Paid for seats on ryan air and kids still sat separately

[Hookahchakkah]

Has anyone had any success getting a refund and compensati on.? We paid the extra to ensure we were with the kids all together and they sat all four of us completely separately, not even across an aisle or one row away like five and twenty five rows away from each other

If you paid on a credit card, they would be able to help you because you’ve paid for something that you haven’t received.

I would have thought as a bare minimum you should be refunded the extra amount you paid for your seats, because you paid for a service you did not receive.

Have you complained to Ryanair and asked for compensation?

So is only one child is under 12? When you said one is ten. If so then it’s only the one child that should have been beside someone and it sounds like they were if they were beside their siblings or have I got this completely wrong? Happens all the time on short haul carriers, just one of those things and there can be lots of reasons why things change last minute, special assistance needs, aircraft change etc.

not the same situation but I actually got a refund from Ryanair almost immediately after asking when my extra leg room seat was already taken due to a different plane seating layout, so it's really worth asking

This is weird. Were you very late getting to the gate? It doesn't sound like you were treated right and should definitely get a refund. But given your kids are 10 and older, not a disaster.

You get refunds / compensation when you're not allowed onto the flight because it is over booked, NOT when you didn't like the seat you were in.

You can get a refund when you paid extra for particular seats, but didn't get them. It is NOT because she didn't like the seats. Obviously.

Another day, another Mumsnet thread full of irrelevance. She paid to have her family sitting together and they were separated with absolutely no explanation. It doesn't matter if you personally don't give a fuck where your 10 year old sits.

I have only flown Ryanair once with DH and many years ago. Now I am an older lady and travel with friends of similar age, I tend/try to book with legacy airlines. Hold luggage allowance, seat selection, check in, and normally scheduled with no extra charges. Advantages: No lifting bags into overhead lockers, legs not injured with other peoples' carry ons, a hot drink and snack, lovely helpful cabin crew, rarely is the flight altered or delayed. Also with everything considered not much more expensive for us oldies. It probably would be a different matter with families, but worth looking at online.

how is that even possible? if you paid for seats you select them at booking and then you see it again at check in so would have known in advance if there was an issue to get it fixed.

I don't think this is just Ryan air.

I had similar with British airways - paid for specific seats in advance. At check in 'oh sorry its a different aeroplane with different layout so all the seat reservations no long apply'.

I was v. annoyed and they also refused to refund the fee 'terms and conditions' apparently make it clear this is a risk. I did complain but didn't get anywhere. I was pretty disgusted and try to avoid flying BA if I can but unfortunately on a lot of routes out of the UK if you want a non-budget airline they are they only option.

Years ago BA used to be a great airline with great customer service. Now IMO its almost as bad as the budget airlines.

What a total scam - getting people to pay for specific seats and not honouring it.

You choose your own seats online, so how did this happen?

I had similar experience with BA. Paid for seats and then when we checked our luggage the boarding passes had random seats on them. Turns out we were put on stand by due to overbooking and then last minute we were allocated random seats. I raised it and they said try to change the seats at the gate. I raised hell at the gate until they sat us in pairs of 2s (one adult one child). My kids were 2.5 and 4 at the time. Can you imagine a 2yo sitting by themselves? I didn’t chase the refund of the seat although I should have. I was glad we got to fly and got things sorted in the end.

Yes exactly she paid for a service she did not receive and should get her money paid.

she paid to book seats and then was split up so asking for a refund of what I assume was a triple figure amount is fine

All airlines have been known to make last-minute seat changes at the gate. Anyone who has never experienced this just hasn’t flown enough.

Ryanair makes a virtue out of treating passengers like a herd of cattle, so to be so rude about a last minute change which completely ignored the fact the OP paid extra to avoid the extra stress they inflicted on her is par for the course - all they care about is cramming everyone in as quickly as possible in order to achieve ridiculously tight turnarounds. The OP would have done better to do as told and get on the flight as quickly as possible, so as to maximise the time available to insist on people moving seats once she was on board, rather than trying to argue with ground staff who had no power to change the situation and then getting on the flight after everyone else was comfortable where they were already sitting.

I would only ever fly Ryanair if desperate, or without small children or anyone else vulnerable. I would certainly ask for compensation, however, as they breached a term of the contract, and I would leave as many negative reviews as possible in as many places as possible.

Normally though they call you to the gate to explain it - happened last year when we flew back on a different type of plane and the exit row was in a different olace so we switched off seats with who had the exit row (if that makes sense)

I’d be furious!

We’ve had ours changed from check in to plane, but I don’t think we’d paid for our seats so we weren’t bothered. But I would be bothered if I’d paid to sit together.

Yes, but it's against CAA regulations to have them sat on their own. A parent needs to be sitting a row in front or behind at the farthest. And they paid to sit together.

Because Ryanair are dicks. Is it so hard to understand?

Honestly? Go to the daily mail about it.

Were you late to the gate? My only thought is if you are very late to the gate they may have thought you were no shows and made changes to accomodate other passengers

No excuse though.

Very annoying and I’d want my money back.

at the same time though a 10 yr old should be able to manage 2 hours on a plane.

Had you booked exit row seats? I can't think of any other reason that they would have split up a family like that.

We weren’t late to the gate at all we went as soon as it was called but it’s a tiny airport and so did everyone else. Rather than queuing for half an hour we sat next to the gate and joined the queue when it started moving. We weren’t last there were at least thirty people who came after us but then getting in the actual plane people were queuing closely together and it was so hot we stood back a bit.

I don’t mind them sitting away from me at all but in case of turbulence or one of them being sick I would have wanted to be nearer. The turbulence before landing and the landing itself weren’t great and I wasn’t sure whether to warn them about it or if that would freak them out.

thank you to everyone who has commented, really wasn’t expecting people
to say I must have done something wrong, I don’t know what else I could have done other than pushing to the front of the queue and demanding to be moved but I’d already tried to speak to all the ground staff. Once I got into the plane I thought I would be able to speak to someone’s but underestimated how little they would care.