CUSTOMERS are questioning whether Ryanair has pushed up flight costs due to a ban on firms charging credit or debit card fees.
Ryanair radio ads have confused customers after they still say they charge a surcharge on card payments and one woman was stung with a £42 "payment fee" on her booking.
Lucy Drake, 35, from Walthamstow in London bought eight return Ryanair tickets from Birmingham airport to Faro, Portugal, for herself and her seven friends on her debit card via the app.
She was trying to book the tickets on Saturday evening, the same day that new EU rulings banning surcharges on card payments came into play.
The marketing manager was checking the details of her booking when she noticed that she was being charged a payment fee of £41.14.
"We decided that one of us would book the flights so we could all sit together and make sure we all had the same price," Lucy told the Sun Online.
"I saw that there was a 'payment fee' but I knew that they weren't supposed to charge you for booking with your card now.
"I thought I'd just get on and book the tickets and ask them about it later.
"I was worried that if we left it and came back to them later the prices for the tickets would have gone up, or there wouldn't be enough seats left."
Altogether, the plus fare tickets cost £2,056.96 but with the extra £41.14 it brought the total up to £2,098.10.
Before the ban, Ryanair used to charge a two per cent booking fee on payments made on credit or debit cards – which it £14.41 on Lucy's booking.
Ryanair have since told the Sun Online that this was a glitch on the app but when Lucy questioned them about the fee on twitter, they told her that the charge was a "handling fee" which is paid "per booking".
Ryanair claim that the mistake was down to an error in older versions of the app while the system was updating to make way for the surcharge changes.
The glitch meant that people making a booking on January 13 – then the surcharge ban came into play – would have seen their fares split into 98 per cent of it displayed in the "fare box" and two per cent in the "payment fee box".
But really, the total amount was correct but the breakdown wasn't, causing some mega confusion.
And it didn't help that Ryanair radio ads still said that they applied the booking fees after the deadline had passed, even though its website had been updated.
A spokesperson said: "There is no payment fee or handling fee when customers book with Ryanair.
"We removed the 2 per cent fee on Wed 10 Jan but some older versions of the app split the presentation of the total fare payable into 98 per cent in a fare 'box' and 2 per cent in a payment fee 'box'. "The total fare was accurate but the breakdown shown was erroneous."
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