Ryanair doesn’t have sneaky feees. It’s entirely possible to book a flight with them for the price advertised and first quoted when you search. They do prompt you to pay for heaps of extras but there are none that are unavoidable.

The real offenders are ticketing companies that charge mandatory service fees or convenience fees without providing a way to purchase the item at the advertised cost.

Yes it's all the mandatory fees that you must pay to then make a purchase that I think are being banned.

The mandatory booking fee, the mandatory service fee, mandatory transaction fee, mandatory technology fee etc just so you can checkout. Optional upsells are something else.

it's been a while, but doesn't ryanair force you to pick seats (and pay for the privilege) when traveling with small kids, even tho _they_ are required to seat you together?

While mostly agree, they do have some questionable practices. Like pretty much guaranteeing a middle seat if you don't reserve one, except if you purchase "avoid middle seat" from the popup right before checkout. Or deliberately breaking up random seat allocation for group booking, even if the seats are for an adult and a small child.

They do offer free reserved seating options though for certain group bookings, so I'm not complaining much. I could even arrange things through customer service chat with them.

I think they had some pilot project on a concept level for planes with standing passangers. Maybe it was joke though I don't remember.

Edit: Nope, real idea pitched by CEO in 2012.

Car rental companies are the worst because they actually act like the mafia. "It would be a nightmare if something happened to the vehicle...we are forced to charge £1500 for each and every separate piece of damage". Actual quote from an employee of Enterprise while trying to upsell me extra insurance

This is a ridiculous way to view things.

Of course, it is their job to try to upsell you insurance.

In the US though, the insurance is completely reasonable if you want to have no risk. Drop the car off with no risk of a ding or scratch for a few bucks.

Framing it like the mafia loan sharking is completely absurd.

Sure but I don't think he even implied the rental company would smash it?

They implied they would screw me up to the maximum amount possible, beyond any cost of the actual repair

Car rental companies, not this one to be fair, are well known for finding hidden and unrecorded damage when you return too

But the company isn't called "Mafia" so I guess my comparison doesn't hold any water right?

Ye I was mainly pointing out that the mafia also cause the damage when you don't pay the "fee" in the classical use of the saying.