Ryanair Launches New 'Prime' Subscriber Discount Scheme

[Carl]

https://corporate.ryanair.com/news/ryan ... -per-year/

[Lincoln45]

Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (Mon, 24 Mar) launched its “Prime” service – a new subscriber discount scheme which allows members who fly 12 times per year to save up to 5 times the £79 “Prime” subscription cost. Costing just £79 for a 12-month subscription, member benefits include free reserved seats, free travel insurance and access to 12 annual (1 each month) member-exclusive seat sales, ensuring that “Prime” members bag the best flight bargains all year-round. “Prime” members who fly 12 times per year will save up to £420 (more than 5 times the £79 “Prime” subscription fee). Even members who only fly 3 times per year will save £105 – that’s more than the £79 cost of becoming a “Prime’ member.

Reading between lines, I suspect that you will only get 12 free seat reservations per year, as it would appear that this is limited to 12 flights per annual membership. And which seats would they be, next to the toilet maybe!

[Carl]

Ryanair, Europe’s No.1 airline, today (Mon, 24 Mar) launched its “Prime” service – a new subscriber discount scheme which allows members who fly 12 times per year to save up to 5 times the £79 “Prime” subscription cost. Costing just £79 for a 12-month subscription, member benefits include free reserved seats, free travel insurance and access to 12 annual (1 each month) member-exclusive seat sales, ensuring that “Prime” members bag the best flight bargains all year-round. “Prime” members who fly 12 times per year will save up to £420 (more than 5 times the £79 “Prime” subscription fee). Even members who only fly 3 times per year will save £105 – that’s more than the £79 cost of becoming a “Prime’ member.

Reading between lines, I suspect that you will only get 12 free seat reservations per year, as it would appear that this is limited to 12 flights per annual membership. And which seats would they be, next to the toilet maybe!

Just on the free seats, it would appear that these 'free seat reservations' may also not be available on all flights.

Members may make up to 12 free seat reservations in designated rows on specific flights at no additional cost, subject to availability.

The Mirror newspaper did some analysis, and this was their findings:

Ryanair has said frequent flyers could save up to £420 a year. However, it seems that a large part of that cost comes through insurance and reserved seats, which are included in the Prime membership. Insurance and reserving a seat costs £288 for 12 flights, which suggests the discount benefit from the actual airfares is £132.

There is a very important point to note on the insurance. "Passengers in the European Union aged 70 or over (including those who turn 70 years old during the contract period) will not be eligible for specific medical protections under the Prime travel insurance coverage."

Given the Mirrors findings that a large part of the yearly saving comes from the inclusion of insurance, if those over 70 are not eligible for the full medical protection that Ryanair are providing, then not only will not benefit from the saving in Ryanair providing the insurance, they will still have to take out their own policy at their cost.