9 ms·

Ryanair – when every page is a dark pattern

• ssl232 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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
    • myaccountonhn 2y ago
      Damn, I didn't know this, that's insane. I've been paying with the converted currency for ages. Thanks for sharing.
    • attendant3446 2y 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.
      • mrguyorama 2y ago
        >You can't do without airports and airlines, but why PayPal still exists in 2024 - I don't understand. What don't you understand? In the US, the party that says "the government should not interfere with business" wins a lot of elections and the party that says "the government should protect consumers from corporate harm" wins way fewer elections. So we have almost no consumer protections, so it's largely not illegal or risky for a business to fuck over their consumers which is very profitable so most businesses fuck over their consumers in various ways.
        • mardifoufs 2y ago
          Yeah it's the US's fault if a corporation misbehaves in Europe. It's so sad that Europe cannot legislate or do anything about it. PayPal is just inevitable I guess. Wait no, Europe is more than capable of doing that but they don't care about it either. Hence why they also don't do anything against Ryanair. Oops!
        • attendant3446 2y ago
          What does this have to do with the government? My point was that PayPal is terrible and why is there no widely used alternative to it? I know there are alternatives, but usually only about 5 people use them. And somehow in Germany (and it seems in the US too) everyone still uses PayPal.
      • NavinF 2y ago
        >why PayPal still exists in 2024 Because they have a ton of users. People who don’t have credit card numbers saved on autofill so PayPal is more convenient. People also think it’s safer because the website doesn’t see your card number
    • danielfoster 2y ago
      This infuriates me because it’s automatic if a merchant has “fast checkout” enabled.
  • coopierez 2y ago
    Also seen on Booking.com.
  • switch007 2y 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
    • VBprogrammer 2y 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.
      • switch007 2y ago
        > I'm not sure what would motivate someone handing you a card reader to try to cheat you Immense pressure from their boss? The first few times I let it go, wanting to believe an honest mistake, but when it started happening so frequently, I realised _someone_ in the chain is trying to scam me.
        • VBprogrammer 2y ago
          Anyone below an international corporation isn't getting cut in on the benefits. Maybe the big hotels and car rental (being large enough for the card companies to negotiate such a thing with in addition to having a significant enough percentage of foreign card transactions) services would see some benefit from that but I don't think most places would care. There is always the other side that, although it's not a competitive exchange rate, at least you know the exact amount in your home currency. Also, I never remember which cards have foreign currency fees so it is a bit of a wash.
    • np- 2y 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__away7391 2y 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 2y 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.
    • CaptainZapp 2y 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 2y 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.
    • usr1106 2y 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.
  • throwaway7ahgb 2y 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.
    • eapressoandcats 2y 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.
  • lippihom 2y ago
    Unfortunately common practice across a few industries. Ryanair has been doing this for a while (and still do).
• surfingdino 2y ago
  yandex? Are Yandex employees free to travel around Europe? Interesting.
  • MissTake 2y ago
    IIRC @yandex.com is the free email domain they offer.
    • grishka 2y ago
      It is. The employee work emails are @yandex-team.ru
  • rasdbiouqwb-123 2y ago
    Of course. The denial rate for schengen visa for Russians hasn't even become lower
    • throwaway3306a 2y ago
      Weird, considering there are entire countries that stopped giving them out.
      • surfingdino 2y ago
        They will always have a safe haven in Germany and Austria.
        • throwaway3306a 2y ago
          Yeah, true... There is currently a big anti-EU/Schengen backslash in my state because we can't control entry of Russians that got the visa elsewhere. Which is a problem as we stopped giving them out because they acted as if we were the next in line for invasion.
        • deleted 2y ago
          [deleted]
        • 2y ago
• nicbou 2y 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.
  • surfingdino 2y 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.
    • MissTake 2y 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.
      • surfingdino 2y ago
        You save nothing. There's a manager who needs to show more people switching to online accounts and they want to achieve it by brute force.
        • scrlk 2y ago
• 0x26res 2y 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.
  • School-Cotton 2y 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__ 2y ago
  Meanwhile: the Ryanair app actually works, unlike many others. EasyJet App is slop, the BA app is total shite.
  • brnt 2y 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__ 2y 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.
  • switch007 2y 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
    • NoboruWataya 2y 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 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.
      • switch007 2y ago
• daemin 2y 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.
  • jen729w 2y 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.
    • daemin 2y ago
      Thanks for the warning for when I return to Australia.
      • jen729w 2y ago
        Wait till you see what happened to Dick Smith. https://www.dicksmith.com.au/da/shop/?q=shoes https://www.dicksmith.com.au/da/shop/?q=shoes It's just a Kogan skin. As is Matt Blatt, formerly furniture. Really weird.
    • n1b0m 2y ago
      Is this not illegal in Australia?
      • jen729w 2y ago
        Probably. I don’t think they care. https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2021/kogan-spam-draws--310-800-fine.html https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2021/kogan-spam-draws--310-800...
    • brabel 2y ago
• ndsipa_pomu 2y 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 2y ago
    I never booked Ryanair because of that reason
• UK-Al05 2y ago
  Ryanair is stupidly cheap. They probably don't make any money on the basic flight.
