Damn you, Ryanair!

So we've all heard about the devious, diabolical way that Ryanair treats customers like cattle, refusing refunds for anything and considering charging passengers to use the toilets on-board. But you can't deny that sometimes they are the cheapest way from point A to point B, and that their "FLY FOR £1" ads are pretty damn enticing. I've never flown Europe's love-to-hate budget airline, but yesterday I bought my first ticket with them and I can honestly say they are RIGHT BASTARDS.

The Irishman are headed back to Dublin at the end of February for a wedding (what, back so soon?) and hoped to find some dirt cheap flights due to the fact that the Irish rugby team and all of their fans would be in England for the Six Nations rugby match. But the major airlines never got that memo and all of the flights were upwards of £70 roundtrip. On a whim, I checked Ryanair and low and behold, flights on the dates we were looking to travel were all of £35 roundtrip including all of the ridiculous fees they tack on at checkout. So we decided to lower our standards just this once, and went ahead to book.

Well! The Irishman's payment was accepted just fine but when I pressed "Purchase" it took me to a screen saying my payment couldn't be processed and that I had entered my credit card information incorrectly. I freaked out, naturally, as Ryanair won't do anything nice for anyone and I didn't want to get charged twice; there would be no hope of a refund! So I pressed back to reenter my credit card info and correct the mistake, but the boxes for payment entry were greyed out. I checked my email, no confirmation email, and proceeded to start the whole process over. THAT was when I found out that the whole reason it didn't work the first time is because there were no seats left for that price! When I went to select my return flight the second time, the original price of £14.99 was no where to be seen and it was replaced with seats for £21.99! RUBBISH! This time of course my payment (which was 100% correct the first time) was processed just fine and my flight cost, roundtrip, £42 total.

Okay, I know it isn't exactly a big increase - a whopping £7 - but it's the principle of the thing. Not only was the price of my flight selection more money, but so were all of the other flights that day priced higher as well. Ryanair doesn't have to be so sneaky; I mean, luring people in and then switching the cost of a flight leg during the checkout process is wrong. I always knew they were ruthless, but frankly, Ryanair is just mean. Hmph. I'll remember this, O'Leary. Your Irish eyes are NOT smiling!