Dear Stumbled,
Last March, my daughter and I took advantage of spring break to head to Italy from Berlin, where I was studying abroad. A Ryanair flight to Rome at 8:50pm was delayed for several hours and finally postponed to 6am the following morning. He was given the address of the hotel and was told that his transportation and meal expenses would be covered. Protection of European Air Passengers. The hotel was fully booked so we found another hotel nearby for 61 euros. As a backup plan in case my flight was cancelled, I booked a second 'Flexi Plus' Ryanair flight for the following evening. For a total cost of $908, you can postpone to a future date by rescheduling at least 2.5 hours in advance. departure. The original flight took off around 9am, so when I finally arrived in Rome, I spent two hours trying and erroring on the Ryanair app to rebook a backup flight for another trip in May, but it said “changed”. The “Confirm” button was not displayed. I won't work. So I got in line for a customer service chat – I was number 200 – but the app eventually terminated it for me. So I called Ryanair and the representative told me that rescheduling my flight over the phone would cost me 180 euros. I declined and decided to go back home and talk to the airline again to claim the expense. Neither worked. I received what appeared to be an automated (nonsensical) response regarding the app fiasco. And the refund form issued by Ryanair online required us to provide bank account information, including an IBAN code, which American banks don't have. When I emailed them to ask about alternatives, they ignored what I had written and redirected me to the same form twice, even though this should have been an automatic reply. I think Ryanair owes me about 100 euros for the hotel, taxi, meals, and flight for two from Berlin to Rome. Can you help me? Tele, Wellesley, Massachusetts
Dear Tere
Ryanair owes you more than that unless the airline claims your flight was delayed due to “extraordinary circumstances”. European law requires airlines to compensate each passenger at least 250 euros, in addition to food, transportation and accommodation costs, if a flight is delayed for more than three hours.
You have already requested 100 euros to cover these costs and are eligible for a minimum of 250 euros on short-haul flights, a sum that Ryanair cannot access without its IBAN (International Bank Account Number) will be 600 euros. Approximately $625.
When I contacted Ryanair's media office in September, the airline provided an initial response saying it would look into the matter, but this was followed by multiple fact-checking emails, including a detailed fact-check email that arrived a week before the holidays. Follow-up ignored.
So flights to Rome in May may be out of luck. But I have a potential solution for $625. Opening an account with an international financial services company like Wise provides a multi-currency account with an IBAN number that allows customers to receive payments in euros. When Ryanair deposits your money, you can transfer it to dollars in your Wise account (less than $3 in this case) or to your own US bank account (less than $5).
But it shouldn't have been that difficult. According to the law, Ryanair is required by law to pay by “cash, electronic bank transfer, bank order or cashier's check”. There is no mention of excluding Americans and other travelers whose bank accounts do not have an IBAN (or for that matter, those whose “check” is spelled differently). I think there is a way for Ryanair to do that, if someone at the airline would talk to either of us.
(I'd like to note here that I get a lot of nervous messages from Americans who balk when European companies they owe money to ask for their banking information. This is normal practice in the region. Don't worry, it's done by a reputable company on a secure platform.
Next, I will explain the unresponsive response I received from Ryanair when trying to resolve the issue.
From the communication passed to you, it is not possible to say for sure whether it was received by an actual human or an automated system. But if it's a human, it's not a well-trained one.
When I submitted a request to customer service to explain that I could not complete the claim form because I did not have an IBAN number, Ryanair sent me an email saying, “You used the wrong form to record your request.” and sent the following instructions: , useless and returns to claim form. I replied again on the same day explaining the issue and once again received an unsigned reply directing me to the same form that I could not fill out.
“Your question has been closed,” the email concludes.
When I wrote another request detailing my experience using the Ryanair app to change my Flexi Plus ticket, the response was similar. Whoever read it responded with boilerplate text about refunds, not what they asked.
I think it's worth speculating that the problem you experienced of finding trained people to help may be more common on low-cost airlines, including Ryanair. We've come to expect and tolerate every combination of cramped seats, wasteful staffing, inconvenient airports, and lack of onboard oxygen in exchange for amazing prices. But cost reductions can also impact the myriad of interacting systems that every airline must design and maintain to manage complex operations.
Of course, nonsensical responses and buggy apps aren't unique to low-cost airlines, and things go right far more often than they go wrong. But when so many things go wrong at once, you can't help but wonder if you should have made other travel plans. I also can't help but point out that the fastest route from Berlin to Rome by train takes around 14 and a half hours, which is about the same amount of time this journey ultimately took.
Need advice about your best-laid travel plans gone awry? Email TrippedUp@nytimes.com.
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