We’re all used to being fleeced by Ryanair and Aer Lingus with their 5 Euro per person, per flight “credit card charge”, which in reality should amount to 2 or 3 Euro total, so sometimes you can’t help but smile when someone gets away with fooling them ..
Darran figured out a really easy way of getting priority boarding on a Ryanair flight. I’m sure it’ll work with any other carrier too, not that I’d be encouraging you to do anything illegal, especially in these hard-up times when Ryanair are possibly skimming on their fuel allowances.
Didn’t something similar happen in the US when a NY Times journalist modified his boarding pass?
PS. In all seriousness, it’s up to Ryanair to close this loophole. The barcode on the ticket should verify that the customer did in fact buy the “Priority Boarding” upgrade. It’s the most basic check any retailer should do. If you’re an online retailer using Paypal’s IPN service they stress again and again to check every little detail of the transaction.
Who knows how much Ryanair have lost because of their incomplete checks?
There’s another solution:
1. Don’t fly Ryanair. They treat their employees like crap – why encourage that?
2. Bring a book. Go early, check in, read until the last set of people are boarding and then go get on the plane.
Tada! No stress; you get quality reading time; you don’t support abusing employees.
Not to take away from the cleverness of this hack but, seriously, only an idiot would play dice with the crazy logic surrounding air travel these days: is boarding a flight a few minutes earlier really worth risking a criminal record, especially on a security-related offense?
This reminds me of all those idiots who rush to get off the plane, shoving in front of other people, only to end up waiting in the baggage hall, just like everyone else.
Also, it looks kind of different around here.
This is Donnacha.
Kevin – I try to avoid them when possible. Flying Aer Lingus which is only marginally better next time I’m flying to the UK.
Donnacha – totally agree, being processed through airports is stressful enough, I don’t want to worry about anything else.
Maybe next time I’ll row to the UK.
Flying out from Spain on Ryanair I made it all the way through security and on to the plane with my piece of A4 paper that I printed my online checkin details on without it once being scanned or the details on it checked against any sort of list. So I was actually thinking about “Priority checking” myself in next time as well 🙂
forget ryanair and make a stand, never buy priority boarding just wait till last and relax. all the seats are crap anyway, o,Leary is laughing at us all and treating us like fools, which is what we are to be using ryanair..stand and be counted. i did and feel a lot better for it.
Sorry I am late on this thread. I’ve only just discovered this blog today. Next time you are at DAP, look at the number of people who are in the priority queue. A 737 holds about 170 passengers. Those in the queue, who have paid €5 usually account for about 75% of the passengers. How clever is that. Ooh. Look at me I paid €5 for a priority boarding and was in the first 140 to board the plane. You are right. O’leary is laughing at the passengers. It is like buying a limited edition piece of tat from a certain “Mint”. The edition is limited to all those people who want to buy it.
Once again, we have the Celtic Tiger “travel experts” complaining about something they haven’t got a clue about !
How many of you guys would be able to travel anywhere , if it wern’t for Ryanair ?
Not so long ago AER lINGUS was charging us 450 eur !! to travel to the UK.
I’m sick of idiots complaining about slight delays ,coffee prices, etc , when they are being flown to the continent for LESS than two lunches in rip off Dublin, etc.
Also, they totally ignore the safety demo’s, and then ring up Joe Duffy, etc when Oxygen masks drop down for reason’s of safety.
Cop yourselves on guys, just queue up , and shut up ! , You havent a clue about what’s involved in running an airline, so stop trying to impress your mates, who know even less !!
ps, I don’t have any connection with any airline, but am just happy to enjoy travel.
Donncha – any chance mike’s post came from a Ryanair IP address? It sounds a lot like their standard of service – “just queue up , and shut up !”
It came from an Eircom IP, 86.41.110.xxx, from a Google search for “ryanair”. I guess there had to be someone out there who hadn’t had a bad experience with Ryanair 🙂
This reminds me of all those idiots who rush to get off the plane, shoving in front of other people, only to end up waiting in the baggage hall, just like everyone else.
god bless Micheal, this man is a kind caring angel on this earth, and in the sky, he is an honest man, a kind man, i want a statue built where the spike is in Dublin of this god like man. ryanair just need better pr relations, planes are all new, staff are nice, seems when we get flights for less than a hundred euro we go mad complaining, if we follow this angels rules (Micheal) we would all have a great travel experience and enjoyable time. the low life’s in the government are the ones we need to attack, they do nothing to help . keep up the good work micheal. you deserve a statue.