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Electron cards again ...


Pickles
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I got one from the P.Off.just over a year ago - in euros.

So many catches there - the card only lasts for a year for a start and then you either forfeit money or it costs you for a new one.

So you need to either pay up (a fiver I think) or make sure you have used every last cent. I managed to only end up losing 20 cents but it wasn't easy.

Any Ryanair bookings made from UK are in sterling and it is difficult to work out the exchange rate used on the day.

To find out your balance you have to phone up and ask - which also costs money.

In the end I topped up my Skype account with what was left and got friends in England to open a Halifax Easycash account which comes with a card.

I would advise anyone thinking of a Post Office one to read the small print VERY carefully.

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Beat Ryanair's new £10 Visa Electron booking charge!
Budget airline adds £10 return to Electron bookings - but there's a new way to book for free
While Ryanair advertises flights for pennies (see below for this week's '£5' e/w sale), there are hideous add-on costs, including up to £10/return for most paying by credit & debit cards. What's the change? The current way to pay for free is with a Visa Electron card - but outrageously, from 1 Jan it'll move the goalposts and charge £10 return on these too. Beat the charges: Yet from 1 Dec. it won't charge for bookings using Mastercard Prepaid cards (no surprise as it's launched its own one in Ireland; maybe coming here?). The cheapest of these is ICE's Sterling Card* (choose the UK pound version) which is available free, and only charges 2% when you top up (min £100) though you can spend that anywhere. FULL info in the Full Guide: Beat Budget Airline Fees MSE News Story: Ryanair adds charge for millions

From Money Saving Expert. May be useful.

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[quote user="confused of chalus"]Pickles, the card you mentioned looks wonderful for Ryanair travel, but yet again, not available without a UK aqddress. Does anyone know of something similar available to French residents, or could I get my daughter to apply for one and use it solely for flights, hers and ours?[/quote]

Here's one: https://www.caisse-epargne.fr/connexion-carte-rechargeable.aspx

I haven't looked at the details, but another banque does one for yoofs, as does this one.

Search for "MasterCard rechargeable" on Google France.

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[quote user="confused of chalus"]Pickles, the card you mentioned looks wonderful for Ryanair travel, but yet again, not available without a UK aqddress. Does anyone know of something similar available to French residents, or could I get my daughter to apply for one and use it solely for flights, hers and ours?

[/quote]

Once purchased it can be used to pay for flights for anyone. A version is available for walk-in customers, limited to £650.

Regards

Pickles

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[quote user="La Guerriere"]How long before the only card that can be used will be a pre-paid LEARYCARD ?[/quote]

Ryanair has already issued their own MasterCard Prepaid in Ireland and it maybe coming to the UK, so that is probably the reason for stopping the Electron card. If it becomes available in the UK then surely their next step will to make it the only card to avoid booking fees and extra profit Ryanair.

Baz

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[quote user="Sprogster"]The problem with rechargeable/prepaid Mastercard is that they are expensive to use, in that they charge a percentage of the money you credit to the card and most charge a monthly fee to the card as well.[/quote]

In the UK the Mastercard Prepaid are available without any monthly fee and just a 2% charge when adding funds. If they are used only for booking Ryanair flights then this a cheap way of not paying booking charges.

Baz

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No doubt Ryanair will start charging for the use of Mastercard prepaid cards, as soon as the numbers of customers using them start to escalate and will allow some other obscure card instead! The reason Ryanair need to allow at least one card that does not incur booking charges, is that otherwise the booking charges would be unavoidable and therefore would have to be included in the headline fare price. Therefore, Ryanair are playing a cat and mouse game with their customers, in that whilst they have to allow one designated means of payment that avoids booking charges, they need to make sure it is one that is likely to be used as little as possible, bearing in mind that booking charges make up a significant element of their income. Ordinary debit visa or debit mastercard bank cards only charge the retailer pennies for their use, so charging a booking fee for their use is a pure additional income generator for the airlines and I believe Ryanair impose the highest booking charges..
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Sprogster, I agree with all your comments but there maybe two further reasons for the card change.

Firstly, they have their own Mastercard Prepaid in Ireland and it could well be available in the future in the UK. Then I suspect they will change the goalpost once again and only allow their card.

Secondly, as 20 million of the 60 million passengers carried by Ryanair are currently using Electron, they possible think by swapping to a more obscure card that they can will get more booking fees as passengers may not apply for the new card.

I think it is high time that the authorities stated that any potential booking charges must be included in any stated basic fare with an addendum saying how the cost could be reduced.

Baz

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  • 4 months later...
I have discovered that Moneybookers offer a prepaid Mastercard which they are prepared to issue to non UK

residents.

You have to register with them (free) and then the offer is there under 'My Account'

EDIT:

Uploading money is free and the only charges are:

Foreign exchange 1.99%

Cash withdrawal 1.80 EUR

Annual card membership 10.00 EUR

Replacement Card 10.00 EUR

Seems to tick all the boxes Wink

I'll let you know if it works for Ryanair, the only reason for getting it !

[img]https://www.moneybookers.com/images/debit_card/mb_mastercard.jpg[/img]

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For those with a UK address we got the CaxtonFX card and it works

fine.  If you have a sterling card and pay in sterling there is a £1.50 charge for each transaction.  There are no monthly fees and the set up cost of £10 is added to your available

account balance.  The only irritation is that you have to top up a

minimum of £100 at a time so you end up having funds (in varying amounts) left sitting on your

card after your flights are paid for.  You can have amounts of  >£10 returned to your bank account for the £1.50 transaction fee.

The euro version of the card has no charges if you use the card in the euro zone (i.e. outside the UK).  We wondered if you could top one of these up from a French account and pay for Ryanair flights in euros via the french bit of Ryanair (so, in theory, no FX and no usage charge)?  Or is this a Baldrick style cunning plan that is doomed to failure....

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