Ryanair - can you change one leg of a return journey to a completely different route?

[R00tat00tt00t]

So, long story short, we booked return flights to a European holiday destination flying in and out of the same airports. This is for a twin-centre holiday and I've now found better flights from another airport for the return journey but they are with a different airline (I don't think they had been released when we booked our flights or we would have booked them at the time). We would like to keep our outbound Ryanair flights but book the other preferred flights for our return/home bound journey.
I know Ryanair won't refund tickets cancelled by travellers so I'm wondering if they are likely to allow us to exchange the return flights to a completely different set of flights (different country, different dates but same year)? I know there would be admin fees associated and am happy to accept that but just hoping we could change flights rather than totally lose out financially if we cancel.
Has anyone else done similar or have any advice? Thanks.

Depends on the ticket type you booked. Some are no refundable and not changeable. Others you can change for a change fee.

However, most airlines if you have booked a flight with return, they cannot change the return flight or a leg of it without changing the entire booking. So you’d have to change the entire booking.

Then you’d book new single tickets for outbound and with other airline, single tickets inbound. Have to warn you that single (one way) tickets can be more expensive that tickets with return. So don’t expect any savings.

Thank you. No, not expecting any savings, just hoping to recoup some of the costs to put towards the other flights or possibly swap for flights somewhere else later in year.

What ticket type did you book? If it’s a non refundable one, just take the outbound flight, and book a return flight with the new airline.

What you’ve booked is 2 single journeys under the same booking number. You contact Ryanair (I’ve found best way is via their chat) and get the flights separated into two bookings. Then just go to manage bookings and change your flight route and date for the sector you want to change. There’ll be 2 sets of fees (one for date and one for route); so you just need to ensure it’s not cheaper just to disregard the return booking and make a new one.

We did this once, completely changed destination / dates and they charged about £75 per person, so whether it’s worth it depends on how much you paid in the first place. It won’t matter if you don’t get on the return flight, no need to tell them, just don’t check in for it.

Thanks for the advice everyone. Sounds like we're probably best to just cut our losses and book the other flights.