Forcing us to buy seats

[Imagineit]

Family of 5 going abroad (me, DP, Ds7, grandma and grandad), found a deal through on the beach with Ryanair flight to Spain. When progressing it forces me to pay for a seat to ensure my child is with me. Annoying but fine. But then it wants me to select seats for all other adults who are happy to sit separately! I’ve tried to progress with just one adult and child seat selected but it won’t allow me to! The worst of it is that most seats are already reserved so other member would then be forced to pay but not sit together?! This can’t be right? When I try to progress with one adult/ 1 child order it says ‘one of your party is under 12 so must be accompanied. This will add a minimum of £100 extra on to the holiday. No number to call either. We’ll probably book with someone else now just because it’s such a scam!

This is why I hate Ryanair. Always end up feeling ripped off with all the hidden extras. Easyjet are better.

To be honest when you add up all the star bits with Ryanair you are just as well going with Jet2/TUI/BA etc. You will still need seats if you want to sit together but the luggage allowance is better etc.

Can’t you just do separate bookings?

Do 2 bookings

1 adult + child
3 adults

If you want to make sure the price will not jump or you run out of seats do them on 2 devices at the same time

Book separately

The adults dint need to sit together. They can upgrade if they want to in order to do so. Just book one adult and a child seat

I flew Ryanair once and swore never again.

Just do separate bookings for 1 adult and child.

There is no additional charge for the seat allocations for the child(ren) and whilst it will insist on one adult booking a seat next to the child(ren), I've definitely been able to book without paying for all adults to have a seat, so not sure why you are having this issue.

But bear in mind if you cancel you’ll lose two deposits.
( and might need to take out holiday insurance twice? )

I’ve just checked on the app and it let me just seat one adult and child. Maybe book on there if you weren’t already?

You just pay for 1 adult seat, rest are free.

Ryanair dont "do" refunds so its a sunk cost either way.

And travel insurance normally dont care how the bookings are made only that each individual is properly insured
And the upselling insurance add on is not usually the best value option for people.

Exactly. Apart from the child,there is no reason why all adults should be on the same booking.

It's the same with luggage. You can't book hold luggage for individuals in your party, only for all of them. They are utter bastards.

I booked recently and had the same situation not wanting to book a seat for the other adults. I selected for me and my youngest and then I had to select a button for random seats selection to progress without booking a seat for each of the others

Just book flights and hotel separately. Love holidays and on the beach have ‘hotel’ only options.

You just need to do 2 bookings. One for adult and child, where you pay for seat. The other being for remaining 3 adults who can sit wherever if you don’t want to pay for seats. Don’t make it hard.

That’s not true. On the app go to manage my booking, add bags, and you can select the preference for each passenger.

Why do people make this shit up?

How is making 2 bookings easier? 🤣

You don’t have to select seats for all the adults if you simply book direct with Ryanair. It’s the booking through crappy OTB that’s the problem here.

I flew with them 2 weeks ago, 4 on the booking and only 2 wanted to prebook seats and I was able to do that via the app

Sorry, missed that you weren’t booking directly

On The Beach are an authorised reseller of Ryanair (unlike some holiday companies which "scrape" the Ryanair site), so they "ought" to include everything exactly the way that Ryanair does it. But I can imagine that when they were programming their booking process, they didn't include quite as much flexibility as the Ryanair app/site (which is actually pretty good).

But as you say, this is OTB's problem. Maybe they have a support number. However, any mention of Ryanair always brings out the visceral reactions in any social media context (I see we even have a classic "went with them once, never again" on the thread).

You absolutely can I do it frequently

Book separately