Ryanair Prepaid card – free flights! Er… no

As I’ve already mentioned, I was excited to read about Ryanair’s prepaid card.  4 free flights!  As I’m looking at getting my family to Sicily for my upcoming wedding, that looked like a great idea.

Leader of the Pack

Originally uploaded by sean.casaidhe

Dad’s last visit was a while ago, and this time he’s hoping to get himself a motorbike and tour around.

Unfortunately it’s not nearly the offer it’s made out to be, but one has to dig into the terms and conditions to see that, because apart from an asterisk on the offer, there’s no information actually on the website giving you the limits.

Which are these;

• A one-way flight every three months, or a return flight every six months.  You personally have to be the passenger.  So no free flight for my mum.
• You can’t fly on Fridays or Sundays!  So no WEEKEND breaks for you!
• The flights you want might not be ‘available’ (to you, anyway).
• You’ll have to wait at least 1 month before applying for any free flights at all.
• You’ll have to book at least 14 days in advance.
• You’ll have to call up a special phone line at €0.33 a minute.
• You’ll have to book using the Ryanair Prepaid Card (and thus incur a fee of 75 cents, or 2.75% if you’re booking a flight from the UK)
• You won’t be able to book in any blackout periods (as determined by M-Cube themselves mind you, and there’s no list published on the website saying what those periods are, so they can make ’em up as they go along!)
• If you get stuffed with this and go to court, you’ll be going to court in England!

So it’s normal Ryanair then.  Like the lady who won ‘unlimited flights for life‘ which weren’t unlimited.  After pleading that the case had no valid basis because Ryanair had in fact broken the Lotteries law (and you can’t sue someone for taking away an illegal benefit!), they had to fork out €67,500, plus and estimated €200,000 in costs.

Or the “free flight vouchers” that cost more to redeem than the flight did.

So no free flights for me.  Or indeed, no Ryanair pre-paid card.

ryanair, prepaid card, free flights, scam, terms and conditions

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