If anyone has been keeping track of my adventures, they’ll notice my land-hopping, connect-the-dots adventure has turned into a schizophrenic scribbling over a European map. I succumbed to desire since I found a suite of cheap airfare that allowed me to pop around the northern half of Europe. Check out these fares:
- $42.11 (35.99 euro) from Rome to Dublin
- $19.94 (14.99 pounds) from Dublin to Edinburgh
- $32.31 (24.29 pounds) Edinburgh to Kaunas
- $17.54 (14.99 euro) Kaunas to Copenhagen
This comes out to an average of $27.98 per plane ticket. As an American, these ticket prices are just unheard of. Funnily, I wasn’t even able to take full advantage of the cheapest airfare due to some Visa constraints. Fortunately, I now know how to maximize these savings when buying airfare on Ryanair. I found Ryanair to have the most consistently low fares and a robust selection of destinations. So here’s a step-by-step guide when flying on Ryanair so you can keep as much money in your pocket instead of paying all those pesky airline fees.
Step 1. Wait for a Sale.
Look at how happy those stock image girls are for finding that sale!
Ryanair has sales on a pretty frequent basis and they usually don’t amount to much, but if you’re planning on taking multiple flights, several bucks knocked off each plane ticket certainly adds up. This will have to be done a few months in advance so you don’t miss any sales opportunities.
Step 2. Pack Light.
If you haven’t already, I recommend checking out my guide on minimalist traveling. This light traveling is a giant cornerstone to take advantage of Ryanair and other budget airlines. These airlines will sell you dirt cheap fares and charge an arm and a leg for literally any additional service. Want a bottle of water? Boom four dollars. Want a bag of peanuts? Another two dollars. Want to check in a bag? That’s 30 dollars.
By adhering to minimalistic traveling, you can keep all your belongings into the size of a carry-on and avoid this fee. Ryanair allows one free carry-on bag that must be smaller than 21.65in x 15.75in x 7.87in (55cm x 40cm x 20cm) and weigh less than 22lb (10kg) in weight. You also get one free handbag at 13.78 in x 7.87in x 7.87in (35cm x 20cm x 20cm).
My experience is that they’re not too strict with these dimensions, but I wouldn’t push your bag size too much. If your backpack is slightly over the limit, just put all your extras into a daypack and you’re good to go!
That’s all you need!
Step 3. Pick a destination.
Funnily, picking a destination is a big part of this. Let’s say you decide to start your trip in Ireland due to cheap airfares from the east coast, and now want to go somewhere else afterwards. Choose Dublin as your departure destination and use Ryanair’s destinations features to browse through all the potential destinations. Due to all the budget airline competition in Europe, the selections are absolutely robust and you’ll always find some fantastic places to visit. Just look at all these mouthwatering options:
Step 3. Be flexible with your dates.
A lot of Ryanair’s sales will only offer fares on a handful of dates, so be flexible on when you want to fly. I’ve changed my itinerary to meet these dates to reap the most savings. Once you have settled into the destination, use the fare finder feature to see which days you can fly the cheapest.
For this example, Flight from Dublin to Poland is best on the 15th, 19th and best at the end of the month. It’d be greatly worth the itinerary shift to fly on these dates.
Step 4. Ticket Purchase
When checking out, Ryanair will repeatedly attempt to lure you into their more expensive plans or their add-ons. Look at these options.
Don’t bother for anything other than the standard fare. We simply don’t need anything offered in those fancy packages.
Or how about we look at the à la carte items they offer?
Reserve a seat. Why? All seats on airlines are sardines and suck comparatively.
Add check-in bags. By minimalist packing, we can avoid this fee!
Security fast track. Just show up on time.
Priority boarding. This is an interesting one. Ryanair is saying you can pay another $6 to guarantee your bag will have a storage location in the cabin. But in the event all the cabin storage bins fill up, they’ll check your baggage into the cargo for free so there’s no reason to purchase this. If you really want to ensure your baggage is in the cabin, just line up early and before the boarding starts to make sure you get on first to claim a storage space.
Travel Insurance. Really doesn’t make sense considering it costs over half the price of the ticket.
Parking. We’re budget traveling and most likely won’t have a car to park, so don’t bother with this as well.
Step 5. Currency exchange rate
Here’s an important detail to not skip. When you punch in your payment details, Ryanair will automatically default to the currency local to the airport. They will then proceed to charge you according to their exchange rate. See below.
If you take the average market exchange rate, that’s an atrocious deal and that’s how Ryanair stands to skim another few bucks off you. That conversion rate of 20.39 euro should come out to 23.99 dollars but instead costs you another couple bucks. How to avoid this? Simply open up that window and uncheck that box despite the warning.
The guaranteed exchange rate that Ryanair is offering is simply saying that you’ve locked in that particular exchange rate. If you uncheck it, your banking or finance institution will use their rate instead, and guess what, it’s always next to the market value and therefore more favorable.
This does come with a catch. Your credit or debit card will charge you a foreign transaction fee for converting the money. This is where you need to check with your banking institution to make sure your card has no foreign transaction fee. In another post, I’ll recommend a few great traveler friendly cards that will not only save money, but yield some great rewards.
Step 6. Check-In
Once you finish purchasing your tickets, Ryanair will bombard you over the next few weeks with emails tempting you to purchase all those add-ons again. Two days before the flight, you’ll get an email with a reminder to check-in. Definitely remember to do this as you’ll incur a hefty check-in fee if you don’t.
That’s all there is to it! With a flexible schedule, advanced planning and a light pack, you can easily find yourself cruising through dozens of European destinations with these budget airlines.
Other tips:
- Bring a water bottle and pack a lunch.
- They funnily offer scratch tickets where a portion of the proceedings goes to charity. I think you’re better off donating to a charity directly.
- Sometimes you’ll find yourself flying into smaller airports. Just make sure you know how to find your way from these more regional airports and into town.
- Make sure you’re okay with the odd flight times that can often occur with the cheaper flights.
- Applies to all airlines, but you can pack the smaller liquor bottles into your liquid carry-ons. You’re just not allowed to drink them on the plane, but if the flight attendant has her back turned and a bottle happens to become empty, who knows what happened.
Until next time.