It’s true. The king of low-cost carriers has decided to launch a frequent flyers scheme. Ryanair is to introduce Ryanair Choice
Ryanair Boeing 737-800 landing at Dublin Airport – Image, Economy Class and Beyond
This isn’t a traditional scheme, however – rather it’s for those who fly with Ryanair often and want to save on costs (or ancillary revenue) associated with a typical ticket
Ryanair Choice covers:
- Seat Selection
- Fast-track
- Priority Boarding
The price for this privilege? It’s £199 or €199 (And if you can pay in euro’s you’ll be coming out ahead even after conversion fees).
The programme itself is akin to the current version of EasyJet Plus.
Given that seat selection and priority board can be as low as £5 (with some seats coming in at £12+), plus fast track which can be another £5-10 per airport, you’ll be needing to fly a fair bit to recover the costs that you could incur.
Based on a generous £20 of added extras per flight, you’ll be needing 10 flights to recover your costs. A more realistic £15 of extras per flight would require you to take 14 flights to recover this cost.
If you’re looking at the cheap end of the scale, you’ll be nearer 20 flights before you’ll be coming out ahead on savings.
However, it’s well-known that Ryanair has great connectivity – and in some cases – competitive enough to go toe-to-toe with other carriers.
If you’re commuting on such a route, or if you are a heavy Ryanair user – this could be a good investment, providing you take enough flights to recover the sunk cost of Ryanair Choice
Details of when Ryanair Choice will go on sale have yet to be revealed.
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