A dad was left fuming after having to pay an extra £270 to fly home on his £1,400 all-inclusive holiday. He enjoyed a five-night all-inclusive holiday in Spain.
But he and three other passengers were each hit with a £30 check-in fee and a £38 cost to load their bags on board. He said they had been told they had to check in online for the flight from Palma to Manchester.
The dad, who wished to remain anonymous told the MEN: "The holiday was brilliant and we had no problems when flying from Manchester to Palma. But when we went to check-in at Palma airport on our flight back, we arrived over two hours before our flight, only to be told, 'you have got six minutes to check-in'.
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"They couldn't find my booking. The woman at the check-in desk tried to help, but my email address that I had used to book everything with (online travel agent) On The Beach, didn’t work. It kept saying there was no booking available.
"Then the airport staff charged all four of us £30 each to check in. We were absolutely fuming. We didn't have to pay that at Manchester.
"It’s a lot of money to pay. We didn't have any spare cash, so my friend had to pay on her credit card. We are still trying to pay that back. I'm a full-time dad, so any money I lose is less money for my son."
The party had booked the £1,300 four-day holiday through online travel agent On The Beach, which included £475 Ryanair return flights, four-star hotel and bus transfer. They were then stunned to discover that there was a £30 charge for each passenger to check in, which the dad claimed they had not been informed about beforehand.
After they checked in, the group faced another £38 charge to check in their bags, as they had not booked priority boarding tickets for the flight. However, On The Beach insist the passengers were warned that failure to check in online could result in airport check-in fees, in line with Ryanair's policies.
He said the experience of flying back to Manchester was "stressful" as they were not expecting further charges. He added: "We had to pay extra just to take our bags on the flight. So we paid hundreds of pounds for the four of us just to get back to Manchester.
"The Palma airport staff said they couldn't do anything about it and that is just the rule. It was hard to communicate with them about it because they were Spanish, so there was a language barrier. All of us were stressed out. None of us had our bags with us because they got taken off us and put under the plane with the big bags.
"I don't understand why Ryanair seem to have this impression that people can go on holiday for a few days with just a handbag or just a backpack." He added: "It was literally when we got to the airport in Spain and we basically got told ‘if you don’t pay, you are not allowed your bags on the flight’.
"It was the same with the check-in. They said ‘if you don’t pay the £30 for the check-in, you can’t get on the flight. You’ll have to book another flight.'"
He said more transparency is needed so that passengers could have been prepared for the extra charges. He added: "They need to stick to one rule at every airport. They can’t have one rule at one airport and one rule at another.
"I would much rather they told us when we were flying out at Manchester Airport, rather than be forced to pay money to get my own clothes back to England."
A spokesperson for Ryanair said: “The issues these passengers encountered is a direct result of having booked their flights through an unauthorised online travel agent (OTA). Ryanair has no commercial relationship with any OTA’s and in this instance, the OTA failed to advise the passenger of Ryanair’s online check-in and baggage policies, resulting in them being correctly charged an airport check-in fee of £30 per passenger at Palma airport and a gate bag fee of £38.
"Ryanair urges customers to always book directly, as OTAs may provide Ryanair with incorrect email addresses, contact and payment details, which block Ryanair from communicating directly with the customer to share essential flight information and updates, including check-in prompts, potential departure time changes, delays, cancellations, and refund updates.”
On The Beach "strongly rejected any suggestion that we provide false or misleading information to Ryanair or to our customers". A spokesman for the online travel agent added: "Our communication with Mr Catton provided all of the flight information needed to check-in online including reference number, unique email address and baggage allowance.
"We also advised that failure to check in online could result in airport check-in fees. We’re sorry to learn that Mr Catton incurred these charges, but this unfortunate incident is a direct consequence of Ryanair’s aggressive anti-competitive campaign against travel agents and their customers, who are being punished and treated as second-class citizens for choosing us over booking directly through Ryanair."
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