My £1,400 holiday to Spain was ruined after the airline forced us to pay hundreds extra – or we’d miss our flight
A DAD was left fuming after his family had to pay hundreds extra for their flights back from Spain - or they wouldn't be able to board.
The 27-year-old - who remained unnamed - said they had spent £1,400 on the all-inclusive holiday with On The Beach, but ran into problems when trying to return to the UK.
He told that they were forced to pay an extra £270 by Ryanair when they tried to board their Palma to Manchester flight.
This included a £30 check-in fee for each passenger, and another £38 to load their bags onto the flight.
He said: "When we went to check-in at Palma airport on our flight back, we arrived over two hours before our flight, only to be told, 'you have got six minutes to check-in'."
He said they couldn't find his email address he used to book the On The Beach holiday, only to then charge all four of them £30 to check in.
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They were then told to pay an extra £38 to check in their bags as they didn't have priority boarding tickets.
He continued: "They said ‘if you don’t pay the £30 for the check-in, you can’t get on the flight. You’ll have to book another flight.'
"We were absolutely fuming. We didn't have to pay that at Manchester. It’s a lot of money to pay."
The full-time dad said his friend had to put it on their credit card as they didn't have any spare cash to pay it.
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He is now calling for more transparency, adding that they need to "stick to the rules" at each airport, and should have been made aware when they departed from Manchester before the holiday.
A Ryanair spokesperson said: "The issues these passengers encountered is a direct result of having booked their flights through an unauthorised online travel agent (OTA).
"Ryanair has no commercial relationship with any OTA’s and in this instance, the OTA failed to advise the passenger of Ryanair’s online check-in and baggage policies, resulting in them being correctly charged an airport check-in fee of £30 per passenger at Palma airport and a gate bag fee of £38."
However, an On the Beach spokesperson hit back, saying: "Our communication with the customer provided all of the flight information needed to check-in online including reference number, unique email address and baggage allowance.
"We also advised that failure to check-in online could result in airport check-in fees.
"We’re sorry to learn that the customer incurred these charges, but this unfortunate incident is a direct consequence of Ryanair’s aggressive anti-competitive campaign against travel agents and their customers, who are being punished and treated as second-class citizens for choosing us over booking directly through Ryanair."
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Another family had a similar problem earlier this month, as they had to pay an extra £113 for their flight due to the same issue.
And last year, Ryanair said anyone with flights issued by Kiwi.com would be stopped from boarding.
