# Cutting the cost of Ryanair Flights



## Brendan Burgess (12 Aug 2009)

I saw this thread on Entropay

Can someone explain what it is and how it works. Pitfalls to look out for. 


Someone else suggested Ryanair Gift Vouchers. But I just don't trust Ryanair enough to use their Gift Vouchers. I would expect that some term or condition would make them invalid.

Brendan


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## NorfBank (12 Aug 2009)

Entropay is a virtual visa card denominated in GBP.
When you sign up you get your own unique long number and CCV number.

You simply load it from your Irish account and when it comes to pay, choose Visa Electron as your payment method and use the details on the virtual card. This will bypass the Ryanair booking fee.

There is a 4.95% transaction fee each time you load the card. It saves you money on the cheaper flights but there is a cutoff where paying the Ryanair fee will make more sense.

Some pitfalls as illustrated by cfarrell:



I don't think this is as good as everyone thinks.... you're missing half the charges.


First of all, when you load the card you are charged 4.95% commission.

Second, because you're using your Euro based credit card, to make a STG payment, your credit card company will charge your a charge. MBNA charge over 2%. I'm pretty sure the correct figure for MBNA is 2.75% (Could be 2.5% but I'm not reading the small print again!)

Third, if you look at the fees for EntroPay they say that they charge you 2% for payments in a different currency to the card. So when you purchase flights from RyanAir in Euro on your STG Electron Card, you are paying a further 2% in charges.

So that's 4.95% +2.75% +2% = 9.7% But worse that that, you're paying % on percent.

Therefore your flights are costing almost 10% extra. Now if your flight cost €50, you're end up paying almost €55 after charges.

Follow me though on this one.
Lets suppose your flight cost €50 with RyanAir.
In order to make this payment with your STG card Entropay will require a 2% foreign currency commission, which means that you must have the STG equilivant of €50+2% (€51) available on your Electron card. 

In order to get the Stg equilivant of €51 onto your Electron card, you must transfer €51 plus their commission of 4.95% (€2.52) which means your total transfer must be €53.52. 

Not to transfer €53.52 worth of stg from your own credit card, your own credit card company will charge you a foreign exchange commission of 2.75% which means that you actually pay €54.59! And that assums tha that the exchange rate hasn't moved while you make these transactions.

It would still work great for the low cost flights, but not very well for the higher cost ones. If the flight was over €100, you'd certainly be better off paying the credit card charge!

So for me, I'm still looking for another solution before my MBNA gift card balance runs out...

Discussed here:

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=89300&highlight=entropay


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## Sumatra (12 Aug 2009)

Ryanair have a cc charge on each sector so if you are a family travelling you save quite a bit using Electron. 

BTW you can also avoid Aer Lingus cc charge using Electron.


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## Brendan Burgess (12 Aug 2009)

Let me get this right.

If you are paying for flight which costs around €50, you might save a little bit by using Entropay.

If you are paying for an expensive flight or a few flights, it will cost you more.

Doesn't seem to be worth the hassle to me.

Brendan


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## jt_dublin (12 Aug 2009)

Here is another recent AAM thread on the same subject and below I've copied in my post from this thread.

http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=111541


This may be of some help to you to avoid paying the fees when loading the Visa Electron card. 

The UK Post Office issue Visa Electron cards and they do not charge any fees for loading money onto a Euro card. They charge 1.5% for loading onto a sterling or dollar card, which is much lower than Entropay. I'm am working in the UK at the moment and have got 2 Visa Electron cards (1 sterling & 1 Euro) from the post office. 

There is a catch. The card needs to be registered to a UK address. So not everyone will be able to avail of this. Maybe a friend or family member living in Northern Ireland or the UK would get one for you. Risk for them would be very low as you cannot spend above what you have loaded on the card. The name of the flight booking does not have to be the same as the name on the card. I know this as my family are all now asking me to book flights for them using my card so that they avoid paying the CC charge!

