Canny holiday-makers have been avoiding Ryanair’s “administration” fees by paying for their flight tickets with a prepaid MasterCard® – the only accepted payment method that doesn’t incur an additional charge of £6 per person each way.
But that’s about to change.
Ryanair has announced that from November 2011, the only payment method that will be exempt from their admin charges will be their own-brand prepaid MasterCard, the Ryanair Cash Passport.
The move has been widely criticised in the media and by Which?, one of several consumer groups to have logged super-complaints with the Office of Fair Trading, accusing Ryanair and other budget airlines of misleading advertising, hidden charges and excessive transaction fees.
At Kalixa, we know that many of our cardholders use their Kalixa Cards to buy Ryanair tickets, and we can understand the disappointment caused by the announcement to remove it as a free payment method on their website. However, we’d like to take this opportunity to point out that despite now being forced into paying Ryanair’s booking fees, our cardholders can still come out on top with Kalixa, when compared side-by-side with Ryanair’s Cash Passport.
To prove this, we looked at a typical 5-night holiday for two, including:
- Purchase of a prepaid card
- Loading £1000 using the cheapest method
- Booking return flights for two on Ryanair.com
- Paying 5 x €40 dinner bills on your card
- Paying 1 x €300 hotel bill on your card
- Making 2 x €100 ATM withdrawals abroad
- Making one ATM withdrawal in the UK to access your leftover spending money
Here's how they compare:
|
Kalixa |
Ryanair |
|
Card Purchase |
£4.95 |
£6 |
|
£1000 Load |
FREE |
FREE |
|
Return Flights1 |
£224 |
£1942 |
|
Dinner Bills3 |
£181.82 |
£191.91 |
|
Hotel Bill |
£277.72 |
£289.37 |
|
ATM Cash Withdrawals Abroad4 |
£187.32 |
£200.90 |
|
Cash Withdrawal in the UK |
£1.75 |
£2.00 |
| Total Cost of Holiday |
£872.56 |
£885.18 |
| Saving with Kalixa |
£12.67 |
|
As the above table shows, after October Kalixa cardholders can save £12 on their first holiday compared to Ryanair Cash Passport users, then £18 on their next break, even after paying booking fees.
How do we do it? At Kalixa we provide seriously competitive exchange rates to our cardholders: no fees, no commission and no “loaded” exchange rates.
Kalixa was designed to help you control your cash, unlike the Ryanair Cash Passport which allows you to go into a negative balance and then charges you a £10 penalty for the privilege. With Kalixa you can never get into debt, all our fees and limits are upfront, transparent and easy to understand and it’s the best way to spend abroad.
1 Based on £50 flights per person each way.
2 Includes one off £6 flight gift voucher included in purchase, subsequent flights would cost £200.
3 Based on sample base exchange rate of 1.1 = £1:€0.90909. Kalixa adds no mark-up, Ryanair Cash Passport adds 5.75%.
4 Includes foreign exchange rate conversion and issuer ATM charges. |