For many years the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair has had an obvious problem with so-called booking platforms. The carrier repeatedly took intermediaries to court, but was unsuccessful in most of the cases. Now the company thinks it has to introduce a self-created seal.
According to Ryanair, this is intended to protect “customers from online travel agencies who may overcharge”. This is not entirely absurd, because the guild of so-called booking platforms is in the crossfire of criticism from consumer advocates because of dubious extra charges and sometimes exorbitant surcharges on airline expenses. Ryanair even accuses so-called "OTAs" even providing fake contact details in order to prevent the airline from being able to come into direct contact with the passenger.
The Price Checker feature allows customers who have booked through an online travel agent to compare the amount they paid to Ryanair for their booking with the amount charged by the online travel agent. Customers can now clearly see where online travel agents, not authorised by Ryanair to sell flights, have charged a premium for their flights and ancillary products such as baggage and seats.
In order to "provide additional protection" for customers, Ryanair has introduced a new verification seal that guarantees customers that they book directly on the Ryanair website / app. Customers should now always check whether the website they are booking on shows the verification seal. If not, you should be aware that you are booking through an unauthorized Ryanair flight seller.
"We are delighted to launch our new 'Price Checker' and Verification Seal on the Ryanair.com website and app. These two new features will help customers avoid the pitfalls of booking through online travel agents, which could add surcharges to Ryanair products, provide incorrect customer information and prevent Ryanair from engaging directly with passengers. The new Verification Seal - displayed as a branded tick and visible ONLY on Ryanair.com and the Ryanair app - is designed to protect the customer by providing them with an easy identifier to ensure they are booking their flights directly with Ryanair and not through an online travel agent. Ryanair has no commercial arrangements with online travel agents to sell Ryanair flights. Any 'screen scraping' of our website www.ryanair.com, particularly for the commercial purpose of reselling our flights, is strictly prohibited under our Terms & Conditions. We advise our customers to always book directly through the Ryanair website and Ryanair app, where they have access to the lowest fares, direct customer service and fast refunds,” said Dara Brady, Director of Marketing at Ryanair.