Double charges

“Double charges”

Written on: 08/04/2012

My daughter and son in law travelled to Faro and paid for three bags in the hold, one of which was added on day before they left. They had confirmation by email of the extra bag and were charged £45 (excessives) but necessary. No problems coming out, staff were polite and helpful. They had two children aged 2 and one that would be 6 day after arriving.They brought with them all the birthday presents in their original boxed wrapping - hence the third suitcase.

The return trip was totally different. They printed off their boarding pass as requested and arrived at the airport. The girl at the check in pulled up every passenger causing a long delay - when she came to my daughter and her family, she first of all tried to say their suitcases were over the limit, but then admitted she had made a mistake. She then told them their third suitcase had not been paid for - it was not on the system even though they had an email from Ryanair stating 45 pounds had been taken and it had clearly been taken out of their account. There was no way she was going to let the third suitcase through so my husband paid 60 euros for a case that had already been paid for assuming they would just claim the money back in England. There was then a 7.5 hour flight delay causing a 5.10 flight to Stansted to leave at 12.45 - of course they were offered 5 euros each for food, so generous. It did not end there - 20 odd young men were allowed on the flight worse the wear for drink and allowed to carry on drinking whisky from their duty free purchases. The staff even served them drink aware of the situation. The air-stewards did nothing when complaints were made about their noisy and abusive behavour.

My daughter has hit a brick wall on trying to re-claim monies back that are owed to her regarding the double charging of the suitcase. Ryanair's attitude is 'so what'.

I would recommend taking a different airline - one that treats its paying customers with respect. I accept that perhaps the staff at Faro had incorrect information on their screens, but do not understand why Ryanair would not return monies taken in error. I have reported the incident to the Portuguese air authority and have suggested my daughter go to the Air Transport Users Council, - website www.caa.co.uk/auc or to phone them on 02072406061, perhaps they can resolve this issue.