Ryanair - paying for your flight with a credit card in a different currency

[Orga]

I would be curious on your view about the following, which is from the revised Ryanair website booking terms document:
Passengers who pay for their flights with a credit card billed in a currency other than the currency of the country from which the flight departs will be charged in the currency of issue of the credit card, inclusive of a ‘foreign user’ charge but you can check the actual amount to be billed in the currency of your card prior to payment being made.


The situation prior to this change was that you could decide to accept the Ryanair rate or to take the one your CC company gave you. Having booked a flight this evening I found the above. I am concerned that there was no way I could check the amount in my own currency, and no indication of the level of this foreign user charge. It seems to be about 3% based on a rough estimate.



All views welcome!

 

[gipimann]

My recollection of booking ryanair flights in a currency other than "my own" is that they have carried out the currency conversion for a long time.

 

[EvilDoctorK]

They used to always force the CC at their unfavourable rate without giving any meaningful choice to the consumer (which is against Visa and Mastercard's rules for Dynamic Currency Conversion)

With their new website they do pretend to offer a choice, but the only time I've tried to use it it didn't work and my GBP card was debited in GBP despite selecting the option to be billed in EUR ( The rate they used to convert to GBP had a 3-4% spread which is annoying as if I was billed in EUR the charge would have been zero as the card used has no fee for forex transactions)

 

[Orga]

My recollection of booking ryanair flights in a currency other than "my own" is that they have carried out the currency conversion for a long time.

Until the most recent website update you could choose, it was well hidden tho'.

They used to always force the CC at their unfavourable rate without giving any meaningful choice to the consumer (which is against Visa and Mastercard's rules for Dynamic Currency Conversion)

With their new website they do pretend to offer a choice, but the only time I've tried to use it it didn't work and my GBP card was debited in GBP despite selecting the option to be billed in EUR ( The rate they used to convert to GBP had a 3-4% spread which is annoying as if I was billed in EUR the charge would have been zero as the card used has no fee for forex transactions)

I'm afraid that I can't find any choice with the new website...can you point me to it, would be great?!

The revised T&Cs make me think that we have no choice now at all. I wonder would the consumer association have a role?

 

[EvilDoctorK]

Hmm .. last time I booked a Ryanair flight (which was probably in January and wasn't for me - I try to avoid them as much as possible !) they definitely offered a currency conversion option which you could select and popped up a new window with the currency information

I remember being surprised by this (pleasantly initially and then annoyed that it didn't work!) - Since as far as I recall for several years before that there was no way to choose at all.

However maybe the newest version of their site no longer has it any more ? Not sure - I am a very infrequent Ryanair user.

The other option might be if you have American Express cards (which I believe Ryanair now take) - if you do then they don't allow merchants to do Dynamic Currency Conversion at all as far as I know ( though I haven't tested this theory with Ryanair)

Ryanair may have some argument here in general because Airlines historically have often priced at equivalent local currency when selling tickets priced in one currency to a customer in a different currency zone - but this was normally done at rates set by IATA (the trade body) I believe and wasn't unfavourable to the consumer as the forced Ryanair surcharge now is.