You can load money up to £5000 (or euro equivalent) onto the card at the foreign exchange desk in any UK post office, or you can load up to 500 sterling (or euro equivalent) onto the card over the phone. If loading over the phone, the card where the money is coming from must be registered in the same name and the same address as the Visa Electron card. So if you want to top-up the card over the phone, your Northern Ireland or UK family / friend would have to lodge the money from their bank account or Visa account. If you are topping up at the Post Office counter, then no restriction applies. They dont even need the card with them. They just need the card number.

Again it's probably only worth the effort if you book a lot of flights. I am flying most weekends so am saving quite a bit!

Here is a link to the UK Post Office site:
http://www.postoffice.co.uk/portal/p...diaId=96400753

Strangely, if you read the last paragraph on this link, you will see that the card is issued by...... Bank of Ireland !!!

Anyone know why the 3V.ie prepaid Visa vouchers issued by Permanent TSB are not considered Visa Electron?

Hope this helps.
JT.


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## hoopman (14 Aug 2009)

Brendan said:


> Let me get this right.
> 
> If you are paying for flight which costs around €50, you might save a little bit by using Entropay.
> 
> ...


 
Where on the other hand if you are buying a number of cheap flights like I did recently where I bought 5 flights for €2 return the credit card charges would have cost €50 each (ie €10 per person) 
I used the entropay card and only ended up paying around €3 or less in charges total. altogether total cost of flights was around €13.
So bigger savings are got if you are buying the very cheap flights and for a number of people saving €10 credit charge fee per person


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## BOXtheFOX (22 Aug 2009)

When booking flights today I noticed in the dropdown menu when I came to pay that there was a charge for all cards except Visa Electron. If you use the Entropay card what card do you select? Also when booking through the Ryanair website must you click on the U.K. version if you choose to use Entropay?


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## Thedoc (22 Aug 2009)

Select the Visa Electron option. What version of their website shouldn't matter. I used the Entropay card for the first time this week and it worked fine. As has been mentioned by previous posters, it's vitally important when setting up your Entropay account to setup a Sterling (uk pounds) account.

Until such times as the airlines wise up and start charging to use Visa Electron, it can save quite a bit particularly with the cheaper flights from the so called low cost airlines. Easyjet are now charging 9.50 euro for booking with a credit card charge. Pricey


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## noname (8 Sep 2009)

So just to get this correct before I sign up....

I want to book return flights for 2 people (+1 bag)

cost (inc bag) = €60
cost inc mastarcard fee = €80

if i use entropay will the total cost be €60 + 4.95% loading fee = €62.97..............?
actually now that I think about it should I be looking at the sterling prices for flights?


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## suzie (8 Sep 2009)

Your cost will be:

€60 converted by ryanair to x GBP (using a generous exchange rate!!, I think they show a link on the website for this). This amount will be taken from the entropay card, so entropay needs at least x GBP + 4.95%=y GBP. To load up entropay you use your credit card. So y GBP will cost you z EURO (CC has exchange rate and handling charges)...

So its not an exact science. Just be a small bit generous when topping up entropay to make sure you are covered. 

I purchased flights recently whereby the CC charges would have been 50%, using the above saved me approx 14 euros, when the flights for 2 were 40

S.


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## noname (8 Sep 2009)

suzie said:


> Your cost will be:
> 
> €60 converted by ryanair to x GBP (using a generous exchange rate!!, I think they show a link on the website for this).



Thanks, I couldn't see anything on Ryanair's site about that but top of the list on google "ryanair currency conversion" search it this AAM thread.

does anyone have any idea how much Ryanair would charge to change €60 to sterling?

oh, and I presume that BOI will charge me to change funds from € to £ with my credit card?

it is starting to look like i'm as well off to give Ryanair the money.


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## undo (8 Sep 2009)

When loading your Entropay virtual card, you can choose whether you want them to charge your plastic in Euro or Sterling. I found that with my bank, going with the Sterling option is cheaper - I am charged something like 1% in fees but the Euro/Sterling rate is much better than Entropay's. It may be different for BOI. Either way, you should not pay more than maybe €5 total for all these conversions - still saving you €15 over paying Ryanair with your credit card directly. And also, you are taking away €20 from Michael O'Leary which can only be considered a good thing .


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## nbaki82 (4 Jan 2010)

My choice for prepaid MC has been Neteller and I am still not convinced any other option can beat it.


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