Luggage Mule hits out at Ryanair charges
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Luggage Mule has hit out at Ryanair’s baggage charges after a poll found almost half of OTA customers would have used its own services if available earlier.
A poll of Ryanair customers that booked through online travel agents (OTAs) showed 46% would have opted to pay the GBP74.99 fee to use Luggage Mule’s service, which takes bags from their home to the hotel and back.
Ryanair had previously dismissed the launch of Luggage Mule in August as 80% of its customers do not check in bags, although the new poll suggests a market for the estimated one million Ryanair seats sold through travel agents each year.
“Ryanair continue to be anti-travel trade, but have failed miserably with their previous attempts to block travel agents booking via the use of reCAPTCHA codes etc,” said Luggage Mule’s managing director Jordan Makin.
“The only logical reason I can see for this stance is that travel agents provide much better value when it comes to holiday extras. Although Ryanair do offer great value flights, in my opinion they try to make ridiculous profits from over pricing holiday extras,” he added.
Makin calculated a family of four could spend an extra GBP1, 200 by taking luggage, car hire and insurance through a Ryanair booking.
In addition the carrier’s move to allow passengers to carry more bags has been criticised as it means luggage has to be lighter.
The firm’s co-founder Steve Endacott added: “Whether Ryanair like it or not, travel agents will continue to sell their flights. The Luggage Mule service now means travel agents can sell Ryanair flights, plus a reasonable amount of luggage allowance, far cheaper per family of 4, than customers can buy them directly from Ryanair and avoid those nasty excess baggage fees, bag drops and foreign baggage carousels.”
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