  • switch007 2y ago
    Though a lot of people honestly believe every Ryanair flight is £10 and that's not even remotely true
• mrdevlar 2y ago
  This is why we need stronger consumer watchdog groups that can combat this kind of behavior by the corpos.
• lentil_soup 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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_soup 2y 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?
      • durnygbur 2y ago
        [dead]
  • sgbeal 2y 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.
• jounker 2y ago
  Ryanair is not an airline. It is a byzantine bureaucratic game that rewards successful completion with a cheap airline ticket.
  • septic-liqueur 2y 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 2y 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.
    • closewith 2y 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.
      • switch007 2y ago
        > revolutionised travel within the EU. In which ways? Apart from the low cost part and making flying utterly miserable now. It's not like he invented a new type of airplane IMO they just forced other airlines to cut product and service to the bone. A tight, business-savvy guy spent all his waking hours figuring out how to further screw passengers (and continues to do so) I do wonder if EU261 would have been required without low cost airlines. > expecting flag carrier service from a discount airline. Flag Carriers are all low-cost for short/mid haul now (and to an extent long-haul), as they've been dragged in to the gutter by Easyjet and Ryanair
• jounker 2y ago
  This is after all the airline which inspired following musical number: https://youtu.be/FLoHL2O04aI?si=eNqNBRrbSQ_INQYy https://youtu.be/FLoHL2O04aI?si=eNqNBRrbSQ_INQYy
• Laaas 2y ago
  The funny thing is I think they’d have more business if they just made it one (temporarily reversible) click.
• nolok 2y 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 2y 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..."
  • myaccountonhn 2y 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 2y 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.
  • nicbou 2y ago
    It's not a matter of intelligence, but it's definitely a modern form of "street smarts".
    • Obscurity4340 2y ago
      "Series of tubes" smarts
    • exe34 2y ago
      Or for me, a tax for ADHD.
      • adalacelove 2y ago
        We all pay, you find harder to pay in attention instead of money, but either way it's a cost on society
        • exe34 2y ago
          i end up paying the higher price instead of attention which I do not have. just recently I got given a deliveroo voucher, which I added to my account. there's no way to figure out how much is left at any time, unless you're about to commit to an order. I ordered some food, thinking I'll pay with the free credit - nope, I missed the bit where you have to change the payment option from card to voucher credit.
  • pydry 2y 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.
• lifestyleguru 2y 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.
• thn-gap 2y 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 2y 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/lihgcicimndjcfapacikhepdjichnepm 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.
• alinoe_ 2y 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.
  • jadyoyster 2y ago
    IIRC the difference with the first option is that you get seat selection too, but in reality, only amongst the cheapest seats.
• aswerty 2y 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 2y 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.
• bux93 2y 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.
  • adalacelove 2y ago
    Boarding planes is the proof of our failure as a species. Something so easy made so complicated.
    • switch007 2y 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
      • attendant3446 2y ago
        Exactly, it's all about revenue. Not only for the airlines, but also for the airports. It's intentionally inconvenient so they can make a lot more money.
• throw__away7391 2y 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".
  • GJim 2y 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 https://www.moneyclaim.gov.uk/web/mcol/welcome
    • throw__away7391 2y 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 2y ago
  When dealing with Ryanair you just have to consider them hostile and duplicitous and set your expectations accordingly in advance.
• physicsguy 2y 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-check-in https://theguardian.com/money/2009/may/14/ryanair-online-che... so it's hard for people to feign ignorance of it.
  • GJim 2y 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_ 2y 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.
      • GJim 2y ago
        > What's so difficult about checking in with the app? You <------> My point Simply put; what is so difficult about not adding excessive charges to passengers? And why are you trying to justify this?
        • 76SlashDolphin 2y ago
          It is difficult because having attendants print boarding cards or working with an airport to maintain ticket printers costs money that eats into their margins and increases prices. It's not like they don't warn you that checking in at the airport is paid. I'd much rather save 1€ and check in the way I usually would, even if it means someone who can't read a few warnings has to pay a fee.
• deanc 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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
• koolba 2y ago
  Here’s the “table of fees”: https://www.ryanair.com/us/en/useful-info/help-centre/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?
  • jajko 2y 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.
    • koolba 2y 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?
      • deleted 2y ago
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• sva_ 2y 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 2y 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.
• arp242 2y ago
  Just yesterday: Collection of Dark Patterns and Unethical Design - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40993389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40993389 - Jul 2024 (70 comments)
• pscanf 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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 2y ago
  It's pretty sad that there are developers willing to work on crap like this. Ethics much?
• bunabhucan 2y 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.
• dangus 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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 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 2y ago
  This screenshot is a real eye opener: https://hallofshame.design/content/images/size/w1000/2022/07/image-4.png 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?
  • walthamstow 2y ago
    You can buy a check-in bag as a seperate, standalone purchase. You don't have to buy their 'plus' ticket tier.
• casenmgreen 2y 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 2y 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 2y ago
  I swear it's only getting worse everywhere.
• Ldorigo 2y 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.
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• mizzao 2y 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 2y 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.
• walthamstow 2y 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 2y 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 2y 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?
• deleted 2y ago
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• grishka 2y 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 2y 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 2y ago
  Is this site generated by ai? Repeating the same words and making zero points
• rldjbpin 2y 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?