WE’VE ALL HAD a Ryanair experience, but this student’s ordeal might just take the biscuit.
The Sun reports that Adam Armstrong, 19, was due to go on holidays with his girlfriend to Ibiza next week. His girlfriend’s stepfather booked flights with Ryanair and accidentally booked Adam’s ticket under the wrong name.
You see, Armstrong’s name on Facebook had been Adam West, in an homage to the Batman actor, which his girlfriend’s stepfather saw and assumed was his real name.
Once he became aware of the error, Armstrong attempted to change his name on the ticket, but was informed by Ryanair that it would cost him £220 to do so.
However, the airline said this afternoon that it would in fact only have cost him £110 to make the name change.
But Armstrong did something a little radical – changed his name by deed poll.
After changing his name to Adam West for free, he paid £103 for a new passport and he was sorted, meaning that changing your actual name is cheaper than amending a Ryanair booking.
Speaking on Today FM’s The Anton Savage Show this morning, West outlined his rationale as thus:
Yeah, I’m not giving Ryanair a penny.
And, as West explained, he’s actually made a profit out of the whole fiasco. Not only did he save money on the name change, but he actually came into some cash as a result.
I also got some money from The Sun newspaper.
GOOD MAN YOURSELF.
As for his new name? West told Savage that he intends on changing it back to Adam Armstrong once his latest passport expires.
Ryanair said in response:
Customers are asked to ensure that the details they enter at the time of booking are correct before completing their booking and we offer a 24 hour ‘grace period’ to correct minor booking errors.
A name change fee is charged in order to discourage and prevent unauthorised online travel agents from ‘screenscraping’ Ryanair’s cheapest fares and reselling them on to unwitting consumers at hugely inflated costs.
The airline also pointed out that the customer had made two separate bookings, and the name change fee is £/€110 per booking – so it would have cost £110 to change the name.
Written by Amy O’Connor and originally published on DailyEdge.ie
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say