Ryanair

I was warned by several family members to not fly with Ryanair but the flight I wanted with my friends was cheap so I didn't mind so much. I'm usually a very easy going person but Ryanair make my blood boil! They changed my flight time by more than 8 hours meaning that I would lose a day on my holiday I applied for a refund as did my three other friends for the coming home flight (We rebooked another coming home flight for a few days later with Ryanair) All of my friends got their refund however Ryanair refused to give me mine! They said that I cannot just refund one leg of the journey. Eventually they said they would refund it 3 months later and I'm still waiting for money to be put back into my account. I highly recommend you don't put yourself in this kind of position to be tricked out of your money.

Stansted to Budapest return. Both flights left a few minutes late and arrived almost on time. Cabin crew worked hard seats were not too uncomfortable. By following the rules we purchased and paid nothing additional - hence it was great value. The new seven day check-in rule is a bit of a pain because it applies for each leg of the trip separately. So (seven days in advance) we had to check in for the flight out on the 12th May and for the flight back on the 14th. It would be nice to be able to do them both on the same outward day.

Pre-paid for seats as we were travelling with a 4 year old and needed to sit with her at Stansted they called Priority and Pre Booked seats on first on returning from Perpignan they did not call pre booked seats. On checking our tickets we noticed a * against Other Queue - does this mean you have paid for pre-booked seats? Neither ground or aircrew knew what it means!

Ryanair's business model appears to me to revolve around cheap ticket pricing with highly complicated and rigid terms and conditions which the majority of people will fall foul of thus allowing Ryanair to introduce additional costs hence restoring their profits. Placed a booking Ryanair changed the rules between the time I placed my booking and date of flying which meant they expect me to receive return flight boarding cards by email whilst on holiday and then try to get the hotel to print them out for me. There are too many ifs buts and maybes in that scenario so alternatively - pay 13 per person to be able to print boarding cards before we leave the UK.

We (myself my wife and our two sons) booked flight FR 8412 months in advance from Milan Bergamo to Budapest on April 29 2014. We checked and confirmed the flight status on the Ryanair website the night before the flight. We got an email from Ryanair a few hours before departure saying the flight had been cancelled without stating any reason whatsoever. We tried calling the Ryanair hotline to no avail. We checked the Ryanair website and called Bergamo airport to check if there were other Ryanair flights to Budapest as we had a pre-paid rooms that night in a Budapest hotel and definitely had to be there the next morning a the very latest. There were no flights on the same day or the following day from any Milan airport. We had to commute to Milan Malpensa to buy expensive alternate flights to Budapest with an overnight connection at Warsaw. Ryanair is an absolute nightmare of an airline. An utter waste of time and money and the absolute pits in customer service. We will never book it again. Our travel insurance will not fully cover all the expenses we were constrained to incur because of this cancelled flight. Please spare yourselves the aggravation.

Me and 5 other girls flew Ryanair from Manchester to Tenerife and back again on May 9th 2014. Overall not too bad I guess for a budget airline but the new introduction of the 7 day boarding pass malarkey meant we were stung on the return flight for 70 euros. As this is on the return flight we had obviously spent up and had to contact one of the groups husbands to ask if we cold charge to his credit card to get us home. At no point was this new procedure explained to us (and yes I appreciate it is probably in the very small print but if you are a regular flyer with Ryanair (which the girl who booked was) you would expect something like this to at least be mentioned when you book) and I can in no way begin to fathom how they can justify 70 euros. It is simple case of robbery and Ryanair should be ashamed of themselves. We were by no means the only people caught out with this phenomenal fee and it certainly feels like you are being held to ransom. Another peev was that when we boarded some people had to put their hand luggage in the checked in luggage area as we were told there was no room in the above holders - lie! They were nearly empty. Because of the unjustifiable boarding pass scam I will certainly never book a Ryanair flight of my own accord and I will be telling anyone who chooses to to think before flying Ryanair.

My flight was cancelled on May 15th in Spain due to French air traffic controllers being on strike. We got to the gate within 20 mins of departure then screen flashed up cancelled and Ryanair staff vanished as well. Had to queue for 5 hours (standing) for replacement booking over 30 hours later. Cancellation not Ryanair's fault but their staff were few and did not seem to know much. Were put up in a hotel but had to pay for meals which I will try to reclaim. Some people tried rebooking on their mobiles but site kept crashing. Bit of a shambles really!

I don't appreciate their staff service before boarding. In my experience when I was leaving from Birmingham for Barcelona I was requested to put my cabin luggage into the sizer without reminding. Since my luggage which its design is flexible and there are two rows of zippers at that moment it was not suitable for the sizer. I said I can try to make it smaller but there were three staff crowed to me and threatened me they didn't have time to let me organise my items and charge me the penalty immediately. Their attitudes were like robbers and I didn't have any options then because there was nobody beside me. Actually when I returned from Barcelona the same luggage and there were even more items inside but I've used a belt to tie it up. Therefore the length is much less than 20 cm and it perfectly fit the sizer. Due to the delayed flight every passenger was on board without any checking size of their baggage when I left form Barcelona for Birmingham I've also noticed that most of the suitcases were much larger than me but nobody was requested for penalty. I understand terms and conditions of Ryanair in advance. But what a shame the attitude of Ryanair’staff made is unpleasant and 50 pound is not a small fee for me. How come they charged it without any warning (If I could have one more minute to organise my suitcase.) before boarding especially originally I've been tagged the yellow label in the queue however they changed their mind and enforced me when there were no other customers at the boarding gate. I won't recommend anyone to be Ryanair customer and would tell them the story to warn them if they still have to.

Flew Paphos-London Stansted on 16th May 2014 and brilliant! We left arrived into Stansted 47 minutes ahead of schedule thanks to the winds and that is the first time ever! Cabin Crew forgot my Curry Noodles but that was fine and were very friendly when I requested it. For 32.99 Euros a bargain for a 2000 mile trip. Adhere to the rules and its worth the price. As for the 7 days check-in boarding card snipe Internet Cafes are cheap these days to quickly visit and print off the result but 10 days would be better I guess.

On its new website it started with a 'contact us' form (carefully buried in the depths of their website). That contact form has now got a very clever gimmick - there's a 'comments' box for freehand input but you cannot use it because you first have to select a 'category of comment/complaint'. The moment you do this the freehand box disappears because they want you to use only their computerised answers. Basically Ryanair has not changed its spots in the slightest.