Avoid Ryanair automatic currency exchange and pay in your local currency – Now on a brand new Ryanair website!

If you ever bought a plane ticket through Ryanair website you are already aware that the quoted price will be in a currency of the Departure country. In some occasions it is cheaper to buy two separate tickets: one way to your destination and then a return ticket later. It is also handy if you have not yet decided how long your visit is going to be. The problem you face is that the return ticket will be quoted in a currency of the country you will be staying in and not your preferred home currency.

Ryanair will convert your quote into the currency of your card automatically during the payment stage without you knowing, however the conversion rate they use is just terrible and you will have no idea how much they actually charged you until you have already paid and now you WILL be able to see how much you will pay, but that number will not make you happy! Same situation if you are staying in the UK and buying ticket from your UK card for your friends who will be flying form a different country with different local currency.

UPDATE 16/11/2013 Ryanair launched a brand new website! Here is the updated trick to save your money!

First of all, make sure you unselect the travel insurance when booking your ticket (unless you need it!)

Now, once you are in the payment section, as soon as you select your billing country and type in a valid card number, the balance will automatically be converted to your local currency using Ryanair’s own rates. Click on the “more info” to launch a pop-up window. Now make sure to UNCHECK that little checkbox at the bottom:

And you are done! You have just saved 3-6% off your tickets price ;)

How much do you actually save?

Let’s look at the example above. I have booked a cheap one-way ticket from Germany to London using my UK card. The ticket price came at €58.13 and was converted automatically to £51.88 by using a magic Ryanair’s conversion which, by the way, they strongly suggest to use (of course they do).

By unchecking that box, our bank will do the conversion and the rate will depend on the card type (Visa / MasterCard currency rate on the transaction date). If, for example, you have a Visa Debit or Credit card with no foreign transaction fee, you will be charged £48.77:

Saving of £3.11, or 6%!

If you are not that lucky to have a card with 0% foreign transaction fee, you will be most probably charged 2.95% for this transaction. But event with this fee, you would be charged a total of £50.20:

Saving of £1.68, or 3.2%!

Is there any other way to avoid currency conversion?

Here is the second way which used to work on the old Ryanair website, but we have not yet tested it it DOES NOT work on the new platform anymore, so we just suggest you use the steps above ;)

To avoid automatic Ryanair currency conversion and pay in the currency you prefer you can follow this little trick:

• Go to Ryanair website as normal and find the flight you wish to buy. For example: Dublin – London Stansted, but DO NOT click “Book Now” yet! The quoted price would be in Euros as departure airport is in the Republic of Ireland, where local currency is Euro. I am buying this ticket from my UK card and would like to pay in Pounds Sterling instead, without any terrible conversion rates.
• Open a new tab in browser, but DO NOT close the existing one! Now find ANY flight from the country which uses the currency you would like to use as a payment. For example: I wish to pay in pounds, therefore I select a flight London – Dublin. Date, time and destination does not matter. Now click “Book Now” (you are still in the new tab!)
• Come back to your first tab and click “Book Now”. Look at the top right and you will see that your currency has changed! No conversion fees, nothing. You will know how exactly much you will be charged straight away.

Have trouble finding official card exchange rates?

Here are the links:

MasterCard | Visa