
- First bag check-in fee of £15 each way, unless you happen to travel in July or August in which case you’ll pay an additional £5 since it’s “peak rate”
- Second bag check-in fee of £35 each way, or £40 during “peak” times (up from £20 last year)
- If you make the mistake of not booking with ryanair.com, you’ll pay £35-£40 to check-in the first bag and a shocking £70-80 to check in a second bag depending on the month you choose to travel
- Check-in fee of £5 each way (you must check-in online), and if you book via a call centre or the airport and forget your boarding pass you’ll pay a £40 ‘Airport Boarding Card Re-issue’ fee
- Musically minded or sporting folk are punished with a £40 each way for transportation of equipment
Don’t even think about taking more than 15kg per bag, or you’ll be stung by an unstated fee per extra kilo at the airport.
And as usual, you’d better not make any changes to your flight after booking as it costs £25 to change your flight and a whopping £100 for a name change with Ryanair.
So whilst you may be able to get a bargain flight for a few quid, watch you don’t get stung on the extras when it comes to travelling.
We are planning to add a fee calculator feature to our multi-modal travel search engine, so we’ll help you understand the full cost of flying ‘budget’. [If this is something you'd value, speak up and we'll move it up our priority list.] Furthermore, because we calculate the door-to-door cost and duration of a route, we factor in any pricey transfer costs sometimes associated with flying to a budget airport which could be a fair distance from your destination.
- Posted by Rachel
