OK, 1st to kick off this thread.....
Due to a family illness in Spain, I find myself needing to fly from Bristol to Ibiza, but with limited time off work, I find the following the only viable option:
Bristol - Ibiza Wednesday 06/10/10
Ibiza - UK Friday 08/10/10
So, Bristol - Ibiza, Thomson, booked 1 day in advance £50.00 ish. Website easy to navigate, flight booked with zero stress. OK, ticket to be collected at airport, but no problem.
Ibiza - UK. Only option available was the Ryanair Bournemouth flight. My first encounter of the Ryanair website. Accept it is designed to be "cheap", but after booking the flight, it is selling me car hire, Bournemouth hotels, insurance, £10.00 off my next booking if "I click continue"..... where is the print boarding pass option? Not there! So, leave the site, look at the email confirmation, enter loads of details again, get my printed boarding pass. Cost if I did not do this £40.00. Not an issue, but, here is the rub, I work in I.T. and I found it user unfriendly. Are they purposely doing this for the extra cash? (that was a rhetorical question). But the cost? £80.00ish (started at £50, but booking fees, online check-in , etc - you know the score).......
I fly EasyJet regularly for business, ok the site tries to cross sell, but you just "click through" the hard sell and get a boarding pass. Simple and acceptable.
Thomson - you get my vote for a late booking made easy.
Ryanair - if you were not the only viable option for me (yes, I know people will say this is the crux of the moan) I would bypass the "cheapest airline" option and find a company who are not so obviously trying to milk the SLF for every penny!!! Come on you can do better, you have the routes, you have a new fleet, you have dedicated staff, you can do better!!! You are not always the cheapest option, but you are often the most convenient option. Stop selling youself short - I will take a more inconvenient route if it means I am treated correctly.
Rant mode off.
TVDH
Last edited by Theviewdownhere; 5th Oct 2010 at 21:27.
Reason: Tidy up, and spelling.